Epilogue
Valentina
Matteo likes to point out that I never do as he asks, but he’s just as bad as I am.
He was discharged from the hospital a few days ago, and only because he argued with Cassie so much that she agreed under very stringent orders that he ‘take it easy’ and ‘not attempt any strenuous activity’. He agreed and promptly ignored both orders the moment we got home.
I was naked beneath him within minutes of crossing the threshold, his eager hands roving over my body as his mouth pressed urgent kisses down my neck to my breasts. I’ll admit, I didn’t put up too much of a fight, deliriously excited as I was to feel his weight come down over me once more.
And now he’s driving us across the city on some kind of covert adventure he refuses to tell me anything about.
“Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?” I pout.
Matteo smiles fondly at me. He squeezes my thigh before resting his hand right above my knee.
“It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t need more presents Matteo, nothing except for you to listen to Cassie’s orders and actually rest .” My palm comes down to cover his hand. “The sooner you’re better, the sooner we can get back to searching for Adriana.” Sweetening the deal, I add, “The sooner we can start planning the wedding.”
While Matteo was convalescing, I had no choice but to put the search for Adri on hold. Staying by his side took all of my time and energy as I spent the majority of my days praying to a higher power for his recovery.
Matteo groans throatily and readjusts behind the wheel. “Any mention of you walking down the aisle to me makes me instantly hard.”
I giggle and he blows out a frustrated breath.
Before I know it, he’s pulling into an open parking spot on a quiet street in Fulham. I look through the passenger window and up at the row of houses. They’re picturesque and perfect, every flower bush adorning the windows trimmed to within a millimeter of its life. With just one look, I know this is an idyllic street on which to raise a family.
Matteo exits the car and comes around to my side. He has me well trained by now and I don’t try opening my door myself.
“Did you buy us a house?” I ask, as he takes my hand and pulls me out of the car. “Is that the surprise?”
Matteo laughs deeply, pulling me behind him to a house two doors down from where we parked. He rings the doorbell.
“This is one of my houses, but I didn’t buy it for us. I thought we’d do that together.”
I palm his cheek. “Good answer, my love.”
The door opens and a man in full combat gear waves us in. My heart rate immediately accelerates and my palms grow clammy. I recognize him. I don’t know his name, but he’s one of Matteo’s trusted guards. I look at my fiancé, getting progressively more worried by the minute.
Unlike me, Matteo is the embodiment of calm.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Matteo flicks a silent glance at his guard who tips an answering chin towards the back of the house, but says nothing else.
“Come on, Len,” Matteo says. Placing a hand at the small of my back, he ushers me down the hall.
The house is much larger than I originally thought, more of a mansion than anything else. Beautiful tiled floors lead us into an open concept kitchen with the latest appliances and finishes. Off to the left is a dining table that could comfortably seat twelve. To the right, a kitchen that would make world renowned chefs jealous. Ahead of us, glass double doors that lead out into what looks like a private garden, a luxury in central London.
It’s beautiful but I’m not sure what I’m doing here. The deeper we go into the house, the more heavily armed guards appear. Matteo’s continued silence only worries me further.
I turn to look at him when he brings us to a stop in the doorway. “Matteo, you’re scaring me,” I admit softly. “Is this a good or a bad surprise?”
His face splits into a warm smile. “It’s a good one, cara mia . Something you’ve wanted for a long time.”
“Then what’s with all of the cloak and dagger stuff? I feel like I’m about to be inducted into a secret cult or something.”
A low laugh rumbles in his chest before he points towards the glass doors. “The surprise is waiting for you in the backyard.”
I frown. “You’re not coming?”
Matteo shakes his head. “You don’t need me for this.”
Confusion pulls at my brow but Matteo encourages me forward with a tip of his chin and gentle pressure at my back.
“It’s not my place, cara . Go on without me.”
With one last unsure look at him, I head unhurriedly for the doors and pull them open.
They give way into an expansive backyard full of blooming flowers and overlapping colors. It’s like stepping into another world—the air hums with life, the flowers dance in the soft breeze, the colors explode around me.
Not too far away from me, there’s a woman. She’s crouched and turned away, up to her elbows in dirt as she rips roots out of the ground.
She stands, her back still to me, and her hair cascades out of the crook of her neck and down her back in rich, luscious curls.
I freeze, a momentarily unmoving statue as time keeps ticking around me.
My eyes lock on those curls, my breathing caught somewhere between panic and disbelief as I try to make sense of the impossible sight before me.
She turns and it’s as if I’ve been hit in the chest with a hammer. The air turns to stone in my lungs. A wave of emotion hits me. I want to speak, to scream her name at the top of my lungs, but nothing comes.
Lightheadedness slams into me and I cling to the door frame for support as I lay eyes on a face I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again.
I take a step forward, then another, stumbling, unsteady on my feet, my legs weak. My whole body seems to move without me, teetering precariously, intoxicated by longing.
It can’t be.
I don’t dare hope that it is.
“Adri?”
