Epilogue
MOLLY
I'm at home. In New York now.
I just walked through the door with Enzo. He picked me up from the airport. It's Friday night and I'm back for the weekend.
My life is so surreal these days. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure this is not a dream.
I'm in Chicago during the week, back at Oakleigh with my children and Miss T. And I go to New York whenever Enzo and I can make it work. Which we do, because we said we would.
“Coffee?” Enzo asks.
“Yes, please.”
I drop my bag and wander into the living room. I've been here enough times now that the apartment doesn't seem as intimidating as it did the first time. There are little pieces of me creeping into Enzo's immaculate world.
A bright yellow mug in his kitchen. A cardigan I left draped over the back of one of his chairs last week. He hasn't moved it. There are two books on his coffee table that definitely don't belong to him.
I stop when I see something new on the bookshelf.
A photograph.
I walk towards it. Then my heart stops. “Oh my days.”
It's us. In Central Park near the Alice in Wonderland statue.
I pick up the frame. The photograph is slightly grainy, the colors not quite right. Nothing like the perfect photographs taken on phones these days. And I remember it immediately. The tourist. The disposable camera.
That day.
I'm laughing in the photograph, my mouth open, one hand lifted as if I'm in the middle of telling Enzo something terribly important.
I'm not even looking at the camera.
But neither is Enzo.
He's looking at me.
I bring the photograph closer. I hadn't seen it then. How could I? But I see it so clearly now.
The expression on his face. Soft, almost amused. But there's something else. Something that makes my heart do a triple somersault inside my chest.
Enzo comes and stands behind me.
“You developed the camera?”
“I did.”
“And you framed this photo?”
His gaze moves over it. “Yes.”
I look around his beautiful apartment, at the expensive furniture and artwork, then back at the slightly blurry photograph sitting in pride of place on his bookshelf.
“This one?”
I'm sure the tourist must have taken a few, given the amount of time I was busy telling Enzo to smile and to stand closer to me.
He puts his arms around me from behind. “I like this one.”
“But I'm not even looking at the camera.”
“I know.”
I turn and look up at him. “Neither are you.”
“I know.”
“You're looking at me.”
“Yes.”
He drops a kiss on my ear.
I stare at the photograph again, before turning around to face him. He watches me now exactly the way he's watching me in the photograph.
“When did you know?”
His expression changes. “I don't know exactly.”
“That's not very Enzo-esque of you.”
“No.” His mouth twitches. “It isn't.”
I wait. He lowers his head and presses a kiss against my lips. It doers what his kisses always do. It ignites all the cells in my body. Has the same effect on me that he always does.
“I knew I wanted to see you again,” he murmurs.
My heart squeezes. “In Venice?”
“Yes.”
“That early?”
“You were difficult to forget.”
I grin. “Because I'm fabulous?”
“Because you never stopped talking.”
I smack his arm. He catches my hand before I can pull it away and brings it to his mouth.
I set the photograph gently back in its place. “I'm keeping this.”
“You can.”
I turn back to him. “Good.”
“There's something else.”
“What?”
He moves away to the coffee table and picks up a small package, then hands it to me.
“You bought me something?”
“Open it.”
“Enzo—”
“Molly.”
I know that tone. I take the package and peel away the paper. Tears mist in my eyes. It's a book. Not just any book. It's the book of poems I was looking at in the bookshop. I run my fingers over the cover. “No.”
“Yes.”
I look at him.
“Emily Dickinson,” I whisper, stroking the cover gently likes it precious.
“I know.”
I’d picked it up, looked at the price and put it back again. But this man doesn't miss a thing. I open the cover carefully, hardly daring to touch the pages.
“You shouldn't have bought this. It was expensive.”
“Doesn't matter.”
I look up at him as a tear rolls down my cheek. “Enzo.”
“Molly.”
He wipes away my tear with his thumb.
I close the book. “You're impossible.”
“So I've been told.”
I place the book beside the photograph.
He slides an arm around my waist and pulls me against him.
“I love you.” I press a kiss against his lips.
My phone buzzes inside my bag.
I ignore it.
“Could be Miss T,” he says.
“She knows not to call me on weekends unless Oakleigh is on fire.”
“Kiki?”
“Definitely ignoring it.”
He smiles.
“It could be Cari. She's sent me another three wedding messages today.”
Jett and Cari's wedding is getting closer. They decided on summer.
This summer.
An August wedding, in Bermuda. It's only a few months away. Somehow I've been absorbed into discussions about flowers, dresses and seating plans, with the rest of the women, as if I've always belonged there.
By autumn there'll be another Knight in the family too.
Everything is changing.
Growing.
The thought makes me ridiculously happy.
Enzo kisses the top of my head. “You're very quiet.”
“I'm thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
I poke him in the ribs. He catches my hand again. I look around the apartment.
My yellow mug.
My cardigan.
My books.
And now, on Enzo's immaculate bookshelf, a cheap, grainy photograph of two people who had no idea where they were heading.
I wrap my arms around his neck. “I love you, Enzo Knight.”
I'll never get tired of telling him.
His hands settle around my waist.
“I love you too, Molly Dean.”
Then he kisses me.
Thank you for reading Enzo and Molly’s story!