Epilogue
APRIL
Six months later
I barely recognise the life I was leading before I set foot on Jamie’s island now.
So much has changed.
After we’d had some time to fully enjoy our recoupling, then work out the boundaries of our new relationship, Jamie formally agreed to sell his father’s software company to me so it could be integrated into DH Worldwide’s portfolio.
I gave him a good price for it too, in the interests of professional fairness, and he’s going to use the proceeds to develop his scholarship programmes, offering more opportunities to young athletes from underprivileged backgrounds.
So the future looks bright for both our businesses.
And I finally did what I should have done years ago and stood up to my father, telling him if he wanted me to continue to run the family business then he had to give me complete control – no provisos or tests – and not only over my professional decisions, but over my personal life too.
He’d agreed more readily than I’d expected, but then I think the woman he seems covertly to have fallen in love with – the woman who started out as his nurse and has apparently become his lover – has been a wonderful, calming influence on him.
He actually seems to be happy for the first time in years.
They’re both here today, holding hands and smiling – something I’ve very rarely seen my father do – and I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see it. They look so comfortable together, so right, it’s hard to believe they’ve only been in love for a short time.
He deserves to have this after what he went through with my mother.
It wasn’t easy, telling my sisters the truth about her.
Seeing the shock and pain pass across their faces when they realised she wasn’t the saint they’d thought she’d been was hard.
Maya reacted the most strongly, understandably.
I hadn’t realised quite how much her guilt about the incident had affected her life until I saw her un-Maya-like reaction.
Luckily her partner, Benedict, was there to talk her down from an attack of panicky hyperventilation and hold her afterwards, soothing away her tremulous tears.
Most surprisingly, once we’d sat down together and I’d fully explained my actions and decisions, she wasn’t angry with me.
In fact, she was the reverse. She said she was grateful to me for everything I’d done to keep our family together.
It’s going to take a while for her to get past all the angst she’s been carrying around for all these years, but she’s working on it.
Feeling emotionally close to her for the first time in years made me realise how much I’ve missed my sister’s love and affection. But I think the two of us are going to be okay now.
She’s here today with me, looking stunning in the sky-blue bridesmaid dress I picked out for her, so that’s a good start.
As for Juno, she took the whole revelation about the question over her paternity in her stride, in the calm, intelligent way with which she seems to deal with everything.
She went straight ahead and had a DNA test done, which to my surprise – and I think everyone else’s too – showed that my father really was her biological father after all.
I suspect rogue genes, way back down the family line, must be responsible for her striking red hair and creamy pale skin.
She and my father have seemed a lot closer since the revelations – at least he acknowledges her now when she walks into a room – and I’ve seen them talking a lot more than usual, though I think it’s going to take quite a bit more time for them really to become comfortable around each other.
They’re perhaps a bit too dissimilar in personality for that to happen easily.
But she’s happy, at least. And she seems very settled with her partner, Sandro, who I can tell from the way he treats her, is deeply in love with her. They’re standing together now, hands locked tightly, talking quietly as we wait for the photographer to take the family pictures.
As for me, I’m happy, properly happy, for the first time in ten years.
Standing at the altar today, with Jamie looking at me as if I was the most incredible thing ever to happen to him, I couldn’t quite believe my life had turned in this exciting and satisfying direction.
But I’m so glad it has.
It took Jamie a while to get past the fury and disillusionment he felt towards his father.
But, despite still being angry with Cliff for his cowardice in not having told him what he’d done while he was alive, he’s come to believe that he sent that letter so that he and I would have another chance to connect – and fall in love again.
Deep down, neither of us believes Cliff was a bad person; he was just besotted with my mother and made some very bad decisions.
Keeping silent about them had been his way of protecting Jamie, because Cliff had loved him more than anything in the world.
I truly believe that. He genuinely wanted the best for him. For him to be happy and secure.
Accepting this as truth has helped Jamie come to terms with his father’s actions and enabled him to begin to forgive him, I think.
As it has for me, too.
I’m no longer weighed down by the resentment I’ve been carrying around with me for all these years.
I’ve chosen to move on from the mistakes of the past and look to the future.
Because I have my Jamie back.
I’ve told him every day since we’ve been a couple again how much I love him. How grateful I am for the second chance we got to be together.
Because now I truly have everything I’ve ever wanted.