Chapter 23
CLAIRE
When Ethan saw me, his hand rose first, as though to shield me from a branch reaching out overhead. It was actually nowhere near me. He noticed too, his hand stopping in midair before he finally smiled, a little at a loss.
I walked over and put my hand in his.
June sunlight filtered through the leaves, scattering small bright patches over his light-colored jacket.
He wore no tie today. His shirt was open at the collar, and a sprig of white flowers was pinned to his chest. We’d only seen each other last night, and he knew I would wear this dress.
Still, he kept looking at me, and it took him a beat to realize someone beside us was asking us to stand a little closer.
“What is it?” I asked softly.
“You look so beautiful.”
I looked down at my skirt. The dress was very pale, with just a narrow pleat at the waist. Mia had smoothed it for me a moment ago, then hugged me as I was about to come out. She hadn’t said much, only asked if I was ready. When I said I was, she’d let me go and handed me the little bouquet.
Now she sat in the front row, using a tissue to wipe something invisible from Nora’s dress. Our daughter wriggled to show that was enough, then looked up and smiled at us.
There were only a few rows of chairs in the garden, with the restaurant’s open doors behind them. Two of my friends sat beside Mia. One raised a hand in a discreet wave. I moved my fingers in reply. Ethan tightened his hold and quietly asked if I was telling him to let go.
“No.” I stepped closer. “Don’t.”
His thumb moved slowly over the back of my hand.
When the officiant began, I was still looking at him. The breeze stirred his flowers, and he glanced down to check them as if afraid they might fall. I reached to straighten them and heard a soft laugh from the back row. Ethan smiled too, but his eyes were beginning to redden.
It had been almost eleven months since we’d started dating again last July.
In those evenings, there had been movies we loved and meals we realized halfway through we didn’t like; walks full of conversation and times when we were both tired and only wanted to sit quietly for a while.
I knew how he looked when his mind wandered in front of me.
I also knew how I’d get back to my apartment and want to pick up the phone just to hear him say a little more.
When it was his turn to speak, he lifted my hands a little.
“Claire.”
His voice came out rough. He paused and tried again, but the first sentence was still unsteady. Warmth filled my chest, and tears suddenly welled up.
“I practiced,” he told me quietly.
“I know.”
“It went quite well at home.”
I laughed, and the tears fell. He seemed about to wipe them away, then realized he was holding me with both hands. That moment of hesitation made Mia lower her head and laugh too.
I shook my head gently, letting him go on.
“I love you. I want to know how your days go, and I want to tell you about mine. I want to grow old with you and see whether you’ll still laugh at me for not guessing how a book ends.”
He drew a breath, never taking his eyes from me.
“I’m happy to stand in front of you again and hear you say you want a home with me. So happy I can’t find enough words for it. I’ll take care of the life we share, Claire. Today, and in the years ahead.”
I brushed my thumb over the faint crease on his hand. I still remembered the words I’d prepared, but when I had to say them to him, my throat began to tighten too.
“I still look forward to seeing you,” I said.
“I look in the mirror one more time before I go out. When I hear you calling me from the door, I want to get to you a little faster. I love eating with you, telling you the things other people might not find funny. I want to keep living these days with you.”
The tears in his eyes shimmered. I smiled too and sniffed.
“That’s why I’m standing here. I love you, Ethan, and I choose you again.”
When I was formally asked if I would marry him, I answered clearly.
“I do.”
As he slipped the ring onto my finger, it caught briefly at the knuckle. Afraid of hurting me, he slowed at once. I quietly told him it was all right and pushed my hand forward a little. The ring settled snugly at the base of my finger. He bent to kiss my hand before raising his face.
I leaned toward him first. He took me in his arms and kissed me, a smile at the corners of his mouth. Applause rose around us. Nora was clapping hard. Hearing her laugh, I couldn’t help laughing too, and for the moment, the kiss couldn’t continue.
After the ceremony, our daughter ran over, hugged my waist, and asked if we could eat once the photographs were done.
“I’ll get you a little first,” Ethan said.
She explained she only wanted to see the whole cake. After our family photograph, she ran to inspect the tables and remind Mia about the movie they’d watch at their planned sleepover tonight.
My sister came over to hug me. This time we held each other for a long while. Her palm rested against my back, patting it softly twice.
“Happy?” she asked.
I nodded, smiling with the corners of my eyes still wet. “Very happy.”
She wiped a little smudged makeup from beneath my eye, stepped back to look, and only then said, satisfied, that we could go and eat.
Evelyn and Richard had come too. Evelyn said my flowers were lovely, then wondered if this sort of dress might look too plain in photographs. I looked down at the skirt and told her I was very comfortable in it. She didn’t press me, just brushed a tiny leaf from Ethan’s shoulder.
Richard shook his hand and wished us well.
Ethan thanked him, his gaze resting on his father’s face for a moment.
Richard asked where the new house was. They spoke quietly for a while.
His father didn’t clap him on the shoulder as he once had, and Ethan didn’t try to keep the conversation going by turning it to work.
Lucas still controlled the group’s day-to-day operations, the overseas projects, and the succession arrangements.
The wedding hadn’t changed any of that. Ethan still had a limited local advisory role.
