Epilogue
PRIMROSE
Moonlight silvers the vineyard as Luc leads me between the rows, one hand holding mine, the other wrapped around the neck of a bottle of champagne.
Ahead, beneath an arbor overflowing with the last of the summer bougainvillea, stands an enormous wooden vat filled with the last of the late-harvest grapes.
The plan is, tomorrow, after we get married in the vineyard, in sight of our family and friends, we’ll invite guests to help us make a wedding vintage by mashing the grapes at our very own la vendimia.
Bare feet or traditional tamper, all are invited to join.
“Aren’t we supposed to spend tonight apart?” I ask, not really meaning it. We haven’t spent a night apart in the thirteen months we’ve been together. Ten months of those living together, as a family, in his Kensington mansion, or holidaying here on the Mallorcan estate, in Paris, and other places.
“That’s just an English superstition.”
He sets down the bottle on an upturned barrel. A wicker picnic basket stands on another, and when I lift the lid, I find cheese, and grapes, purple-black and fragrant, and fresh bread. So that’s why we’re here—a late-night picnic under the stars.
“Well, I’m English,” I reason with just a touch of taunt.
“And we are in Mallorca—”
“Where I’m fairly certain brides don’t meet their betrothed at,”—I glance at my watch and receive a tiny flare of pleasure— eleven at night for…” I allow my words to trail off, hoping Luc will fill in the blanks. But he just smiles enigmatically.
I rub my thumb over my dark leather watch strap, the pleasure coming not from the watch itself, but the care and thought that went into the gifting.
The vintage Cartier Tank Louis is dainty, elegant, and unassuming, making it suitable to wear at work.
More than that, my beloved had it engraved with the words:
à toutes les heures qui nous restent. For all the hours still left to us.
I startle a little as Luc suddenly drops to his heels, his fingers warm enveloping my ankle. “So we begin a new tradition.” He stares up at me, his eyes burning in the ambient light.
“I’m not sure getting your wife naked is a thoroughly original tradition.”
“The power of suggestion, mon c?ur?” He presses his lips to my stomach, and I close my eyes because, swoon!
“Wait. I’m not the one who suggested—”
“I didn’t say anything about getting naked.”
But he doesn’t need to. Get me naked, that is.
Like most parents, we’re well-versed in grabbing those moments when we can.
Fully clothed. But it’s not just that we’re trying not to traumatize Sylvie, as there’s also Emmy to consider.
Some days it’s like we can’t get a little alone time between Luc’s work schedule and my shift pattern, and the fact that my family members keep finding themselves “just passing”.
It’s the wine, I’m sure. Luc does keep an amazing cellar.
But I love having Emmy around, and when I’m home, it’s a real girl’s house.
Sylvie thinks it’s the best thing ever and even Felix enjoys hanging with us.
Being at boarding school has mellowed him out some, and when he brings friends to stay in the holidays, they think it’s amazingly cool that I’m a doctor.
The questions they ask are so funny. I’m pretty sure they think I work somewhere exciting, like the set of the TV show, E.R.
Bless them and their deluded little rich-kid brains.
Anyway, back to Luc as his attention transfers to my foot when he unbuckles my sandal.
“Not getting me naked, huh?”
“Maybe I’ve developed a foot fetish.”
“Nothing would surprise me.” As he stands, he trails he slowly trails his thumb up the inside of my leg. My skin reacts to the caress like an electric shock. “What are you wearing under this, anyway?”
“None of your business.” I twist away as his hand skims under my thigh skimming summer dress.
“Tease,” he whispers as he presses a soft kiss against my neck, the prickle of his beard another delicious level of pleasure.
I inhale a soft gasp as his hand cups over my panties at the apex.
“You’re so hot.” I close my eyes as he presses the meat of his palm against me, my insides tightening as he nestles a long finger right there.
“And you’re bad,” I groan as his hand tightens.
“My young wife,” he says huskily. “How I struggle to keep up with her.”
“No struggle here,” I say as I press my hand over the bulge in his shorts. “You’re half up already.”
His lips find mine, his kiss a sign of his adoration. His love. Of all the ways Luc has learned to say I love you, this is my favorite. I could kiss him all day long.
But he shows his love in many forms. It’s in the way he murmurs sweet nothings in French against my skin.
