Epilogue #2
She raises her eyebrows. “Luke has a photograph of me in his apartment?” She sounds genuinely touched, and for the hundredth time, I marvel at the contradiction that is Luke: his enormous open heart and the small, intimate vulnerabilities he never shares.
“Oh, yes. In a frame by his bedside. There’s a picture of you with Luke on the beach. He’s in a wet suit, carrying Ollie on his shoulders.”
“I know the one.” Liana nods. “Tommo took it a few years ago, when we were all down at Luke’s beach shack.” Her mouth tweaks at one end. “I never knew he had that in a frame at home.”
“Well, he does.” I turn my margarita in my hands. “Problem was, the first time I went to his apartment, I didn’t know who you were. Luke wasn’t home. He gave me the access code and told me to wait inside.” I shoot Liana a sideways look. “I went and spied, I’m afraid.”
“Girl.” She clinks her glass to mine. “Of course you did.”
I laugh. Liana is incredibly easy to like. “I saw your photo, and I’m afraid I didn’t react very well.”
“Oh, dear.” She starts laughing with me. “I can imagine. Nothing like finding a photo of another woman and a child on your boyfriend’s nightstand.”
“He wasn’t actually my boyfriend back then, which made it even worse.
” I roll my eyes. “But the reason I brought it up was because when I looked at that photograph, all I could see was that Luke had a whole life that could never include me. Even after he told me that it was his sister in the photo, it still felt like a world that had no place for me in it.”
Liana sits up, her smile fading, and pushes her sunglasses back on her head, staring at me with the same wide turquoise eyes as her brother. “I hope you know that isn’t true,” she says quietly.
I nod. “I do. But when you said just now that you’re sure that wedding wasn’t what I wanted?” I lift a shoulder. “Nothing could be further from the truth, Liana. That wedding was like a fantasy to me. One I could never have imagined being part of. It was the most perfect day of my life so far.”
I look away from the tears that suddenly spring into her eyes, swallowing on the lump in my throat.
She covers my hand with her own and squeezes it tightly, and we both gulp extremely large mouthfuls of margarita.
When Liana speaks again, her voice is a little raspy.
“Around the time you and Luke met,” she says, “he called me to say he wouldn’t be coming home like he’d planned.
I’d set him up with a friend of mine, so I wasn’t too happy with him.
Sorry,” she says, with an apologetic look that I wave away.
“Anyway. I was trying to tell him that the right girl would see him for who he was, and Luke cut me off, far more brutally than he ever had before. He said it was time we both stopped pretending he was a good choice for any of my friends, because he didn’t think he could ever be a good choice for anyone.
He said he didn’t have a life that was set up for a wife and kids.
” She shakes her head, her expression pensive.
“It absolutely broke my heart,” she says quietly.
“I hung up that phone and almost booked a ticket to London the same day, I was so worried about him. I’d never heard him sound so . . . lonely before.”
My heart thuds painfully, and I’m not sure I could speak even if I wanted to.
“And then he met you.” Liana turns to me, the sun making her eyes glitter the same turquoise as the sea. “And suddenly, I could hear Luke again. For the first time in years he sounded alive and excited. And then the next thing I knew, he was bringing you back here to marry you.”
“That must have been a shock,” I say tentatively.
“It was.” Liana smiles at me. “Right up until I laid eyes on you,” she says quietly, squeezing my hand again, “and saw the way Luke looked at you. And then, learning about your business, about all you do . . .” She shakes her head wonderingly.
“It all just made sense. And seeing Luke now, how happy he is, how utterly fulfilled—it makes my heart break all over again, but in a good way.” She leans in and kisses my cheek.
“We have you to thank for that,” she whispers.
“And believe me when I say I’m forever grateful.
” Her mouth tightens slightly. “I’ve been terrified for years that we’d lose him to some pointless war or protecting some idiotic politician. ”
I bite my lip, looking away from her. “I don’t know exactly how much Luke has told you,” I say hesitantly. “But my life is every bit as dangerous as any war. More, maybe.”
“Oh, I know.” Liana gives a gurgle of laughter. “Luke spared us nothing. And seriously, I can’t wait to hear every sordid story. I mean it,” she says when I begin to demur. “I’m fascinated.
“Believe me,” she goes on, rather more soberly.
“Luke’s and my upbringing was far from fucking rainbows and unicorns.
But that’s exactly why you’re perfect for him,” she goes on before I can start to express sympathy.
“Luke always needed dragons to slay. It’s why he went into the army, and why he was so good at it.