I knew he followed news of his brother, and I knew there were still things his father wouldn’t say to him.
I went to stand beside him. He turned to me and picked up the shawl resting over the back of a chair for me.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
A little space had been left clear on the garden side of the restaurant, and the music was already playing. I put my hand on his shoulder. He led me through a few slow steps, staying on the beat this time. I raised my eyebrows. He leaned close and said the practice had helped.
“Stop counting so hard now.”
“Then look at me.”
I looked at him as he led me through a half turn. Wind drifted through the open doors, carrying voices from the tables. Nora was intent on cutting a berry from her cake.
Ethan bent to kiss my forehead without breaking his step.
At lunch, Nora showed us her photographs. In one, Ethan was looking at me. He glanced at it, then returned to his bread, his ears red.
Before we left, I gave a friend some leftover cake and arranged to meet her on our lunch break next week. We still had an exhibition to plan.
The new house was quiet when we got home.
Everything we’d moved was in place. My bookshelves and blue chair were in the little room downstairs.
Ethan’s long sofa stood against the living room’s long wall.
We’d replaced the kitchen countertop with a soft, light color.
On the oval table beneath the window sat the water glasses we hadn’t had time to take away before leaving that morning.
Ethan closed the door and turned to me.
“We’re home,” he said.
I nodded and went to kiss him. The keys in his hand clinked softly. Neither of us paid them any attention. He held me until I drew back first, laughing as I told him I had to get my shoes off.
On the sofa, I unbuckled my shoes and reached for the pins in my hair. Ethan helped with the ones I couldn’t find, setting them on the table. As my hair fell loose, I leaned against his shoulder. His hand settled at the back of my neck.
“I’m tired,” I said.
“So am I,” he said, settling back beside me.
He kissed me near the ear. I turned toward him and lifted my hand to his face, wanting another kiss.
This one didn’t stay tired for long. His mouth opened against mine, and the quiet of the new house—the sofa we had argued about, the kitchen we had measured—filled with something warmer.
I pulled at his sleeve until he sat closer.
When I shifted into his lap, my wedding dress gathered around my thighs, and I felt him harden under me.
“Upstairs,” I said against his mouth. “I want you in our bed.”
Upstairs, I put my earrings in their dish beside the bed. Two novels lay by the lamp, each with a bookmark. Ethan held me from behind. When I turned and tried to straighten his collar, he caught my hand and kissed it.
“Leave it. I like you rumpling me.”
I unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his throat. He undid the hook of my dress, letting it fall. We finished undressing together, then he sat on the bed and drew me between his knees. His mouth moved from my stomach to my breast, then to my wrist and the new ring.
“My wife,” he said, very quietly, testing the word as if it might still surprise him.
“My husband.” I felt the answering heat of it in my chest and lower. “Come to bed.”
We lay down together. I pulled him over me and kissed him until the last of the public day fell away.
He slid his hand between my legs and found me wet already.
His fingers moved on my clit in unhurried circles, the kind of touch that said he had time now.
I opened my knees and let him watch what he was doing.
The lamp by the books was enough. I wanted him to see me in this room we had chosen, not guess at me in the dark.
“In me,” I said, when the pleasure started to tighten too soon. “I want you with me.”
He took a condom from the nightstand where we’d put them while unpacking. Once it was on, I guided him into me. We went still for a moment, then he began to move in long, even strokes, and I met him.
I held his face and kept my eyes open. I’d chosen him aloud in the garden earlier. When he reached down again, I covered his hand with mine and showed him the pressure I wanted.
“There. Stay there.”
He did. The orgasm gathered without rush and broke cleanly, a deep clench that pulled a sound out of me I didn’t bother to quiet. He kissed me through it and kept his hips moving, gentler, until I tugged him closer with both legs and said, “Your turn. I want to feel you come.”
He dropped his forehead to mine and drove in harder, still controlled, then not.
I ran my heel down the back of his thigh and held him there when he started to lose the count.
When he came, he did it with my name and a rough breath against my cheek, his whole body taut and then suddenly heavy in my arms. I held him there, one hand in his hair, the other at the small of his back, until the shaking stopped.
He pulled out after a minute, took care of the condom, and came back wearing nothing but the crooked smile I had put on him downstairs.
I left his shirt where it had fallen. We would need it later.
For now I turned onto my side and he fitted himself behind me, then closer still, until his chest warmed my back.
Someone passed outside. A door shut in the next yard, and soon it was quiet again. He said my name softly, and I answered. I was aware only of his breath against my cheek.
Later still, I went downstairs in his shirt, and we shared a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. I suggested neither of us set an alarm for tomorrow. He agreed at once and put the last little piece of bread in my hand.
After we cleaned up, he leaned against the counter and hummed the tune we’d danced to at the wedding. Drying my hands, I joined in with the next part, and he held out his hand.
“We can dance here too.”
I set down the towel and made a half turn with him beside the table. A chair blocked the way behind us, and we stopped. Neither of us moved it. We just swayed slowly in that little space.
“No shoes required,” I said.
He looked down at our feet and smiled. I rested my cheek against his chest and heard him begin humming softly again. It wasn’t quite in tune, but I loved it. When he finished the short passage, I asked him to start it again.