It’s in English when he calls me between his meetings, and flights, and oceans, just to check in.
He loves me with flowers and badly hidden notes.
With coffee placed on my nightstand before an early shift and in the bedroom light he won’t dim until I’m safely home.
In crowded rooms, his love is the hand he rests at the small of my back and in the way his lips press my cheek like he can’t resist.
He loves me when he listens, and when he makes me laugh. He loves me when we argue, and when we passionately make up. His love is in the way he shifts in his sleep to find me, and in his eyes seeking mine in every room he walks into.
And now, as he kisses me beneath an indigo Mallorcan sky, with the vines stretching around us in a land we’ve come to love together, the place where tomorrow we’ll come together, I know love isn’t one grand declaration.
It is a thousand small promises, made and kept. It is a life. It is a home—a home that once belonged to another, a woman we’ll honor by raising her children together.
His mouth travels higher, heated breath and bare brushes of his lips igniting my skin. Making my heart beat a tango between us. Then he’s walking backwards, setting my bare feet on the wooden steps.
He doesn’t quite smile as he reaches behind him, pulling his T-shirt off between his shoulder blades.
“Slow down, lover,” I whisper, sliding my finger down between his pecs.
He says nothing as he abandons his T-shirt to the floor.
“I see a new revenue stream in the making.”
“Oh?”
“Bachelorette parties with topless wine makers.”
“If you say Alejandro, you will regret it.”
“Ale who?” I half whisper, half laugh.
“Just as I thought.”
I assumed he’d lifted me to the step to help with our height difference. But not, it would seem, as he steps up next to me. Then steps into the vat.
“I thought this was tomorrow’s plan.”
“Primevère.” He holds out his hand, and well, I climb in after him.
Grapes burst beneath my feet with soft, almost indecent sighs. Cool and yielding, it feels strange, and I give a little squeal as I almost fall.
“Come here.” Luc draws me into his arms as we begin the slow, ancient rhythm of la vendimia. Crush, turn, step. We hold hands as the juice stains our skin crimson, and the air fills with the scents of ripe fruit and warm earth.
“What?” I demand, catching Luc watching me. Watching me as though I’m already wearing white.
“You make me happy.”
“This vintage will be terrible,” I whisper, ducking my head.
“Non,” he says, sounding so impossibly French.
“I have no idea what we’re doing.”
“I know precisely,” he says as his arm circles my waist. He kisses me, and I almost slip again.
“Oops, I’m falling for you.”
“I will always catch you.” We move together until our laughter softens and the motion between us becomes almost a dance, something slow and deliberate.
As the grapes slip beneath our feet, Luc’s strong body and his hold steady us both as Casa Alegría, glows like a beacon in the darkness, every terrace and window waiting for tomorrow.
“This vintage will be ours.” He turns me in his arms and pulls my dress over my head before his mouth finds mine again. “We’ll open it alone.”
“Are you suggesting we have sex in this vat—and then make wine out of it?”
He laughs, the sound drifting out into the night. But he doesn’t deny it.
“Won’t that make it undrinkable?” My nose scrunches along with the question.
“Why?”
“Because, you know… bodily fluids.” I risk my nose touching the back of my skull.
“From a technical standpoint,” he whispers, sliding my hair from my face, “the wine’s acidic nature, the sulfur and alcohol content will negate any pathogens.”
“Science is so sexy,” I say, grabbing his butt. And almost slipping again. “I think grape vat sex might be like shower sex. Good only in theory, unless you’re wearing a helmet and knee pads.”
“For the record, I wasn’t planning on us rolling around in the vat. Too many seeds and stalks.” He dips then brings a finger between us, drawing the dark grape juice over my heart. “I was thinking that…” His eyes drift to the vat’s edge and, oh, I know what he’s thinking.
He’s going to bend me over the edge of and bang the daylights out of me.
And then make wine.
“What if it’s awful?”
He barks out a laugh.
“I mean the wine!”
“We’ll drink it anyway.”
“You won’t stomach a mediocre wine. I can’t see you pretending it’s good.”
“Non.” His gaze holds mine, dark and unwavering. “We will drink it and remember perfection was never the point.”
I kiss him then, tasting grapes and my forever.