by Linde, K. A.
He tilted his head to the side at my long rant. “Are you done?”
I deflated at his words. “I don’t know. Are you still mad? Because I can keep going.”
“I’m not mad,” he said gently.
I bit my lip. “No?”
“I was never mad.”
My look was incredulous. “You flew across the world to get away from me, but you…weren’t mad?”
“Okay, fine. I was a little mad. But mostly disappointed.”
“Oh, ouch,” I whispered.
Finally, a small smile broke through his features. “But I knew you were different the moment I saw you sitting there in that hippie clothing, writing furiously on your computer.”
“You…you did?”
He nodded.
“And you just…let me rant and rave at you for the last ten minutes anyway?”
He grinned fully. “I had to be sure.”
“Penn, I’m so sorry,” I breathed.
He held up his hand. “Look, I take partial responsibility for this whole thing. I created you after all. I made you what you are. Let loose that monster within and brought you into the spotlight on the Upper East Side. It was my fault.”
“No, no, no, it was my fault,” I insisted. “I asked you to help. Begged you to help me survive them.”
“I know, but I saw that you were messed up after what Katherine and Lewis did. I could have refused. I could have forced you to talk to me about it more. Gotten therapy or something. But I was so desperate to be with you that I didn’t care how I got you. I should have cared.”
I sighed at his words. We’d both been desperate, just for different things. And by the time we’d both wanted each other, it was too late.
“Either way,” he continued, “I shouldn’t have run away. That wasn’t fair to you.”
“You had every right to walk away after what I did,” I told him. “Even if I hated it.”
“No, I had no right. I told you that I’d be at your side, that I’d never leave, and then I left. I told you from the beginning that you would see a side of me that you might not like. But I didn’t account for what it could all do for you. That’s not fair to you. I don’t want either of us to run away every time something goes wrong.”
“I know, but…I needed the time anyway. So, you were right after all.”
“Just because you came out on the other side of it all on your own doesn’t mean that I want you to think that I’m going to fly across the world to get away from you. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be my father,” he said crisply. “Make you second-guess who I am and what you mean to me.”
My heart fluttered at the words. He wasn’t gone. I just needed to reach out and take him.
“I know what you mean to me,” I said, taking a step toward him, “what you’ve always meant to me, but I’ve been too stubborn to admit it.”
“And what is that?” he asked, meeting me for the next step.
“Everything. You mean everything to me.”
His eyes searched mine. Our blues clashing in the space. My heart racing, hoping against all hope that we could fix this between us.
“Hmm,” he said, glancing away from me. “You know that I was at this conference all week, debating philosophical theory and presenting papers.”
I swallowed. “Yes. You’ve told me what philosophy conferences are like.”
“There’s this colleague of mine from Stanford who writes very forward-thinking papers. She is incredibly well respected and favorably published in some of the best journals. Her dissertation became a seminal book in the field.”
I waited. Wondering where this was going. Stuck on the one word that didn’t seem to fit. She. There weren’t many female philosophy professors.
“Many of my colleagues think that she’s incredibly attractive.”
I held my breath at his words.
“Many think that we’re already attached.”
My stomach rolled.
“In fact, earlier this afternoon, before I received your package, she asked me out for drinks.”
“Oh,” I peeped. “I see.”
He tilted my chin up to look at him. “I don’t think that you do. The thought of her made my stomach turn. I felt physically sick at the idea of us going to get drinks. All I could think was that that wasn’t me anymore. That the only woman in my life that I care about is you. And you weren’t here. And I’d seriously fucked it all up. And how I needed to make this all right.”
Tears welled in my eyes at his words. “I love you so much.”
He withdrew the lock from his pants pocket and slid it into my hand. “I love you, too.”
I threw my arms around his neck and buried my head into his chest. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling as relief hit me like a flood. It definitely didn’t help that I hadn’t slept in almost a full day. But this was just…beyond what I could have hoped for from him.
“I’m so sorry,” I blubbered.
“Shh,” he whispered, stroking my hair. “We’ll work it out together. Just like we should have.”
I nodded and squeezed him tighter. “I couldn’t lose you.”
“You weren’t in danger of losing me, love.”
“It felt like it.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, shut up. Don’t be sorry. This is my fault.”
“We’ve both been idiots.”
I pulled back and wiped at my eyes. “We have. I should have chosen you all those years ago and never let you slip out of my life.”
“Then choose me now,” he said, dragging my lips hard against his.
“I choose you,” I breathed.
“Marry me,” he breathed back.
I jerked back in surprise and laughed. “One day, Penn Kensington. One day, I will.”
“How about now?” he teased.
“Right now?” I said, going along with his joke. “I don’t think we have a ceremony waiting for us.”
