Epilogue
THEHACIENDALOOKED beautiful tonight. There were strings of lights wound all through the courtyard and the bougainvillea was magnificent. Guests filled the space, and the air was full of the buzz of conversation and the sound of classical guitar.
Alice saw him then, across the courtyard talking with Diego’s new father-in-law. He was dressed in a dark suit, with a gold silk tie the colour of his eyes and, even after all these years, he was still the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Apart from Diego, of course. And his new bride. And his sister, Giselle, whom they’d adopted not long after Diego and who at eighteen was growing up into the most gorgeous young woman. And of course the twins, Emily and César, whom they’d had via a surrogate, and at ten were still terrorising their poor parents. César in particular was a carbon copy of his father and he was going to break hearts one day, while Emily had decided that boys were ridiculous and she was going to be Prime Minister instead. Alice had no doubt she would be.
Their children were in the crowd somewhere, along with Diego’s bride’s family and a few of Alice’s colleagues and Sebastián’s. But mainly it was full of the children, both past and present, who’d come to the hacienda to heal.
A year after they’d got back from the island, Sebastián and Alice had decided to open their home and the stables to children from traumatic backgrounds, who could find acceptance with the horses, just as he had.
Alice considered every one of those kids her children too.
They were all here on this night to celebrate Diego’s wedding, but right in this moment, Alice only had eyes for her husband.
He looked up from his conversation and their eyes met, as they’d once done long ago, and she felt it now as she’d felt it then, the thunderbolt. The lightning strike.
He was older now, with white at his temples, but the lines around his eyes and mouth were from laughter and joy. He smiled at her, then said something to Diego’s father-in-law, and started towards her.
At the same time as she started towards him.
They met in the middle of the courtyard and when he held out his hand, she took it.
‘Mi cielo,’he murmured. ‘I think I’ve seen you somewhere before.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she said, pretending. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He drew her close. ‘I’m sure. In another lifetime. Or maybe many other lifetimes.’
He was so familiar to her and yet every time he touched her, the same excitement flared. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. ‘Perhaps we’ll see each other in future lifetimes too?’
His smile was the whole world. ‘We will. We have so much to look forward to.’
It wasn’t too much of a stretch to believe him.
Theirs was a love that had been written in the stars.
It always had been.
And it always would be.
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Keep reading for an excerpt from Signed, Sealed, Married by Annie West.