I stilled, frozen in place. “Oh.”
I’d misunderstood.
I’d been so concerned with showing him how much I still cared, proving my devotion, that I hadn’t stopped to worry if he felt the same way. I’d never questioned if it all had been too much for him. If I’d been too much.
I released my hold, rocking the chair back, ready to flee the room, flee him, flee the boy who no longer loved me.
“I can’t,” he repeated, licking his lips. “I can’t.”
“I understand,” I murmured, choking back tears.
I needed to get away from him. I couldn’t bear for him to hear me cry.
He sighed. “It just…It makes me feel so weak.”
I paused my retreat, looking over my shoulder. “What does?”
“I should let you go, I know that. It’s the proper thing to do. The right thing to do.” Alex swallowed. “But I can’t.”
“You can’t?” I echoed softly.
He shook his head. “I can’t imagine my life without you, Verity. Or…I could, but I don’t want to. I don’t want you to go. I don’t wanted to be apart and I…” His voice cracked.
“You love me?” I asked, returning to the bed.
“I do.”
“And you still want to marry me?”
“Arina help me, I do.”
He reached for my hand and pressed a kiss softly onto my palm. In my mind’s eye, I saw him as the boy I’d first met upon my arrival at Chauntilalie, sitting outside the manor, waiting for me with sparkling eyes, a dazzling grin.
I remembered the mornings spent tracing out those eyes, that grin, over and over, filling pages.
The picnics by the lake, his laughter bright in the air.
The look of hope on his face as he asked me to marry him.
The way we’d held on to each other before everything had fallen apart.
The way I wanted to keep holding on to him now.
“Good,” I murmured. “Because I can’t think of anything I want more than you.”
“You do?” he whispered in disbelief.
“I do.” I brought his hand to my lips, mimicking his gesture, sealing my words with a fervent promise.
He let out a sigh, his fingers wrapping round mine in a tangled knot, impossible to break. “I do.”
Every bell in Bloem rang out as I made my way down the flower-strewn aisle to marry Alexander Laurent.
I was pushed there in a wicker wheelchair by Camille, smiling proudly. She’d decorated it with rock-roses and gardenias in the softest shades of pink we could find.
The healers had wanted us to wait, had begged and pleaded for us to hold off for a few weeks, but as Alex once said to me: when you know you’ve found your love, you act on it. Life is unpredictable, so you need to seize hold of what you love and cherish every moment together.
So just three days after the attack, we wed.
