Chapter 46
ELIZA
Driving sheets of rain obscured my view of the water, coming down so hard that I couldn’t even see the castle anymore. I stood in the stone gazebo overlooking our lake, wrapped in a coat with my hands braced on the cool edge of the railing.
This part of the grounds had always been my favorite. It was quiet and slightly removed from the hum of the house and gardens, a little sanctuary few other people ever visited.
Ironically, I’d run here to feel like I was not running. I needed to tell the people who had been working so hard to set up the wedding to take it all down again, and the thought of it had been too daunting. It made reality feel too real.
So instead, I was simply watching the rain, bracing myself slightly against the cold air as I stood as close to the edge of the gazebo as I could without getting soaked. Rain splattered steadily against the stone roof above me, the familiar sound soothing as I tried to pull myself together.
I’d really gone and done it now, telling Dad I wasn’t going through with the wedding. Sooner or later, all hell was going to break loose. I wasn’t so naive as to believe that this wouldn’t cause a stir.
“Eliza?”
I had been alone since I’d gotten out here, so I jumped a little at the sound of a voice speaking from so close behind me, but the shock of who that voice belonged to did far more dangerous things to my heart than just give me a bit of a fright. It was suddenly racing, pounding, and trying to soar.
Afraid I’d imagined that particular voice, I spun around and nearly fell over when I realized it hadn’t simply been my mind playing tricks on me. Will Westwood really was here. In the flesh.
Standing at the other edge of the gazebo, he was completely soaked, his dark hair plastered to his forehead and his clothes clinging to his body in a way that would have been objectively distracting if I wasn’t currently trying to remember how to breathe.
He looked slightly desperate, those blue eyes just a bit too wide and the expression in them just a bit too wild. It didn’t suit him, but at the same time, that was part of what assured me this was, in fact, Will.
I doubted Jesse Westwood had ever been desperate for anything. Besides, this man was far more familiar, but I couldn’t logically explain why. There was just something about him that instantly made me feel like I was home.
“Will?” I wasn’t sure he’d heard me over the rain hammering against the roof, but I couldn’t stop myself from continuing anyway. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you.” He took a few more steps toward me, stopping close enough that I could see the rain on his long, black eyelashes, but not so close that he was invading my personal space. “I’m sorry, Eliza. I know it’ll never be good enough, but I’m so, so sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said suddenly, remembering that his entire family were about to receive the news that they wouldn’t have to make the trip after all. “I’m serious, Will. You should not have come.”
“I know.”
“You do?” I frowned. “Then why are you here?”
“Because I’m an idiot,” he said immediately. “I’ve been a complete and total idiot, Eliza. Consistently and so impressively that I’m practically a professional idiot at this point.”
Despite everything, a small, traitorous part of me wanted to laugh at how unexpectedly self-aware that was. Under any other circumstances, I might’ve, but this was so complicated that even though it was good to know that his sense of humor was intact, it only made me feel worse.
“You really should not have come, Will. I—”
“I love you,” he said, those semi-famous Westwood blue eyes locked on mine, blazing with intensity. “I’m in love with you, Eliza Roderick.”
He took a small step forward. “I should’ve said it back that night when you told me, but I didn’t want to because I knew you would never be mine.”
Utterly speechless, all I could do was stare back at him.
“When Jesse and I came here all those years ago, I was fascinated with you even though we never even got to talk much. I knew it from the very beginning that you were it for me, Eliza. Hell, I knew it even before that. I never forgot about you, and when you suddenly walked right into my life, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to let you go. ”
What? That can’t be true, but that’s also not really the issue right now. “It’s not that simple, Will. You can’t just fly out here, tell me you love me, and then expect… what, exactly?”
“I know. I know it’s not that simple. I just wanted you to know because it’s the truth and you deserve nothing but that from me.
God, you deserve so much more than just that, actually.
You deserve the entire world on a silver platter and everything your heart desires, but at the very least, you deserved to know that it was real for me too. ”
Rain still dripped from his jaw, running down his temples from the ends of his hair, but he didn’t move to wipe it away. “I lied to you. I let you believe I was someone else and then I kept lying because every time I tried to stop, it felt like I was going to lose you if I did.”
I swallowed hard. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m not trying to make it better, because nothing can. I don’t want you to forgive me for this, Eliza. That’s not why I came here and it’s not why I’m telling you this.”
I frowned. “What?”
“I don’t deserve it. After everything I’ve done, I’m not even sure I deserve the opportunity to tell you how I feel. I lied to you about who I was for weeks. I betrayed your trust. You let me in and I took advantage of that.”
I shook my head slightly, my chest aching. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. If you’ll just let me finish, that’s so much more than I could ever ask for.
I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he repeated, the sincerity in his tone bringing tears to my eyes.
“I don’t expect you to look at me the same way again or to trust me.
Honestly, I don’t expect anything from you at all. ”
His hands flexed at his sides like it was taking real effort for him to keep them there, but his eyes never left mine. “I just want you in my life, Eliza. However you’ll have me. I don’t care what that looks like or if it’s not what I want it to be. I just can’t walk away from you.”
