Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Phoebe
E xhaustion overwhelmed me as the plane finally touched tarmac at Heathrow airport.
Heathrow.
Not East Midlands.
Not an airport close to home, but an airport that meant we had another four-hour journey ahead of us, despite the fact we’d been awake far too many hours already.
We’d tried to sleep on the plane once we’d boarded, but only Bailey had been successful, with Rhea and me tossing and turning this way and that the entire time.
Sometimes you went beyond being tired to becoming numb, even to sleep.
As soon as the seatbelt sign went off, Bailey grabbed her phone and began to receive a string of text messages.
Her smile lit up her face, but she never offered to tell us who they were from or what had made her grin from ear to ear that way.
She’d been the same before we’d taken off, too, having received something from someone in the airport that had had her giggling to herself.
“She’s barely seen the back of Andy and she’s already scrolling away on Tinder again,” Rhea said, rolling her eyes.
I’d been too braindead to respond at that point, but honestly, good for Bailey.
I admired her ability to move from one man to the next without ever forming a strong attachment.
It would take one hell of a masterpiece to lock her down for life, and I had no idea if such a man existed who could ever be strong enough to handle my fiery friend.
Still, as we made our way off the plane, through passport control, and waited for our luggage to arrive, the constant pinging of her phone had even me ready to snap.
I never claimed to be a good tired person.
Thankfully, Rhea got there before me.
“At least put the bloody thing on mute if you’re going to have it glued to your hand for the rest of our journey home.”
“Thank you,” I said under my breath.
In a very un-Bailey-like manner, she quickly looked up and said, “Oh, sorry.” Then cleared her throat and pushed her phone into her pants pocket, leaving Rhea and me to stare at each other in confusion.
“What? No snarky comeback?” Rhea asked.
“Nope,” Bailey said, popping the ‘p’, looking very smug with herself.
Rhea turned my way again. “No prizes for guessing which one of us had the best sleep on that plane, huh?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t me.” I reached for my suitcase to drag it off the carousel and brought it down to the floor, pulling up the handle and pushing it forward the moment Rhea and Bailey had grabbed theirs, too.
Bailey led the way as we walked through the ‘Nothing to Declare’ doors, her grin practically screwed on whenever she glanced back at us trailing behind her.
“What’s gotten into her?” I asked Rhea quietly.
“Whatever it is, I want some.”
“No kidding,” I chuckled as we made our way into the arrivals section of the airport.
A stream of people stood behind the feeble barriers, some with flowers as they waited for their loved ones, others holding signs with random names on, no doubt collecting their passengers to take them home.
Bailey practically skipped alongside them, and I thought I saw Rhea falter in her steps, but then I realised how tired I felt and that it was probably the hallucinations kicking in…
Until I looked up.
And I saw him standing there.
Henry.
Holding a small bouquet of bright pink flowers in one hand and a sign in the other that read: My Smart Arse.
I froze, unable to move, releasing the suitcase I’d been pushing forward, not caring as it sailed away from where I stood, almost certain my heart had stopped beating.
Had the hallucinations taken on a whole new level of sadistic behaviour… or was this real?
“What… Henry?” I whispered, not even sure if I made a sound.
“Hey, angel eyes,” he croaked out, standing there all strong and handsome like a daydream, his voice raspier than it had been back in Mykonos.
That’s when I noticed the other changes too.
The slight paleness to his tanned skin. The huge, white tape poking out from under his shaggy hairline. The mussed-up waves atop of his head. His sunken eyes.
“Oh, my God.” I didn’t think as I charged forward and leaned over the fabric barrier separating us to reach for him. I rose up on my toes and gently placed my hands on his cheeks, searching every part of his face. “What’s happened? Why are you hurt?”
That smirk of his came to life. “Had a little car crash on my way home from the airport. No big deal.”
My blood ran cold at the very thought of it. “Henry! Are you joking?”
“I know comedy isn’t my strong suit, but even I can tell better jokes than that.”
I searched every inch of his face, noticing the split lip the slight swelling around one eye now. “Why aren’t you in hospital ?”
“I figured you were the best medicine for my bruised ego right now.”
“Me?”
“You.” His lazy smile almost made me lose focus and give in to him.
Almost.
