EPILOGUE
“A little to the left,” Mum directs Jack as he stands on a chair, a pencil between his teeth. He has one of Dad’s favourite paintings against the wall, moving it millimeter by millimeter until Mum is happy. “That’s it. There.”
Jack snorts, his sweat-damp hair clinging to his forehead. The house is muggy, despite the back doors to the pool being wide open. There’s barely a breeze outside.
A few weeks after we got back from New York, we headed down to Mum’s for the weekend to help with unpacking Dad’s art collection. Seeing as she hasn’t found a new boyfriend yet, or decided to move anyone else into the house, we’re putting them all back up. Curtis’ supposed art collection was nothing more than a load of cheap posters. Jack suggested we donate them to charity, but Mum’s intent on burning the lot on a bonfire in the field next door after sunset. It’s symbolic, or so she says.
I hold the painting at one edge, taking some of the weight so Jack can make a pencil line on the top. Then he sticks the pencil behind his ear and climbs down, propping the picture against the wall.
Jack scans his work down the hall, where a few of the pictures already hang. They’re not entirely level and the sight makes me giggle.
“What?” Jack says.
“They’re wonky.”
Jack scratches the back of his neck. “Are not.”
“Actually, darling, they are a little uneven,” Mum says. “Maybe you should start again.”
Jack swears and throws the pencil to the floor. “Fuck’s sake. I need a drink. Anyone else?”
“I don’t know why you didn’t pay someone to do this for you,” Nico drawls. He’s leaning against the opposite wall, a glass of scotch in his hand. “Or asked me to help.”
“I didn’t think it would be this bloody hard,” Jack says. “I bet you’ve never hung a picture in your life.”
Nico pushes off the wall. “Actually, I hung one last night. In Kate’s apartment.”
His lips part in a gorgeous smile, which never fails to take my breath away. He’s wearing swim trunks and a t-shirt, a pair of sunglasses pushed back in his thick dark hair.
He brought the reframed charcoal sketch of Dad over last night and proceeded to get out the toolbox and hang it in the sitting room. I know it was just a hammer and a nail, but there was something undeniably sexy about him rolling his sleeves up and setting about doing the job himself. Even Marie was late to her shift as she stopped to watch him work.
Elly was worried that my dad looking down on our sitting room would upset me on a daily basis, but I like to think I’ve done enough healing to look at his face and remember the man who loved me, not the one who lied to me. I know he’s both, but they’re two halves that make a more genuine whole.
“Why don’t you fix these for me then, instead of standing there grinning like an idiot?” Jack argues.
Nico smiles, raising his glass in a mocking toast to Jack before taking a sip. “I’ll sort it.”
Jack scowls, flips him the middle finger, and stomps off to the kitchen. Cupboard doors creak open and slam, and ice clinks aggressively in a glass.
“You shouldn’t wind him up,” I reprimand.
Nico pulls out his phone, presses a few buttons and fires off a quick message.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve got a couple of my guys on standby to come and hang the pictures. Jack was never going to be able to do it all himself.” He pulls me towards him, pressing my body against his. “And with you dressed in this”—he tugs at the turquoise beach dress that flows loosely over my body, covering a white bikini beneath—“I can think of other ways I’d prefer to spend the afternoon.”
“My goodness, you two. I’m blushing,” Mum cries, hands pressed to her cheeks.
I’d forgotten she was still there, and from the widening of Nico’s eyes as he steps back, so had he.
“Sorry, Mrs Lansen,” he says before glancing at me and winking. “But you have the most irresistible daughter.”
“Oh, Nico.” Mum giggles, flapping a limp-wristed hand at him. “She gets that from me, of course. I was quite the beauty in my youth.”
Nico suppresses a smile, and I hide mine behind a cupped hand.
His phone buzzes and he glances at the screen. “They’ll be here in half an hour.”
“Saving our asses once again?” Jack says, reappearing from the kitchen, drink in hand.
“He’s very competent,” Mum says. “I always knew Kate would pick a winner in the end.”
I resist rolling my eyes and Jack meets my gaze with an amused smirk.
“Now we’ve got Kate all loved up, what are we going to do about you, darling?” Mum fixes her eyes on Jack. “I don’t think there’s a woman in the whole of England who’s good enough—”
“I’ll sort myself, thanks Mum,” Jack interrupts.
“Well, fine. But Aunt Venetia has a neighbour who has a daughter—”
Jack slaps his hands together. “Nope.”
Mum’s lips pucker, and we all laugh.
“Seeing as Nico’s got this all under control,” Jack says, “I’m going to shower.” Then he saunters up the stairs, a dark V of sweat down the spine of his t-shirt.
Mum checks her wristwatch. “I’ve got to collect some dishes from Pam down the road. She’s made a queen of puddings and a bread and butter pudding for the barbecue tonight, but she can’t bring them because she’s got a migraine. I’ll run out now and fetch them.”
“I can go,” Nico says, putting his half drunk scotch on the side table.
“No, no, you stay here. Finish your drink. Keep Kate company. I’m sure she’d much rather you than me, anyway.”