My heart was thumping louder than the rain against the roof, my eyes stinging, and my hands trembling, but still, he wasn’t done.
“It was never just business for me and I know how wrong it was to get involved at all, knowing that I felt the way I did, but once the ball started rolling, I couldn’t bring myself to even try to stop it, if having it in motion meant even one more hour with you. ”
I closed my eyes briefly, that memory hitting before I could stop it, the questions he’d asked, the way he’d listened, and how it’d always felt like he’d seen me. For another second, I just stood there with my heart racing, his words echoing through my head.
“You’re an idiot,” I said softly after taking a minute to think it over.
The corners of his mouth twitched. “I’ve been told.”
I nodded. “You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t trust you,” I said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to able to do that again, and I’m still really angry with you.”
“That seems fair.”
I exhaled, my fingers tightening against the stone behind me like I needed it to keep me upright, which might well have been the case.
I wasn’t entirely sure at this moment. It sort of felt like I was having an out-of-body experience, and yet, looking into those blue eyes, I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life if I sent him away right now.
Without overanalyzing or even really thinking about it, I suddenly let go of the stone and closed the distance between us, grabbing the front of his shirt and pressing my lips to his.
The kiss was everything I’d been holding back crashing into him all at once, a maelstrom of hurt, anger, relief, and even love.
The sensation of his body against mine was so achingly familiar it made my chest feel like it might split open.
To his credit, Will didn’t grab me right away.
In fact, at first, he didn’t even react at all, like he hadn’t expected this and wasn’t sure what to do now that it was happening, but when I leaned into him ever so slightly, he snapped into motion.
One of his hands slid to my waist while the other came up to cup my jaw, anchoring me, and he kissed me back just as hard. His wet clothes soaked into everything, but I didn’t pull away.
After a few bruising kisses, his mouth softened against mine. The intensity morphed into a moment that felt deeper, like he was trying to memorize this. Us.
My fingers curled tighter into his shirt when I leaned into him. My breath caught as he tilted his head, kissing me until my knees became slightly unreliable. By the time we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
He smiled as he rested his forehead against mine. His thumb brushed lightly against my cheek, pushing away a drop of rain or maybe a tear. I wasn’t entirely sure.
“Why are you out in the rain?” he asked.
A soft laugh came out of me, but I was also shivering now that I was soaked and not distracted by kissing him. “I couldn’t stare at the wedding decorations anymore.”
His mouth pressed into a line. “Yeah, that makes sense. It’s pretty insane in there.”
“Yes, it really is.” I sighed, toying with the ends of his hair as reality came crashing back in. “Those people have been working so hard and now I have to go tell them—”
An idea snuck into my head, so sudden and so crazy that I cut myself off.
Will pulled back slightly, frowning as he arched a brow at me.
“You have to go tell them to take it all down? Miriam told me. I, uh, you should also know that Jesse isn’t coming.
Well, I mean, he’s here, in England, but he also decided against going through with it. ”
A flicker of relief passed through me. “That’s good. I was worried about how he might feel, but that’s not why I stopped talking.”
“Okay, why then?”
“We don’t need to waste a perfectly good wedding,” I said slowly. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well do it properly. Perhaps I don’t need to tell them to take everything down after all.”
He blinked slowly, like he was doing a double take. “I’m sorry, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you and I could get married on Sunday. We’d have to probably do a new contract and all that, but—”
This time, I stopped talking because Will was suddenly grinning, reaching into his coat pocket without a word. He produced a small, velvet-covered box and my heart nearly stopped.
“Will, what is that?”
“It’s what I would’ve picked for you if I wasn’t trying to think like my brother.
” He lowered himself down on one knee right there under the old gazebo, completely soaked but also entirely serious.
“Eliza Roderick, I did this completely wrong the first time, but if you’ll let me, I’d like to do it right. ”
A lump the size of the rock of Gibraltar lodged in my throat when he flicked open the box to reveal a much simpler, much smaller ring, but it was so elegant and perfect that my breath stalled in my lungs.
Filigree detail wrapped around a larger center stone with two smaller stones beside it, every one of the diamonds tiny in comparison to the one currently on my finger.
“Will you marry me, not because of any contract or our families, but just because you’re the one for me and you always have been?”
A tear slipped free as my head started bobbing up and down of its own accord. “Yes. Yes, Will. Of course.”
Relief crashed over his face as he slid the other ring off my finger, his hands warm despite the rain. “Thank God.”
I laughed through my tears as I watched the ring he’d bought—my ring—slide into its rightful place.
As he rose, he tossed the other straight into the lake, then reached for me, but even as his head descended, I saw the tiny splash out of the corner of my eye. “Was that really necessary?”
“Absolutely,” he said. Then his mouth claimed mine for a kiss that rendered my legs entirely useless.
Long before I was ready, he lifted his head away from mine, grabbing my hand and dragging me and my unsteady legs out into the rain, running at full speed toward the castle. “Come on, fiancée. I’ll race you home.”