Epilogue #2
“I don’t want fucking tea,” I hissed, emotion swelling in my chest. I had felt Christian tense beside me. “I want to see my mom. Let her see me.”
Jeremiah’s face melted into something so gentle, so harmless, that it almost took my breath away.
He tutted. “My doubting Thomas, you think I’d prevent her from coming out here to see you?
Surely you’re living proof that messengers come and go as they please here.
” He cut a glance at Christian, conspiratorial, mouth quirked in amusement.
He looked back at me. “I can’t force anyone to do anything they don’t wish to do; you’re proof of that. ”
I swallowed. She didn’t want to see me. I knew he could lie and lie well, but the pain in my chest told me he wasn’t lying about this. I wouldn’t cry here, not in front of him. Never again.
“What sort of place do you run here, Mr Simmons?” Christian asked.
I glanced behind Jeremiah, wondering if I could make a run for it.
Through the house to the kitchen and out into the complex proper.
She’d be in the schoolroom at this time, or maybe the lunch hall.
She’d have to see me then, have to say something.
“A place of God, Mr Darling. A place of worship.”
“But not of acceptance,” Christian replied. “Or of love.”
Jeremiah inclined his head. “We accept those who accept the word of the Lord, sir. And the Lord loves those who accept his love.” Here, he looked at me. “And even those who don’t. The Lord loves even those who turn their back on him and choose a path of sin.”
“Tell my mother I’m getting married,” I announce angrily as I take Christian’s hand in mine. “Tell her I’m loved, and I’m safe, and I’m happy. Tell her I love her, even if she… she can’t love me back.” I turn my back on him for the last time. I’ll never come here again. It was done.
“Thomas,” Jeremiah called out when we were almost at the door. I stopped, but I didn’t turn around. “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
“You’re not my Lord or my God, Jeremiah,” I said, and left.
I shake the memory from my head, swallowing. “I’m not scared… not of your parents… I just…” I look down into my coffee cup.
“Nothing will ever change how I feel about you, Asher,” Christian says. “Not my parents, or your parents, or anything else. I love you, and I happen to think my parents will love you, too.”
I squeeze his hand. “I love you, too.”
??
“Oh my god,” Amata says when I turn around.
“That is… fucking hell, Aksel, you are good.” Her eyes are wide, her mouth morphed into the biggest smile.
Then it drops. “Wait, Christian is literally going to have another heart attack when he sees you in that. Should we… fuck, I don’t know if maybe you should wear something else. ”
Aksel is fussing with the hem of the jacket, pinning something, I think. Then he goes to his knees and does the same with the hem of the pants. “What shoes were you wearing at the last fitting? Have you gotten taller?”
“I was barefoot. You told me I needed to be.”
“Hmm,” he grumps.
“Ash, babe, it’s fucking magical.” Amata gets up from the bed and comes toward me. “Even I want to fuck you in this.”
“Well, that’s what I was going for.” I look down at Aksel. “Can I look yet?”
“Un instant,” he says. I’m itching to see it.
I hadn’t seen it since I’d picked out the lace, before that it had been in some cheap working fabric Aksel had used to get the style and cut how I wanted it, then he’d remade it in silk and lace.
Six months ago, I’d done the briefest of sketches and sent it to him by text, asking if he could make it for me for my wedding, and he’d agreed.
After Parsons, he’d gone to work at Maje; now he worked a fourteen-hour, six-day week for one of the busiest fashion houses in France and had somehow still found the time to make this for me.
“Tourne-toi.” I turn, and he stands, pin between his lips as he draws a very keen eye over every inch of me. One nod and he flicks his hand toward the mirror. Sucking in a breath, I go towards the full-length in the corner of the suite. Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“How have you done this?” I gape. “Aksel, this is insane.”
“I will fix the hem tonight,” he says in French. “But it looks how you wanted, yes?”
“Better. It looks way better.” Am is right, Christian might actually have a heart attack when he sees me in this.
It’s a two-piece suit rendered in pure white lace, bold but elegant, bridal as fuck, but make it gay.
The blazer is a touch oversized, which I wanted, but with a silk lapel and deep-V neckline—I plan to wear nothing underneath.
Do I give a shit that we are having an outdoor wedding in Scotland?
No, I do not. The Solstiss lace has a delicate floral pattern and a subtle transparency on the sleeves that shows the skin.
The matching pants are not transparent, but slim-fitting and tailored, and flow seamlessly from the jacket.
I plan to wear a long, thin necklace bearing the letter ‘C’, which will drape low in the V.
“I fucking love it. My god, thank you so much.” I realise I’m fucking crying when Amata thrusts a tissue at me.
“It was my pleasure.” Aksel smiles, coming to rest a hand on my shoulder. “You look beautiful, friend. He is a lucky man.”