Now he has dragons everywhere and a damsel to slay them for.
You gave him a reason to live,” she says, giving me a watery smile.
“And a family to fight for. You gave Luke a home. I will be forever grateful to you for that.”
A family?
I’m grateful for the sunglasses that hide my eyes. Not that they fool Liana. Watching me, her expression grows concerned. “Did I put my foot in it?” She says quietly. “Mentioning a family? Tommo is always telling me I should keep my thoughts to myself.”
I feel hot and cold all at once. “I’m not really sure that I’m cut out for a family,” I say quietly. “I don’t think I’m exactly mother material, if I’m honest.”
“You don’t, huh?”
I turn to find Liana looking at me with a slight smile on her face.
“No,” I say.
She looks at me for a long time, then lifts a shoulder, a knowing smile curling her mouth.
“We’ll see.” There’s a smug note in her voice I don’t miss, but I don’t feel like questioning it, either.
Children aren’t something Luke and I have discussed.
I’m not sure it’s something I’m ready to even think about.
And for now, I think, pushing it from my mind, you don’t have to, Zinaida. I’m learning to trust Luke. To trust us together.
When we want to talk about children, we will.
We sit for a long time in companionable silence, drinking our margaritas and listening to the sounds of laughter and banter from the other end of the boat.
“Are you going to have a big wedding party back in London?” Liana asks eventually.
“No.” I shake my head. “I can’t publicly change my name from Melikov to Macarthur, or it would make Luke’s contracts at the port rather complicated.
Our people know, and that’s enough. We’re not really wedding types.
But,” I say, smiling at her, “apparently Luke has some big surprise planned with our friends in Spain, so I’m looking forward to that. ”
“Ah, that.” Smiling smugly, she leans back on her cushions. “I might have heard a thing or two about that. I like your friend Darya, by the way.”
“Darya?” I stare at her in surprise. “How do you know Darya?”
“Ha. My lips are sealed.” Slipping her sunglasses over her nose, Liana mimics zipping her lips. “You’re not the only one with secrets, Zinaida Melikov Macarthur.”
“When do I get to take this damned blindfold off?”
Darya giggles. “Soon, I promise. It’s just a bit farther.”
“I better not fall,” I grumble. “These are Louboutins. They’re hard enough to walk in on a smooth surface, let alone whatever this is.”
I tentatively put one foot in front of another, trying and failing to work out where I am. I can smell jasmine and oranges and the distant scent of the sea, but beyond that, I have no idea at all.
Luke left London last night. Darya, who was clearly in on the plan, came to London to meet me, and we boarded a plane this morning.
She spent a good hour fussing over my dress and makeup, then blindfolded me somewhere midair.
I stayed that way through the landing, a chopper ride, and several muffled phone conversations that I’m apparently not allowed to hear.
“Okay, two more steps,” Darya says.
I hear a child giggle, and someone shush them.
Oh God, I think, my heart juddering uneasily. Is there a crowd?
Then, just as I’m beginning to deeply regret allowing whatever the hell this is to ever happen, a large hand slides around my waist, splaying reassuringly over my belly, and Luke’s deep voice rumbles against my ear. “Open your eyes, princess.”
He pulls the blindfold loose, and I gasp.
We’re standing on a wide terra-cotta terrace overlooking the sea, the sunlight so bright it hurts my eyes. Below the terrace a sandy track leads directly down to a golden beach, where perfect waves curl onto the shore.
Luke’s lips touch my cheek. “I wanted to surprise you,” he says, and despite his customary calm, I can hear the trace of uncertainty in his voice. “I thought, since the Madrid club is opening this week, you might want somewhere in Spain to call home.”
I turn in his arms, oblivious to the watching faces around us. Behind Luke is a large pool covered in floating flowers, and beyond that, a whitewashed cottage, with wooden shutters and jasmine crawling up the walls.
“This is yours?” I stare up at him, barely able to get the words out.
Luke’s mouth curves in the smile I love. “Ours,” he says quietly. “I hope you like it.” When I don’t answer, his smile fades slightly. “I’ve had the inside renovated,” he says, “but I’ve kept all the original features. You can change it, of course—”
Throwing my arms around his neck, I kiss him, on and on, until the crowd around us starts whooping and cheering.
“Way to go, McTasty,” calls Charlie from somewhere in the crowd, and they all erupt in laughter.
“McTasty?” I hear Tommo saying, laughing fit to burst. “Oh, I’m using that.”