Her name leaves my lips as a barely audible incredulous whisper, as if speaking any louder will wake me from this dream. My heart feels like a fragile origami bird, equally poised for liftoff and ready to be crushed by the cruel fist of reality.
But she’s still there and she’s looking at me with tears in her eyes, as alive as I remember her being.
“Leni?”
Two syllables shatter years of heartbreak and breathe new life into me.
A sob breaks past my lips, or maybe it's hers, and then we’re running towards each other and colliding in a shock of limbs and cries of joy.
Our arms are flung around each other, our hands and fingers desperately gripping for soft flesh like letting go might mean losing each other again. We hold on so tightly that it’s painful, but it’s the best kind of pain. My face is buried in her hair and I’m sucking in the familiar scent of her. Earthy and warm and addictive.
Finally, I pull back to make sure that it really is her, that this isn’t the cruelest type of trick. I find the Adri I know like I know every corner of my soul, except there’s a heaviness in her gaze that wasn’t there before.
Later. I’ll think about that later, because she’s real.
She’s really in my arms.
“You’re alive,” I exclaim. “You’re alive .”
She chokes on a sob and nods and we’re both crying.
We hold each other in the middle of that garden until the sun goes down and the fireflies come out. For the first time in almost two years, I don’t see her in the sunset. I see her before me, against me, in my arms.
We hold each other as I banish the grief from my chest and place Adri back where she belongs, right in the middle of my heart. We hold each other as that final piece of me heals. We hold each other and we start to make up for lost time.
The tears flow continuously, joy and sadness and surprise combining into one emotion that pours overwhelmingly out of us. My hands are frantic as I explore every part of her, making sure she’s whole, making sure she’s safe, making sure she’s here .
Adri’s fingers thread through my hair as she cries.
“It’s so long ,” she exclaims, a tear falling down her cheek.
“I never cut it,” I say, gripping her arms, needing her to understand what I can’t put into words. “I kept my promise.”
Her face screws up, her laugh turning into a hiccuping cry.
“I looked for you,” I tell her. “Everywhere. I looked everywhere , I tried everything to bring you home. I never stopped. I kept hoping, even when I thought—” I don’t vocalize the nightmares that were my reality for the past two years. Her eyes which were once so full of light and life are dark and cracked, silently speaking to the horrors she must have survived in that same time. “I never gave up.”
Adri cups my cheek, her hand shaking like she can’t quite believe I’m here either. “I know,” she whispers, smiling. She nods at something in the distance over my shoulder. “He told me everything you did for me, Leni.”
I turn to find Matteo framed in the doorway, leaning against one of the doors. His hands are buried in his trousers and his devastating stare is fixed on me.
Everything about his posture tells me he hasn’t moved in hours. That he’s stood there since he brought me to this house, watching protectively over our reunion without interrupting or inserting himself.
Emotion chokes the air out of my lungs. The weight of my gratitude presses down on my chest, like there’s too much of it and it’s overflowing out of the space.
He found Adriana for me.
He said he would, and he did.
My eyes burn. Emotion overwhelms me.
I keep opening my mouth to say something, but I can’t find what to say. The enormity of what he’s done for me is too vast to be expressed using words. I’m going to spend the rest of our lives thanking him for this.
“Thank you,” I mouth at him, hoping he knows how wholly underwhelming I find those simple words to be. Tears streak down my face carrying the weight of everything else I can’t say in this moment.
As always, it’s enough for Matteo. His lips melt into a contented smile and my heart skips a beat. His eyes hold that same quiet, unwavering love that always makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world who matters to him. They soften, giving me a tender look he reserves just for me as his palm comes up to rest over his heart.
Gripping his chest, his fingers digging dramatically into his suit as if to reach in and grab his heart, he mouths something back at me. I only just make it out through the wall of tears blurring my vision.
“Time to plan the wedding, cara mia .”
My face splits into a wide smile as tears blur my vision once more. Adri squeezes my left hand, pulling my attention back to her. She plays with the ring on my fourth finger.
“Is he your husband?”
I shake my head. “My fiancé.” I cover her hand with mine. “He wouldn’t marry me until we found you. He didn’t want me standing at the altar without my sister.”
A hiccuping sob catches in her throat as her gaze moves past me and to Matteo. “Then he might actually deserve you, little sister.” Her eyes soften as he nods at her. “The way he talks about you, Leni...You found a good one.”
Clinging to my sister, I look back at my fiancé and smile. I have everything I’ve ever wanted and more. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.
"I found the best one."
A crack of thunder erupts overhead. In some sort of cosmic twist of fate, it starts to rain.
Adri and I glance at each other. Incredulous, almost delirious laughter bubbles up our throats and bursts past our lips.
Of course it would rain.
Our heads tilt back and we open our faces up to the sky as the first drops hit our cheeks. My eyes flutter closed, my arms come up and my palms flip over in search of the rain. It dances resoundingly along my bare skin, drenching my hair and sticking the clothes to my body.
There’s something wonderfully cleansing about it.
It washes away two years of heartache and pain, banishing bad memories and ushering in the promise of a new beginning.
A fitting end.
A fresh start.
And just like that, I don’t hate the rain anymore.