She was all fingers and thumbs, so Ari helped her, and then it was open and something fell into her hand. It was the stunning butterfly necklace she’d seen all those weeks ago and it glinted up at her now. She felt her eyes film over with tears. Ari took it and placed it tenderly around her neck, making tingles run up and down her spine. He tipped her chin up again, forcing her gaze to meet his. His eyes blazed into hers.
‘So will you, Lucy Proctor—marry me? Please? Because I cannot imagine going forward from this day or this place without you by my side.’
Emotion was cracking open inside Lucy, and it was the most gloriously painful thing she’d ever felt in her life.
‘I never wanted to feel this much.’
Ari’s mouth quirked. ‘It’s painful, isn’t it?’
It was the sudden complicit feeling of mutual emotion and how similar they really were in their hearts that made Lucy’s eyes water in earnest. Her mouth wobbled precariously. ‘I thought I’d settle for someone boring—someone who wouldn’t make me face up to myself, to the desires I kept hidden. But you made me believe I had nothing to be scared of…I love you, Ari. I fell for you the day you gave that stupidly expensive necklace to two strangers in the street. And it was when you brought me here that I knew I’d fallen in love with you. And, yes, I’ll marry you.’
Lucy could feel the tremor in his hands as they framed her face.
‘Thank God,’ he said huskily, and bent his head to seal their vow with barely restrained passion.
When they broke apart she could still feel his hands trembling, and his face had such an endearing mix of expressions—pure Ari arrogance and then something she’d never seen before, sheer childlike joy—that she couldn’t help smiling at him.
He returned her gaze, and for just a moment Lucy caught a glimpse of something achingly vulnerable cross his face before he said haltingly, ‘That night I was sitting outside your flat, apart from lurid fantasies featuring a certain tight skirt, I found myself imagining you pregnant…having a baby…our baby. I suddenly wanted a family. And not just for an heir…but to create something—a secure foundation. It scared me to death, and it’s the only thing that’s held me back from coming for you sooner.’ He quirked an unsteady smile. ‘That and the fact that you might reject me. But the thing is…I’ve no idea how you feel about kids…’
Lucy looked up at him and wondered how her heart hadn’t exploded into tiny pieces. ‘Funny you should mention that…’
In more or less exactly the same spot where Ari had proposed to her three years before, Lucy shaded her eyes and looked down to the private beach, where her husba
nd was holding their son high in the air before dunking him back in the glittering sea. The childish shrieks of delight made her smile and she sat down, rearranging the tiny baby in her arms so that she could feed her from the other breast.
‘You’re very happy, darling, aren’t you?’
Lucy looked over to her mother, who was sitting in a wheelchair in the shade on the other side of the table, and smiled. ‘Yes, Mum…I am.’ Her mother looked away again, out to sea, with an enigmatic smile of her own.
Maxine had these moments of lucidity every now and then, ever since Lucy and Ari had moved her here to the refurbished villa on Paros permanently, with a full-time nursing staff to take care of her every need. Her Alzheimer’s hadn’t improved, but it seemed to have slowed its development, and sometimes when Lucy looked at her she knew her mother was imagining herself to be in this beautiful place being cared for by one of her besotted suitors.
Lucy had insisted on Ari keeping his mother’s house nearby exactly as it was, and sometimes they went back for a night on their own, and revelled in their private space that no one knew about.
Just then a dripping wet Ari appeared, holding an exuberant Cosmo steadily on his shoulders. He smiled widely, his eyes flashing with secret promise and something much deeper and more enduring—love. Lucy couldn’t remember when she’d once wondered what he’d look like if he smiled. She smiled back, for life was good.