“There were no protestations earlier,” he said, sweeping away her riot of curls so he could kiss the back of her neck. “And my beard was in much more sensitive places. Perhaps you were distracted with my ton—”
“Evan!” she yelled as she pulled a pillow and flung it in his direction. Within moments they were wrestling in the bed, tangled in crumpled sheets.
He finally lay on his back with her head on his chest, and for a long while they were silent, contemplative in the sanctuary of their bed.
“Your father is gone, then,” Luz asked some time later.
Evan nodded, his eyes looking into the distance.
“He’s signed everything over to us and recognized Apollo as the heir apparent.”
“Do you believe he’ll stay away?”
He shrugged with that faraway look still on his face. “There is nothing left for him here. Everyone knows what he did. They might pretend, for the sake of maintaining appearances, but with Charlotte gone...”
His voice trailed off, and she saw that there was something he wasn’t saying.
“What is it?”
Evan shook his head and held her tighter.
“It seems that the one thing he cared about was Charlotte.” He sounded utterly flummoxed.
“Do you think he’ll try to get her back?”
He furrowed his brows, considering her question, and when he answered she was surprised by his certainty. “No, I don’t think he could live with the knowledge that everyone is laughing at him. My father is much too fragile.”
“I hope she finds happiness,” Luz said after a long silence, and Evan made an affirmative noise in response, then tightened his arms around her.
She felt so safe in his arms. Believed fiercely in what they’d started together.
“I don’t deserve you, but I will never, ever let you go.”
“You most certainly do deserve me,” she protested. “I take offense to the suggestion that the man I love is nothing other than absolutely perfect.”
“And most handsome,” he added, making her grin.
“Very dashing,” Luz added, burrowing into him.
“Aggressively virile,” he muttered as he nuzzled her neck, making her giggle. “And with biggest co—”
“That’s quite enough,” she cried through a bout of laughter.
“Apollo has asked me to help him with the holdings,” he told her after they’d quieted down. “Managing them. He intends to divide his time between here and London.”
“What about the Braeburn?”
“I plan to ask Raghav if he wants to buy half of the shares. I’ve been wanting to do so for years, but I didn’t like the idea of him being liable if my father got up to any of his tricks with it,” he explained. Impossibly, she felt even a bit more in love with him.
“How do you feel about Apollo’s offer?”
“I want to do it,” he said at length. “We could do a lot of good, but mostly I want to make a life with you.” Her heart melted, ice under the searing sun of his love.
“That you already have,” she said with all the strength she could put into that truth.
“It’s all I want. You and me and Clarita, in this house. Spending Christmas at the Braeburn. Sailing to go see that island of yours.”
“You want to go to Santo Domingo?” she asked, surprised.