“Damn right,” Amata concurs. “He better worship the ground you walk on for the rest of his damn life, baby. Actually, he already does… never mind, stand down, team.” She gives me a loving smile, tears shining in her eyes.
Careful not to disturb Aksel’s pins, I remove the jacket and slip out of the pants, handing them to him to scurry off and sew the thing by hand, it looks like.
Amata and I, and Aksel, are staying in a hotel tonight while Christian and his parents, Gael, Felix, and Nico, finish setting up the house.
There isn’t much to do—it’s an extremely small wedding—and I’d made a lot of the bits and pieces myself already, like the bouquet for myself and Am, Christian, Felix, and Leo’s buttonholes.
Though Leo hadn’t arrived last night when he was due to, and it looked unlikely he was going to show after all.
Christian is devastated, but trying not to show it.
His parents had turned up and been as lovely as he promised me they’d be; his mom had hugged me tightly and called me extremely pretty and told me she’d always wanted a second son and that I should call her Mum.
I’d burst into tears, and she’d had to hug me again.
I would die for her, truly. His dad was a little more reserved but had kind eyes and a soft manner that reminded me a lot of Christian.
I don’t know what to do with all of the happiness bursting through my skin. I’m not sure I deserve this amount of unconditional love, but I’ll sure as shit take it.
The following morning, we get up early and have a soak in the hotel hot tub and spa before heading back to the suite to dry off. “You nervous?” Amata asks as she refills our champagne glasses. We’d already had a mimosa with breakfast, and I’m wondering if I should get married every damn day.
“Not at all. Is that weird?”
“I don’t think so. When you know, you know, right? He makes you happy, treats you like a princess, and in approximately”—she looks at her watch—“three hours, you’ll be his in holy matrimony until death do you part. All your dreams are coming true, baby, and you deserve it.”
I lean in to snuggle against her. “I don’t know if I deserve it, Am, but yeah, they are.”
“Hey.” She glares. “I don’t know a single person who deserves it more, so you say that again and you will catch these hands.”
“Okay,” I concede. “I really wish Theo had been able to make it.”
“Yeah, same.” He’d called us last night from Hawaii, drunk on the beach with a bunch of friends.
He’d gone out to work there with his brother in a scuba diving school, and since it was high season for tourists, he couldn’t get away to come.
“But we’ll send him lots of pics, and I said I’d call him during the vows. ”
“Ha ha, you did? God, the vows. Should I read over them again?”
“No, because they’re perfect.”
“Okay. They’re perfect.”
We lapse into comfortable, dreamy silence for a few moments on the huge bed. “Am?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you’re here. That you’ll be walking with me down the aisle, I hope you know how much I love you. You’re like family to me, and I don’t have a lot of that left.”
“I do know, sweetie, and I love you, too. And I feel the same, which is why I hope you’ll walk me down the aisle when I do this.”
I don’t get it right away, but then I sense something in the air, and I spring up, eyes wide. “He asked you?!”
She nods, biting back an enormous smile. “Yeah.”
“Oh my god, I’m so fucking happy for you. Oh my god.” I throw my arms all the way around her, champagne sloshing everywhere. “When? When did he ask?”
“Um, the night before we left, we were at dinner, and he just… did it.”
“Why didn’t you call me?!”
“Because I wanted to tell you in person, and then on the flight over, I wondered if I even should. I worried that it might be like stealing your thunder, but I didn’t wanna keep it in anymore.” She looks so fucking happy, so beautiful, and so happy, and it only makes me even happier.
“God, I fucking love this for us, Am.”
“Me too, baby, me too. ‘We deserve a soft fucking epilogue, my love…’” she quotes.
Later, with twilight rising over Loch Earn, the Scottish sky a riot of pinks and blues and purples, Christian waits on the end of the small wooden pier, and our families and friends sit patiently on the bank.
He looks staggeringly handsome in a dark blue tweed suit, purple heather affixed to his buttonhole, dark hair styled elegantly, and his beard cropped close to his jaw.
The moment he turns and sees me, his dark eyes begin to glitter, and he shakes his head with what looks like disbelief, mouthing what I think is: “wow”.
His eyes shine with pure love, and I know my own are the same.
It’s not a long walk to him, past a few rows of loving, friendly faces.
I see that Leo has made it to watch his father remarry, and it settles some sadness inside me; he even offers me a smile as I pass.
Felix, too. Christian’s parents look tearful but happy, but it’s when I look at Amata that I almost lose it.
She’s clinging to Gael as she sobs quietly.
I almost want to go and comfort her, but the instant my eyes meet Christian’s, I know he’s my only destination.
I’ve never been this happy in my fucking life, and in a matter of minutes, I get to marry Christian.
I get to live the rest of my life with him by my side; I get to call him my husband. And he gets to call me his.
His Asher.
His Darling.
The end