Chapter 12 #2
His hands close more firmly around mine.
“I can't promise my family deserves forgiveness for whatever we discover.”
The dog scratches behind one ear.
Somehow that keeps me from crying.
Barely.
“But I can promise you something I've never promised anyone.”
Xavier's voice lowers.
“Whatever we find, you will not face it alone.”
I stop breathing.
“Whatever name is attached to it. Whatever company. Whatever government. Whatever it costs me.”
His dark eyes lock with mine.
“I'm on your side.”
Papa was my side.
Then Papa was gone.
And for years afterward, there was only me.
Except there wasn't.
There was a black screen.
A blinking green light.
Still here.
My eyes burn.
“You're making this very difficult.”
His mouth curves faintly.
“You're welcome.”
The priest looks at me.
Apparently it is my turn.
Wonderful.
I look down at our joined hands.
Then at the field.
My field.
My childhood.
My father's sky stretched endlessly above us.
“I spent most of my life believing safety meant nobody knowing where to find me.”
Xavier's expression changes.
“I thought being invisible meant being free.”
The wind catches my curls.
“I became very good at disappearing.”
“You did.”
I narrow my eyes.
“Don't interrupt my vows.”
“Sorry.”
He isn't.
I continue.
“Then I met an irritating man in a place that didn't really exist.”
His thumb moves against my hand.
“I didn't know his name. I didn't know his face. I didn't know what country he was sitting in most nights.”
I smile through the pressure building behind my eyes.
“But somehow he became the person I trusted most.”
Xavier goes very still.
“When Papa died, I couldn't tell him what happened. I couldn't type the words.”
My voice catches.
I stop.
Breathe.
Xavier waits.
He always waits.
“He didn't ask.”
A tear escapes.
Xavier frees one hand and catches it with his thumb.
“He just stayed.”
His jaw tightens.
“And then I discovered Ghost was Xavier Blackwell.”
The priest glances between us.
This story is clearly not included in standard premarital counseling.
“It was extremely inconvenient.”
Xavier almost smiles.
“I already cared about Ghost before I knew what Xavier might represent. Before Blackwell and Beaumont collided. Before I knew there were things between our families that might never be repaired.”
I take his hand again.
“I still don't know how this ends.”
He watches me.
“I don't know what we'll find about Papa.”
My voice drops.
“I don't know whether Blackwell destroyed my family or whether someone wanted me to believe it did.”
Something sharp enters Xavier's gaze at that.
Good.
Because that possibility has been growing in me too.
“But I do know one thing.”
I step slightly closer.
“When I was terrified, I called Ghost.”
His fingers tighten.
“And Xavier came.”
There.
The truth.
Bigger than any vow I could write.
His eyes close briefly.
When they reopen, everything in them is exposed.
For me.
Only me.
“Still here?” I whisper.
His forehead lowers to mine.
“Always.”
That does it.
I cry.
One stupid tear becomes several.
Xavier wipes them away as if there is no priest, no dog, no security men pretending very hard not to look.
Only us.
Again.
Always us.
The priest finishes.
Rings are placed into our hands.
Simple bands.
Mine thin and elegant.
His dark and understated.
Xavier slides mine onto my finger.
I watch it cross my knuckle.
Blackwell.
The name should frighten me.
Instead, I look into his eyes.
Then I slide his ring onto his hand.
Ghost has a wedding ring.
That thought is so absurdly romantic I nearly laugh.
The priest says something about a kiss.
Xavier doesn't wait for a translation.
His hand cups my face.
The other wraps around my waist.
Then his mouth finds mine.
No applause.
No cheering.
No phones lifted.
No cameras.
Just wind.
Grass.
Birds.
His lips warm against mine.
My hands slide around his neck.
He pulls me closer.
The kiss deepens only slightly, enough to remind me of midnight in London and honey on my mouth.
When he pulls back, he doesn't go far.
Our foreheads touch.
I smile.
“I'm Mrs. Blackwell.”
His eyes darken.
“Sabine Blackwell.”
I test it silently.
Strange.
Dangerous.
Beautiful.
The dog barks.
I laugh.
Xavier looks down.
“Now he has opinions.”
“He approves.”
“He wants food.”
“Same thing.”
The priest is laughing too.
Xavier kisses my forehead.
And beneath the blue sky, in the field where Papa once taught me to read constellations like code, I realize what we've done.
I married my Ghost.
No audience.
No announcement.
No world watching.
Just the same way we fell in love.
Privately.
Quietly.
Inside a world that belonged only to us.
Except now when I reach for him, there is a hand waiting.
We eat outside.
Bread from the village.
Soft cheese.
Fruit.
A bottle of champagne Xavier probably paid too much for.
The priest leaves after one glass.
The security men remain out near the road, carefully invisible.
The dog does not leave.
Naturally.
He sits beside me staring at my bread.
“You cannot have this.”
His tail moves.
“Sabine.”
“What?”
