Epilogue
The ocean breathed against the shore in long, salt-slick exhales, cool and tangy, carrying the faint mineral bite of kelp and sun-warmed stone. I closed my laptop with a decisive click and shot to my feet, a laugh tearing out of me before I could stop it.
“Yes!” The word rang bright and sharp in my chest, fizzing under my skin as the wind tugged at my hair and snapped the linen curtain behind me like a sail catching course.
Below, the water rolled and flashed in sheets of blue and silver, endless and unconcerned, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, the horizon didn’t feel like something I was running toward—but something I was already standing inside.
Luka stepped onto the balcony, cuffed linen trousers flapping with the wind. He set a fresh cup of coffee on the table, the steam unraveling in the breeze.
“Good meeting, I take it?”
“Better than good. I’ve been after that contract for a month—the boutique event planner out of Valencia looking to expand.
I think I just bought us another year of this.
” I swept my hand out at the surf, the sloping roofline of the terrace, the pale slant of early morning over whitewashed stucco.
“Which, at this rate, is about all I ever wanted.”
Luka grinned, then tipped my jaw up with one thumb, brushing his lips over mine.
He tasted like espresso and the last traces of sleep.
“Well done, mila.” When he pulled back, the approval in his eyes was quiet, proud, unguarded in a way he still didn’t let the rest of the world see.
Which was fine. Some things I liked to keep all for myself.
I took a long sip of my coffee and leaned back on the balcony rail, letting the sun glaze my skin. “Should I feel guilty that I never think about the old job anymore?”
He shook his head, a soft snort of amusement. “That was over a year ago. Why on earth would you?”
I laughed. “I was very good at guilt. And at chasing things I didn’t actually want.”
He reached for my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “And now?”
“Now I chase invoice payments from boutique cheese shops and microbreweries,” I said, feigning solemnity. “But I get to do it from a beach house in Portugal. Winning.”
I took another long drink of my coffee—rich and bold—and smiled. No matter how late he stayed up working, Luka always got up to make my coffee first thing.
I set my cup down and braced my elbows on the sun-warmed balustrade. “How was work last night?”
He sipped his own coffee, blue eyes narrowed on the horizon. “As it always is.” One corner of his mouth tugged up—the hint of a smirk. “Pays the rent.”
I grinned. “Do I want to know?”
He shrugged. “No, probably not.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed off the railing, grabbing my mug. “That’s for the best. I’ve got to renew my visa in a couple of months, and I need my record clean.”
Luka fixed his gaze on the water, speaking into waves licking the shore. “We’re not married, so nothing I do—or don’t do—shows up on your record.”
I snorted into my coffee, nearly spluttering it over the rim. “Wow…” I let the word spiral up, teasing and light. “The M-word. Didn’t know you had that one in your vocabulary.”
He ran a finger along the railing, idle but precise. “I have a lot of words in my vocabulary.”
I opened my mouth to volley something back, but Luka cut me off with a finger to my lips and a thumb to my jaw, gentle but absolute, a gesture more binding than any cable or cuff. He took my mug from my hand and set it on the table.
“Come,” he said, and before I could collect any argument, he took my hand and led me down the spiral stairs that hugged the exterior of the villa.
The air sharpened as we descended, the wind rising off the water and billowing my sundress around my knees.
Sand, cool and sugar-fine, spilled beneath the stone steps and clung to my bare feet as we stepped off the last riser onto the beach.
The tide was outgoing, leaving a mirrored fan of water trailing up and down the shore.
The world was still quiet and felt entirely ours.
We walked, Luka’s hand a constant weight around mine, until the house vanished behind the dunes, replaced by the low, crumbling cliffs and blue vault of sky.
Salt crusted my hairline, and the wind pressed Luka’s shirt tight to his back, rippling and snapping around the knots of muscle at his shoulders.
I could feel every point where our skin touched—a dozen little circuits, sparking with each step.
We found a patch of sand where the tide had left big, flat stones, warm from the sunrise. Luka shrugged off his shirt and lay down, arms pillowing his head. I sat cross-legged beside him, knees bumping his rib cage.
For a while, neither of us spoke. But the hush between wave sets was the kind of silence that asked to be filled.
“I’m not saying we have to,” I said, the words tumbling over each other, “but have you ever thought about it?”
He didn’t open his eyes. “About what?”
I tried to play it off with a laugh, but my pulse drummed loud enough that it probably carried to the next cove. “Getting…married.”
He exhaled, a long, deliberate breath, then squinted up at me, blue eyes narrowed against the sun. “Yes.”
“Yes?” I echoed.
He rolled up to sitting, sand dusting his back.
He plucked a rock from the sand and rolled it between his palms. “I never thought I would, if I’m honest. After the war, after losing my family, the thought of losing anyone else was…
” He searched the ocean, the heat shimmer flattening his expression to something I couldn’t read.
“It was fucking terrifying. So I never—” He cut off, jaw flexing, then tossed the stone into the surf.
I felt the rest of the sentence slot into place. “Let anyone close?”
“Precisely.” He looked at me, eyes clear and raw as seawater.
“But you…” The muscles in his forearm tensed as he planted his palm behind him, anchoring himself in the sand and sunlight.
“When I told you that you were my home, I meant it.” He said it like a confession, like he was daring me to laugh.
Instead, I leaned forward, chin propped on my knees. “Wow.”
He smiled. “You keep saying that.”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my thighs, the grit of cold sand digging tiny imprints into my skin. “So—hypothetically—if I said I wanted to, you know, get married…you wouldn’t run for the hills?”
Luka’s mouth twitched, the beginnings of a smile, but he played it up—hand to chest, brow arched with mock surprise. “Mila, are you proposing?”
Blood rushed to my ears. “I—no, I—” I started, but Luka was already up on his knees, closing the distance, caging me in with his arms on either side. I fell back into the sand, and he followed, hips heavy between my thighs, pinning me in place.
“Use your words,” he murmured, voice low and merciless. “Tell me what you want.” His weight pressed down, a velvet trap, and the world collapsed to the space between our mouths. “And it’s yours.”
My heart hammered, and my lungs cinched. I tried to laugh, to keep it light, but the need in me was unignorable—a hunger so sharp it bordered on pain. “I want…”
His teeth grazed the tendon in my neck, just hard enough to make me gasp.
“You want…?”
I craned my head, lips a hair from his. I let the desire break free, rush out, unedited. “I want you. I want this. For as long as we can hold on to it.” I drew in a breath and brought my hands to either side of his face. “I want to marry you, Luka.”
He stilled, head cocked, and for a split second, I thought the world might actually freeze and never start again.
Then, all at once, he kissed me—deep and total, salt and sun and coffee—all of it, the whole damn universe, poured down my throat. He braced his hands in the sand, caging me, and I never wanted him to release me.
When he broke the kiss, his breath was ragged, his eyes so shockingly bright they hooked me all over again—just like the night we first met.
“Done.”