“No, Henry. You’re hurt. You...” My attention rose to the white plaster bandage poking out from his hairline. “Are you okay?”
“I am now you’re here.”
“Stop saying sweet things to distract me from being worried about you.”
“I can’t help it if my honesty makes you blush.” His smile grew, and I finally focused on those eyes I never thought I’d see again.
A moment passed between us, so golden and divine, the realisation of us being together again made my body relax as I held onto him.
“There you are,” he said quietly.
“How are you here? How did you know we’d been diverted to Heathrow?”
“You can thank Andy and Bailey for that one. Thank God for flight delays, too, huh? This would have been a lot less romantic if I’d had to find out your address and knock on your front door.”
“I’d have taken you any way I could have you.”
I searched those dark pools of heaven I adored so much, and all the memories of us together came flooding back, reminding me of how right it felt to be this close to him. How much his eyes felt like home to me already.
My smile must have shown it, too.
Without a care in the world, Henry dropped the flowers and the sign by his feet, wrapped his strong arms around me until his hands landed on the small of my back, and he squeezed my body the way only he could, claiming yet worshipping it with one touch.
“Want to hear something else that will blow your mind?”
“Something bigger than the fact you’ve managed to almost kill yourself since leaving me yesterday?”
“Way bigger than that.”
“Interesting. Go on…”
“I can’t let you go, Phoebe, and I don’t want to. The only thing I do want is you, and not just in Mykonos. Wherever you are, wherever you go, I want to be there.”
“You want… more?”
“I want everything .” Henry dropped his forehead to mine with a tenderness that took my breath away.
“Since losing Mum and Dad, everyone else has just let me lock myself away and be angry. Not you, though. You fought back, Phoebe, and it lit a fire in me I’m afraid to put out.
So, yeah, I want everything, and I want it with you. ”
Emotion rose in my throat like a tsunami, threatening to make me bawl like a baby right there in front of him. In front of everyone, friends and strangers alike.
“But I live so far away from you, and?—”
“It’s three and a half hours from my home to yours. I’ve already checked.”
“That’s a lot of time to spend travelling back and forth just for me.”
“Just for you?” He smirked that smirk again. “You have no idea what you do to me, do you?”
“I…” didn’t know what to say to that, but my body responded, my arms curling tighter around him.
“I’d drive ten, twelve, fifteen hours to see you every day if I had to, or haven’t you figured it out yet? That grumpy arsehole you stumbled into that day would now travel the world if it meant he got to see you again and again and again and again at the end of it.”
Reed Easton could never.
It all felt too good to be true.
The bow on our story tied too perfectly for it to feel real.
“It only has to make sense to us, Phoebe. Remember that,” he said softly.
“And if my life is too much for you?”
“There isn’t a single thing you could conjure up that’s going to get in the way of me loving you.”
I froze in his grip once more, the hitch of surprise in my intake of breath unmissable.
Loving…
Pulling back hurt to do so, but I had to see those eyes of his clearly, and my lips parted when I realised all that stared back at me was a look of contentment and happiness I’d not seen in Henry in all the hours we’d spent tangled up together under the Greek moonlight.
His unwavering certainty floored me, making me wonder if I’d been the one to suffer a head injury recently.
His hands flexed around my body, and he pulled my hips flush against his, the flimsy, fabric barrier the only thing between us and forever now.
“You know I do, right?” he said in that intimate voice I knew in my heart he reserved only for me. “It may have been infatuation that led me to you so quickly, but it’s loving you that’s making me stay.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I didn’t care who saw them as my smile broke free, and the first tears spilled down my cheeks. “When did you get so good at this?”
“About fourteen days ago.” He smiled again, stealing my breath. “Maybe ten. Rumour has it I was a bit of an arse for the first four.”
“Well, you’re more than making up for it now,” I said with a nervous laugh that had me leaning forward to finally kiss him with a love I hadn’t quite managed to say out loud yet, but one I knew he felt with every sweep of my tongue, every flex of my fingers against his neck, and every soft breath and moan I shared with him.
I kissed my enemy in paradise who had become my forever in reality, and I thanked every bad thing, every heartache, and every misfortune that had put me on that plane and led to meeting his man who had turned my life upside down for the better without even trying.