Chapter 12
The cottage still smells like stone.
I don't know how that is possible.
Stone and old wood and lavender drifting through an open kitchen window.
For one strange second, I am nine years old again.
Barefoot.
Dirty knees.
Papa sitting at the kitchen table with a laptop in pieces and flour on one sleeve because he was incapable of doing only one thing at a time.
There should be bread cooling near the stove.
Fresh milk in the old glass bottle he carried home from the farm two roads over.
A radio playing too loudly.
His voice calling me ma puce because I had disappeared into the field again without shoes.
Instead, there is silence.
And Xavier's hand around mine.
I stand inside the doorway without moving.
He doesn't rush me.
Doesn't tell me what he repaired or what he left untouched.
Doesn't point out the security I already know surrounds the property because Xavier Blackwell could probably turn a chicken coop into a fortified command center before breakfast.
I see one man stationed far beyond the stone wall.
Another vehicle partially hidden down the road.
That is all he lets me see.
Inside, there is nothing Blackwell.
No screens.
No men in suits.
No equipment.
Only my childhood home.
My old table is still here.
I run my fingertips along the wood and find the small gouge near one corner.
I made that.
Papa had been teaching me binary while repairing a radio, and I decided a butter knife was an acceptable screwdriver.
It wasn't.
“You broke something there.”
I turn.
Xavier is leaning against the doorway.
“How do you know?”
“You told me.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
Naturally.
“You remember everything.”
“Almost.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
I smile, but something behind my ribs aches.
Ghost remembers my childhood.
Not because he researched it.
Because I told him.
Pieces of myself scattered through years of conversations that I never realized anyone might be keeping.
Not as data.
As memories.
Upstairs, the small bedroom at the back of the cottage has been prepared for me.
Fresh linens.
Wildflowers in an old ceramic pitcher.
And three dresses hanging from the wardrobe.
I stop.
Turn slowly toward Xavier.
“You bought wedding dresses.”
“Had them brought.”
“How many?”
A pause.
“Twelve.”
“Twelve?”
“I rejected nine.”
“You rejected my wedding dresses?”
“Yes.”
“You are completely insane.”
“Probably.”
I look at the three remaining dresses.
One is silk and far too sophisticated.
Another is lace and beautiful enough for somebody else.
The third makes my fingers stop.
Ivory.
Simple.
Soft cotton silk with thin straps and a fitted bodice. The skirt falls loosely to my ankles.
Nothing sparkles.
Nothing drags behind me.
No crystals.
No corset.
No disguise.
I touch it.
“That one,” Xavier says.
I glance back.
He hasn't moved from the doorway.
“You chose it.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
His eyes travel over me.
Slowly.
Not leering.
Knowing.
“Because Vesper would hate the others.”
“And Sabine?”
His gaze returns to my face.
“Sabine doesn't need anything competing with her.”
My heartbeat misfires.
I turn back toward the dress before he sees what he just did to me.
“Go.”
“Why?”
“I need to change.”
“I've seen you in considerably less.”
Heat climbs my neck.
“Out.”
His low laugh follows him into the hallway.
“Five minutes, princesse.”
“Fifteen.”
“Ten.”
“I am not negotiating my wedding preparation with you through a door.”
“Ten.”
I shut it in his face.
I hear him laugh again.
Ghost laughs.
In my childhood home.
I stand there with one hand against the door and let myself feel how impossible that is.
Then I change.
I don't wear shoes.
There are sandals waiting.
Beautiful ones.
Probably absurdly expensive.
I leave them beside the bed.
This field has never known me in shoes.
It seems wrong to start now.
My hair stays down.
No wig.
No straightener.
No attempt to tame it.
Caramel curls tumble down my back and blow wherever the afternoon breeze wants them.
No colored contacts.
No false lashes.
No contouring that changes the shape of my face.
My eyes are blue because my eyes are blue.
My lips are mine.
My skin is mine.
My name is mine.
I stand in front of the little mirror and barely recognize myself.
Not because I look different.
Because I don't.
There is nothing hiding me.
I have worn a hundred faces.
Today, I marry him in my own.
The thought almost stops me.
Marry.
Xavier Blackwell.
Ghost.
I press one hand against my stomach.
“This is strategic,” I whisper to my reflection.
The woman in the mirror looks unconvinced.
“Protection.”
Still unconvinced.
“Legal positioning.”
Now she looks stupid.
I exhale.
“Shut up.”
Then I go downstairs.
Xavier waits outside.
He has changed too.
Dark trousers.
White shirt open at the throat.
No jacket.
No tie.
Sleeves rolled once.
For perhaps the first time since I learned his identity, he doesn't look like the heir to Blackwell.
He looks like the man behind the screen.
Then he sees me.
And stops.
Completely.
That look again.
