Chapter 46
Tell me when you hear my heart tremble. You're the only one who can hear it.
My head against a bare chest. Nimble fingers tangled in my hair. Silk sheets wrapped around us, cocooning us in a magical world all of our own making. Tell me when you hear my silence. The words I never speak. The patter of my heart, slow and steady, then racing, incited by the gentle brush of skin against mine.
These were the memories now filling my mind.
It beats for you. Only for you.
A soft wind blew my hair into my face, but I didn't brush it away, not wanting to disrupt the moment. The warm rumble of Knight's humming voice next to me, stirring a contentment inside me that felt almost too good to be real.
We sat atop a hill, staring at soft speckles of purple flowers that dotted an endless Italian countryside.
It was a quiet place, long forgotten by the tourists, who instead sought refuge in the busier beachside hotels.
While we would never not have something to talk about, sometimes, silence filled the gaps more than words.
My fingers traced the edges of my collarbone--Manuel's scorpion tattoo, now only scarred skin, a remnant of my tortured past--down to the clasp of the necklace around my neck-- a black rock , I think I'd called it.
It was a literal star, found in the waters off the Gulf of Mexico near Havana, and had taken months for Knight's hired geologists to find it.
Just for me.
In honor of the night he professed he’d fallen in love with me.
His stardust.
And now, there was something about the silence between us that spoke of an intimacy, deeper than the lust and childishness of our youth.
It had been a long journey.
Years of pain and suffering.
Of healing, of releasing all the anger, sadness, and betrayal of my past. Of embracing all sides of myself – both the good things, as well as my faults.
Of knowing I was worth more than I believed.
Of looking in the mirror and loving the person staring back at me.
And, three years since Knight had found me in that Costa Rican cove and claimed me as his.
Three years of him chasing me across lonely and desolate landscapes.
Always finding me.
Staying true to his word.
Never forcing me to stay.
But every time I left, he chased .
Time that now consisted of tangled sheets, full laughter, and the endless murmuring of conversation into the deep, fathomless nights.
Of becoming more than our past.
No longer the prince and seductress, but rather, anonymous visitors, traveling from country to country, in an endless chase and test of loyalty and trust.
The blue sky brightened, oranges and pinks blazing, slowly turning into deep blues and purples. And then, the stars began to glimmer overhead.
It made me think of the falling star tattoo now coloring the skin of his shoulder. I leaned my head on it, my knees curled up to my chest and he leaned down, kissing my forehead.
A rush of sentimentality swelled in my chest and tears pooled in my eyes.
He'd left his family for me.
I'd seen the proof with my own eyes, the text messages between him and Dante and Coulter, updating him of their lives, with pictures of Rose's kids (she had two now), as well as Aster's own adopted ones.
They'd been unable to have their own, but were making do with what they had, loving the little girl they'd adopted with all the love two parents could give her.
And yet, he'd left them, for me.
And now that all the lies and secrets were gone between us, the love left remaining was so strong and emotional, that sometimes I wanted to tear open my chest and show him how my heart beat for him. Let him wrap his fingers around it so that he would know how much I trusted him.
I was so deeply in love with this man, that I never, ever wanted us to part.
I glanced at him from out of the corner of my eye. He was still the handsome man I'd first met when I was a kid, except now he had newly formed wrinkles around his eyes that spoke of bright laughter--a sound that I hoped I would never, ever forget.
And yet, there was one last secret, one last breath that I was holding on to.
It was time to let it go.
"Knight?"
"Mmm?" He stirred as if he'd been lost in thought, a pinky finger rising to trickle over the skin of my knee. He'd been staring at the slow motion of the windmill off in the distance, turning like sand in an hourglass.
"I have a question, and I need you to answer it honestly."
"Okay."
"If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?"
He peeked at me, a soft half-smile to his lips. "You don't know?"
I bit down on my own smile, feigning innocence. "No." I needed to hear it from him.
A gain .
Always .
"It doesn't matter where on this earth I am. All I need is you, by my side."
"Are you sure?"
He grinned, wrapping an arm around me to tug me in closer as a slight chill began to fill the air. "We could be in the middle of the sandstone desert with no water or food and I would die a happy man, as long as I was with you."
I bit down on my lip as a warmth washed over me. "What if there was another party to our lives?"
He shifted, "What do you mean?"
"I mean," I took in a deep breath, knowing that the next words out of my mouth would change us forever, "that it's time to go home."
He turned towards me, adjusting us so that our legs were flushed against each other, our breaths mingling, we were so close. "I am home." He pressed a soft kiss to my nose.
"I know," I cupped his firm jawline, and leaned into it, kissing it briefly, "but we can't live like this forever."
"Why not?"
"Because, we have to worry about someone else, now."
I let a meaningful silence fill the air and it took him a moment before his eyes widened and he glanced downwards, at my belly, "You mean that..."
"Yes, Knight, I do mean that..."
A smile lit up his face and he grabbed me, pulling me to straddle him as he stared into my eyes, happiness pouring from his. "We're going to have a baby?"
"Yes, Knight, I'm pregnant. And it's going to need a home. A family." I wrapped my arms around his neck, staring into the happy creek-brown eyes that I loved. "And there's only one place I can think of where it would grow up loved and cherished by people other than us."
"Are you saying...?"
"Yes, Knight. It's time to go back home to Vegas,” I pulled a final ribbon from my pocket. One I'd been holding on to since I found out I was pregnant. The last one I would ever give him, because he would hold on to it forever. I tied it around his wrist. " To our family. "
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