“Don't feed it.”
“Why?”
“Because then it stays.”
I tear off a piece.
Xavier stares at me.
“Don't.”
I give it to the dog.
He eats it.
Xavier closes his eyes.
“There. Now we have a dog.”
“We do not have a dog.”
The dog lies down on my bare foot.
I look at Xavier.
He looks at the dog.
I smile.
Xavier points at me.
“No.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“You're thinking.”
“I always think.”
“You're keeping it.”
“I have made no such decision.”
The dog's eyes close.
I stroke one ragged ear.
Xavier reaches for champagne.
“This marriage is already becoming expensive.”
“You own an airplane.”
“That doesn't mean I want a dog.”
“Your wife does.”
He stops with the glass halfway to his mouth.
I realize what I said at the same moment he does.
Your wife.
Something changes in his face.
Slow.
Warm.
Possessive in a way that sends heat through me.
“Say that again.”
“No.”
“Sabine.”
I take my champagne.
“Drink.”
He watches me over the rim of his glass.
I can feel the smile he isn't showing.
For another hour, we sit in the field.
No world.
No investigation.
No ARGUS.
No Blackwell board.
No dead fathers or shadow hackers.
Just bread.
Champagne.
A stray dog.
My husband's hand resting over mine in the grass.
And for once in my life, I let something good happen without immediately planning how to escape it.
By the time the sun disappears, the dog has decided he belongs to us.
Xavier continues to disagree.
This has no effect on the dog.
He sleeps beneath the old kitchen table while Xavier opens windows that have been closed too long and I wander through rooms I thought I would never see again.
Nothing here is grand.
That may be why I love it so much.
The floorboards creak in the same places. One cabinet door still refuses to close unless you lift it slightly first. The kitchen window sticks halfway up. The fireplace smokes for thirty seconds before the chimney remembers what it is supposed to do.
Xavier could have fixed all of it.
He didn't.
I know why without asking.
He didn't want to turn Papa's house into a Blackwell property.
He wanted to give it back to me.
That realization follows me from room to room until I finally find Xavier in the kitchen opening another bottle of champagne.
I lean against the doorway.
“You left everything.”
He glances over.
“Most things.”
“The cabinet still sticks.”
“I know.”
“The upstairs bathroom still sounds like it's being murdered when you turn on the pipes.”
“I noticed.”
“You could have fixed it.”
“Yes.”
I watch him.
“Why didn't you?”
His hands stop on the bottle.
Then his eyes find mine.
“Because I didn't know which broken things you might want to keep.”
My chest tightens.
There it is again.
The casual devastation.
Xavier Blackwell can say more in one quiet sentence than Ghost managed in ten thousand encrypted messages.
I cross the kitchen.
His gaze follows me.
It has been doing that all day.
Everywhere.
Like he still can't believe I'm real.
My hand settles against his chest.
The simple dark band I put on his finger catches against his white shirt.
Husband.
Still strange.
“Come outside with me.”
His brows lift.
“Where?”
“The field.”
“It’s dark.”
“Yes.”
“There's a reason people invented houses.”
“I spent my childhood out there.”
“That explains a lot.”
I pinch his side.
He catches my hand and brings my fingers to his mouth.
One kiss against my knuckles.
My stomach flips.
I may never become accustomed to that.
“Blanket,” I tell him.
Xavier studies my face for a second.
Something in his expression shifts.
He understands.
Naturally.
“Give me five minutes.”
He takes eight.
I count.
When Xavier finally comes through the back door, he has an old wool blanket over one shoulder, a bottle of champagne in one hand, two glasses hooked between his fingers, and another blanket folded beneath his arm.
I stare.
“You packed for an expedition.”
“I married a woman who thinks shoes are optional.”
“They are.”
“Noted.”
The dog follows us.
Xavier notices.
“No.”
The dog keeps walking.
“You're arguing with an animal.”
“He's trespassing.”
“He attended our wedding.”
“He ate half my bread.”
“Your wife gave it to him.”
Xavier looks at me.
That expression again.
I smile.
“You really like that word.”
“I haven't decided.”
“You have.”
He doesn't answer.
He doesn't need to.
We walk farther into the field.
The cottage becomes smaller behind us until its windows are only squares of amber against the darkness.
There are no city lights here.
No yachts.
No Blackwell towers.
No cameras I can see, although I have stopped believing that means anything when Xavier is involved.
Above us, the sky opens.
Thousands of stars.
I stop walking.
For a moment, I am not twenty-something and married.
I am seven.
Eight.
Ten.
Papa is beside me with grass stains on his trousers and a blanket beneath one arm, telling me stories that are half astronomy and half nonsense.
“Stars are code, ma puce.”
My throat tightens.
Xavier stops beside me.
His fingers find mine.
He doesn't ask.
He waits.
I look up.
“I haven't seen them from here in years.”
“I know.”
“They're different.”
“The stars?”
“Me.”