The one that makes butterflies explode beneath my ribs.
His eyes move from my bare feet to the dress, over my curls, then finally to my face.
They stay there.
I become suddenly conscious of everything.
My hands.
My breathing.
The wind against my dress.
“Say something.”
He does not.
“Xavier.”
His throat moves.
“You're barefoot.”
My mouth falls open.
“That is what you have?”
“No.”
His eyes continue staring at me.
“It's simply the only thought currently functioning.”
I smile.
Good.
Because several of mine have stopped too.
He comes toward me.
Slowly.
His fingers slip into mine.
Wedding rings aren't there yet.
Just our hands.
Ghost and Vesper.
No keyboard between them.
“You ready?”
No.
“Yes.”
His thumb moves once over mine.
“Liar.”
“Strategist.”
“Right.”
He leads me around the cottage.
And then I see the field.
My chest tightens.
There are no rows of chairs.
No reception tent.
No orchestra.
No chandeliers hanging from trees because some billionaire wedding planner decided nature required improvement.
Just grass.
Wildflowers.
The two old trees at the far end of the field.
A simple strip of white linen tied between them and moving gently in the wind.
A few white roses.
Lavender.
A small wooden table.
And an elderly priest waiting beneath the trees.
Two of Xavier's security men stand so far back near the stone wall that they almost disappear into the landscape.
That's it.
No guests.
No photographers.
No Blackwell board members.
No reporters.
No Royal Oaks boys making inappropriate comments.
No one who knows Ghost.
No one who knows Vesper.
Only us.
And—
I stop.
A dog is sitting beside the priest.
Scruffy.
Brown and white.
One ear up.
One ear folded.
No collar.
I look at Xavier.
He looks at the dog.
The dog looks at both of us.
“Is that yours?”
“No.”
The priest says something to the dog.
The dog sits more firmly.
I start laughing.
Xavier looks mildly offended by the entire situation.
“Apparently we have a guest.”
“Our only guest.”
“He wasn't cleared.”
That makes me laugh harder.
“You are not running facial recognition on a dog.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“I was evaluating the perimeter breach.”
The stray gets up.
Trots directly toward us.
Sniffs Xavier's hand.
Then mine.
Apparently satisfied, he turns around and begins walking back toward the priest.
I stare after him.
“I think we've been summoned.”
Xavier sighs.
“Humiliating.”
I squeeze his hand.
Then we walk.
No music.
Only birds.
Wind through grass.
My bare feet touching the same earth I ran across as a child.
Every step brings a memory.
Papa carrying milk.
Papa trying to teach me how to bake bread and burning the first loaf because he got distracted by a computer.
Papa lying beside me in this field after sunset.
The sky above us overflowing with stars.
“Stars are code, ma puce.”
I was seven.
“They aren't code.”
“Everything is information.”
He pointed upward.
“Scripts running across the sky. We simply haven't learned all the language yet.”
I believed him.
Maybe part of me still does.
Because years later, I found a man made entirely of signals.
Words appearing in darkness.
A blinking indicator telling me I wasn't alone.
Ghost was code.
Until I learned his language.
Now he's walking beside me.
His palm warm around mine.
The priest smiles when we reach him.
The dog sits beside his robes as if he has rehearsed this.
I look down.
“Bonjour.”
His tail hits the grass.
Xavier mutters, “Don't encourage him.”
“He is my witness.”
“He's homeless.”
“So was I, technically.”
That wipes the irritation from Xavier's face.
His hand tightens around mine.
“Not anymore.”
I look at him.
There are moments when he says something without understanding the size of it.
This is one.
Not anymore.
I look away before I cry before we've even begun.
The legal details have been handled quietly. Papers signed, registrations arranged, every bureaucratic problem that should have taken weeks somehow bent beneath an army of lawyers and Xavier's terrifying ability to make institutions move faster.
This is the part that matters.
The priest speaks first in French.
Then English.
Marriage.
Choice.
Trust.
Two lives joining.
I hear some of it.
Mostly, I hear Xavier breathing beside me.
Feel his thumb moving across my hand.
Watch the dark eyes that have not left my face since I came out of the cottage.
We weren't going to write vows.
That was the agreement.
This marriage is necessary.
Strategic.
Temporary is a word neither of us has used, which seems important.
Still, vows felt dangerously close to admitting this means something else.
So naturally Xavier breaks the agreement first.
“I want to say something.”
My heart stops.
The priest nods.
I whisper, “We weren't doing this.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You can't change the rules during the game.”
“I've been doing that since I met you.”
Fair.
Xavier turns fully toward me.
Takes my other hand.
The breeze moves through his dark hair.
For once there is no Blackwell mask.
No Ghost anonymity.
Just him.
“I can't promise you this will be easy.”
My throat tightens.
“I can't promise the truth about your father won't hurt.”