And with that, Mum totters off down the corridor on a pair of perilously high espadrille heels and lets herself out the front door. Gravel crunches as she crosses the front drive, jangling her keys in one hand.
When she’s out of sight, Nico pulls me into him with one arm. “Are you going to take this off?” He fingers the beach cover up. “I want to see you in that bikini,” he says, tugging at the strap around the back of my neck.
I slip out of his grip, still holding one of his hands. “You want to see, do you?”
He nods, the desire flashing in his eyes so raw that a pulse sets up in my clit. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of the way he looks at me, like I’m the only woman in the world he’ll ever want. I lead him out through the kitchen and into the back garden, where the hot tub is bubbling.
“Get in,” I say.
He gives me a knowing look. “You want me in the hot tub?”
“I do.”
With a bemused smirk, he pulls off his t-shirt and steps into the water.
When he sits down, his eyes trained on me like a searchlight, I tug off my dress and drop it to the floor, standing before him in only a white bikini. It’s the same one I wore all those years ago, and the last time we were here. The day we finally crossed the line, and I came in his arms. I see the moment he realises it too.
“You delight in teasing me, Miss Lansen,” he says, a dark chuckle rippling across the water towards me as I step into the tub, the warm water bubbling against my shins.
I reach up to the knot at the back of my neck, but I don’t undo the bikini strings. I pause and Nico’s eyebrow quirks.
“This time,” I say, “You’re not allowed to look away.”
He bites his bottom lip and then huffs a laugh. “If you think I’d ever look away from you now, then you’ve lost your mind.” He surges forward in a wave of bubbles and grabs my hips, staring up at me from his knees. “I don’t want to look anywhere else, ever. I’d get on my knees for you every day, Kate Lansen.”
The moment he’s spoken the words, he stiffens.
“What?” I ask.
“This feels like that moment where I should ask you to marry me.”
I laugh nervously. “God, no. Seriously, Nico. It’s been a few weeks. I am totally okay with not getting married. Or engaged. Or any of that stuff.”
“Really?”
I kneel opposite him, the bubbles surrounding us. “Yes. Just promise me we’ll have loads of sex.”
He grins, pulling me flush against him in the water. “I promise.” Then his eyes turn serious. “But Kate…”
“Yes?”
“You’re it for me. I might not be proposing, but I know I want to. Not today, but one day. I don’t want to live my life without you by my side. I want to wake up beside you every morning and fall asleep beside you every night. I want to share everything with you.”
A warm, fizzing sensation swells in my chest, up my throat. “I want that too,” I say softly.
His smile is warm and kind and sexy all at once. “Great. Now, where were we…”
“We were promising to have lots of sex.”
“Oh, yes.” His hand eases inside my bikini bottoms so fast that I can only laugh, even as desire spikes through me hotter than the water. He kisses the side of my neck. “May as well begin as we mean to go on.”
His fingers slide inside me, right where I want them, but I’m wary.
“Jack’s in the house,” I remind him, eyes flicking towards the back door. “Mum’s going to be back any moment…”
The heel of Nico’s hand presses against my clit and I stop talking.
“This will only take a minute.” His whisper is hoarse against my throat.
I pull back, my arms still around his neck. “Oh, yeah?”
“Mmm-hmmm,” he says, as his other hand snakes around the back of my neck and loosens the halter tie on my bikini so it slides off my breasts and into the water.
I glance back at the house. “Nico—”
But my voice catches in my throat as he takes one of my nipples in his mouth, slowly pumping his fingers in and out of me, drawing the crest of my pleasure closer and closer to the surface.
I dig my fingernails into his bare shoulders. “Oh, fuck—”
“Thought you might want to make new memories in here,” he says. “Better memories.”
He plays my body like an instrument, drawing out the sweetest tune as the tightly coiled pleasure at the base of my spine unwinds, rippling out through every part of my body like a slow rolling clap of thunder.
Riding the waves of my orgasm, I cling to Nico like he’s going to save me from drowning. As my breathing returns to normal, he chuckles against my neck. “Told you it would only take a minute.”
I lean back and splash water in his face, and his laugh rolls out like a stream of pure joy. I reach behind my neck to fix the strings of the bikini in place.
He grabs my hand to stop me. “Wait.”
I still beneath his grip, one strap of the halter neck pinched between my fingers, my breasts exposed above the water level. And then he looks at me. Really fucking looks, his stare grazing over every inch of exposed skin. It’s exactly what I wanted him to do all those years ago when I stupidly tried to seduce him right here in my parents’ back garden.
He nods slowly. “It took a while, but you’re worth every second of the wait. I’d give you the whole world if I could. Now”—he gives me a serious look, but his lips tilt in a smile—“put your fucking clothes back on.”
Laughing, I fix my bikini back in place and stand. As I get out, Nico grabs my hand again. “Hey, Kate?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
I look down at his face, so indescribably gorgeous that it makes my next breath catch. “I know.”
“Forever,” he adds.
“Yes,” I agree, my heart bursting with emotion. “I love you too. Forever.”
THE END