“Natalie, I don’t want to live another second in a world where you think I don’t want this,” he told me evenly. “Unless you don’t want this.”
“I want this,” I assured him.
“Then marry me.”
I stopped laughing and really looked at him. “Wait…you’re serious?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Yes.”
“But we…we just had this huge argument and…you don’t mean it. And I mean…there’s no ring. Or…or anything,” I whispered, suddenly on uncertain ground.
“Who said there was no ring?”
Then he removed a small blue box from the inside of his jacket pocket. My hands flew to my mouth as he got down on one knee right there in front of the Louvre, in our park, by our bench, where it’d all started. He opened the box to reveal a perfectly haloed circle-cut diamond on a simple band.
“Natalie, eight years ago, this all started on a park bench in Paris. Will you make me the happiest man alive and start our next journey together here, too?”
“Oh my god,” I gasped as tears flooded my vision again. “Yes!”
He slipped the diamond on my finger and then picked me up into his arms and twirled me in a circle as Paris blurred all around us.
Chapter 41
Natalie
Three days later, I stood in a garden in front of the Eiffel Tower, dressed in white. My feet were bare. My hair was free, blowing easily in the breeze off the Seine. I held a bouquet of wildflowers that I’d picked up from a local market along the way. The crown necklace at my throat. And Penn waited for me at the end of the small walk in a gray suit.
My heart beat a rhythmic drum inside my chest. Excitement and disbelief. Three days didn’t seem like long enough to arrange all of this, but we’d done it. Officially, our elopement wasn’t legally binding until we signed paperwork back home, but all that really mattered to me was the here and now. Symbolic or legal didn’t matter because, soon, I would be his.
I didn’t falter as I continued the remaining feet
to stand before Penn and the officiant.
Penn’s eyes lit up, and he seemed unable to help himself. He pulled me close and briefly kissed my lips. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I breathed with a smile.
I’d found the flowy bohemian dress tucked away inside the very first bridal shop I looked into. When it had fit—the straps perfectly molding to me, the soft lace wrapping around my waist like a cinch, and the material falling like a curtain to my feet—I had known it had been waiting for me all along.
Like fate.
Like us.
I reached forward and clasped hands with Penn as the officiant began the ceremony. I barely heard the words. My attention was trained on Penn. The look in his beautiful blue eyes as they stared down at me with all the love in his heart. Matching the expression I knew was on my face. I didn’t see the crowd gathering on the public walkways to witness our little ceremony. Or hear the sounds of the city as our wedding melody.
Just me and Penn. Making a commitment and uniting our love. Binding us together from that moment on. A promise to have a love that endured beyond death.
“Vows aren’t just words but represent the commitment you make with each other in marriage for all the years to come,” the officiant said.
I swallowed and nodded. Penn grinned back.
“Do you, Natalie, take Penn to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”
“I do,” I breathed.
“And do you, Penn, take Natalie…” the officiant began as tears sprang to my eyes, unbidden.
When the officiant finished, Penn confidently said, “I do.”
“Now, for the rings,” he said.
Penn retrieved the rings from his pocket and passed me his. I held it tightly as my hands shook. This was it. This was when it was so real. Holding his wedding band and making this promise between us.
“Now, Natalie, place the ring on Penn’s finger and repeat after me,” the officiant said.
I gulped and then moved forward, slipping the ring onto Penn’s finger. I looked up at him in amazement at how easily the silver band fit him. How it looked like it had always been meant to be there.
“This ring is a token of my love,” I said, repeating the officiant’s vows. My eyes were stuck on Penn’s blue ones. “I marry you with this ring, with all that I have and all that I am.”
Penn’s smile was wide as he slid my ring on my finger, where I planned to keep it for the rest of my life. “This ring is a token of my love,” he repeated. “I marry you with this ring, with all that I have and all that I am.”
“Having witnessed your vows, it’s my honor to now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Penn reached across the divide and scooped me into his arms, pressing our lips together and sealing our union. I melded my body against him, feeling the secure weight of him. This was all I wanted. And I was somehow here against all odds. I’d feared that we were broken, but it turned out that we had come out even stronger on the other side. And I could feel every ounce of that in this one perfect kiss. Just like our first in front of the Eiffel Tower all those years ago.
A cheer rose up from our unwitting crowd. We laughed and broke free, smiling brightly at each other.
“I wasn’t expecting a crowd,” I admitted.
“That’s our life.”
I stood on my tiptoes and pressed another kiss to his lips. “As long as I’m with you, that’s all that matters.”
“You’re mine.”
“I am. And you’re mine.”
He winked at me and then shook hands with the officiant. “Thank you for your time on such short notice.”
“Of course. Congratulations!” the officiant said. “Enjoy your honeymoon in Paris.”
“We will,” Penn said and then swept me up in his arms and carried me to the photographer who took picture after picture of us.
After another hour of pictures, we thanked the photographer as well and headed back to Penn’s flat.
The last three nights, we’d spent in Penn’s hotel room, as planned, before moving everything to his flat. He wanted our first night here to be as husband and wife. And I was jittery and excited to spend the night in his bed where I’d had my first time. In fact, that thought alone felt so surreal.
“Here we are,” Penn said, turning the key and pushing the door open.
I stepped forward, but he stopped me.
“You can’t deprive me of this.”
He swept me up into his arms and carried me across the threshold.
“Oh my god, I love you.”
He didn’t put me down when we got inside. Instead, he kicked the door shut behind him and walked me straight back to the master suite. “I love you, too….wife.”
I circled my arms around his neck and fiddled with his hair. My cheeks were rosy pink from his words and also because I was unbelievably happy. “Wife,” I whispered.
“Oh, yes,” he said, stepping into the room and laying me back against the center of the enormous bed. “My wife. Shall I call you Mrs. Kensington?”
I blushed even deeper. “Oh definitely, husband.”
“Mmm,” he muttered, taking the flowers from my hand and tossing them to the side. “Say it again.”
“Husband,” I breathed.
He assessed me. “How fond are you of that dress?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m considering shredding it to get to you.”
I chuckled. “You don’t think you’re getting this off that quickly, do you?”
“Yes.”
I stepped off the bed. “You owe me a dance.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, and cake, I think, too.”
“How about macarons and champagne?”
“Even better.”
Penn disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a box of macarons and a bottle of Cristal. Music filtered in through the speakers, and I laughed.
“Ray LaMontagne’s ‘You Are the Best Thing,’” I said. “Good choice.”
“He’s a longtime favorite,” Penn said, popping the champagne and pouring each of us a glass. “Plus, he was what we listened to that first night. Felt fitting.”
“It’s perfect.”
He held his glass up, and I raised mine to his.
“To us, my love. For being lucky enough to find the love of our lives and stubborn enough to refuse to let go.”
I chuckled at his words and nodded. “To us.”
I sipped the champagne, stole a passion fruit macaron, and then moved into Penn’s arms as the soft lyrics swept us away. Penn twirled me once in place as it came to a close and then dipped me with all the skill of someone who’d had too many ballroom dance lessons as part of his etiquette training.
Our lips met, and the song bled away into oblivion. His fingers found the bow at the back of my dress and slowly pulled it loose. The straps slipped off of my shoulders next. The long, billowy material caught on my hips once before being tugged down, down, down. Landing in a heap on the floor of the flat.
I reached for his jacket, tugging it off. Then his shirt. The dozen little buttons came out of their holes before he shrugged the material off of his muscular shoulders, letting it follow the jacket. His belt was next. A hiss sound escaped as he tugged it free of the loops. My fingers snapped the button and then the zipper, and then they made a pile with the rest of his clothes.
Until he stood in boxers and I stood in nothing but a white lace thong with the word Mrs. in jewels against my hip bone.
He grinned. “Oh, I like this.”
He walked me backward toward the bed as he fingered the lacy material. The back of my knees hit the bed, and then he was sliding the thong over my hips and removing his boxers. He followed me like a predator as I crawled backward on the bed.
This time, I didn’t mind b
eing his prey.
“I like having firsts with you,” he said, bringing our lips together again.
“You can have all the rest of my firsts.”
“First and last,” he said as he pushed forward into me.
My eyes slid closed, and I arched my back at the sweet feel of him. He was right. He had been my first. And god, I wanted him to be my last. Just like this. My husband. And me, his wife.
His arms came down on either side of me, caging me in, as he began to move. Our chests were pressed together. My legs holding him for dear life. My eyes fluttered open to stare up into his blue orbs that I’d made a vow to only hours earlier. He pressed one more kiss to my lips and picked up his pace.
There was no quick, heated intensity to our coupling. It was pure passionate desire. The knowledge of each other’s body coming easily to us. The sex more than sex. It was making love in the most intimate of ways. Two hearts joining with the two heated bodies. Making a promise with actions as much as words. Completing the agreement we had just made to love one another forever.
And as we came apart, our bodies responded in kind. Reaching new heights. New depths. A new reality. This was more than we’d ever experienced. More than I had ever even known existed.
We lay back, panting and sated. The force of our consummation rippling between us and out into the universe and beyond.
Our fingers laced together. A silent declaration.
“I didn’t know it could be like that,” I whispered.
He tugged me closer. “I never knew any of it before you.”
“This feels like a dream.”
“Then I hope we never wake up.”
