Instead, the tears left in her eyes spilled over and she swiped at them quickly, never losing her smile. “I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I love you, Jag. More than even planes, trains and automobiles.”
He closed his eyes and drew in a long, deep breath, pressing his forehead to hers, letting the warmth and completion of her words roll over and dig into him. “Thank you for loving me, Rita. I am sorry for running from you and trying to control you. Love had been absent in my life so long that I feared both its return and then the risk of its loss again. I love you, Rita. More than life itself.”
Beaming like sun, her tears flowing freely, Jag had the strangest thought that she might sprout a rainbow.
It would be only fitting. A storm had passed, after all.
“You’re going to be an amazing king,” she said.
A half smile on his face, he said to her, “And you will be my queen.”
EPILOGUE
APPROXIMATELYTWOMONTHSLATER,hovering around twenty-six weeks pregnant with twins, Rita stepped onto the long red aisle, but the phenomenal dress that Jameel had created for her did a remarkable job of flattering her bump.
Fitted at the neck and chest, with a high lace collar above a sheer white bodice and capelet-inspired sleeves, the skirt was full and voluminous and in combination with its illusion Empire waistline, looking direct from the front, it didn’t even look like she was expecting at all. Even from the side, one might be inclined to attribute the width of the skirt to the layers of tulle and fairy-tale-princess nature of the dress.
Rita could think of nothing better for the fairy-tale ending of her and Jag’s story, which, it turned out, had been a love story after all.
As they celebrated their Western-style wedding, which was to be the first of many hosted events to make up for the rushed and administerial nature of their actual wedding, Rita reveled in the joy that she had gotten everything she had ever wanted.
She had a loving partner, a family on the way, and now, just six months after the exhibition, she had even begun to change the way the world drove.
Beginning with Hayat, she had been a part of overseeing the beginning of their transition to all electric transport, and she had messages from two American and two Japanese car companies to discuss her first-ever car design that could be mass-produced waiting for her to respond to after she and Jag enjoyed their first real honeymoon.
Like their celebratory events, he had assured her that their upcoming luxury yachting trip would be just the first of many romantic getaways they would share. Each had gone too long in their lives without the comfort and warmth of regular affection and celebration, and each was committed to making it up to the other.
They were a family, full of love and laughter, but also one equipped to handle disagreement and challenge. They had faced it all and come through the other side more dedicated to each other than they had begun, and it didn’t get much better than that.
Or rather, it seemed it continually got better.
They had been lucky enough to find the right partners, the kinds of people who would poke and prod and encourage until evolution occurred.
Rita was only reminded of the truth of that as she smiled at her father before looping her arm through his.
That her father would be involved in any wedding of hers was a miracle in itself. That Jag had coordinated their reconciliation in time for the televised ceremony, the kind of sweet detail she would always love him for.
He was a master at planning, though perhaps still a bit high-handed about it all, as he hadn’t told her what was going on through the process, simply shoved her into a room where her father already stood. In this instance, however, she did not mind. He made her brave and forced her to go after her heart’s desires.
She could not lie and say it had been easy, but when they’d passed the reticence to speak and resentment and defensiveness, Rita, now practiced in the art of speaking up for herself when she needed to, was finally able to say the thing she had needed to say all those years ago but not known she had the right to.
“I’m so sorry for what I did, Papa,” she started with. “I should have never lied to you. But what you did was wrong, too, and you owe me an apology. A parent shouldn’t stand in the way of their children’s dreams, happiness or future. It took me a while to learn it, but now that I am going to be a parent, it is even more clear. You didn’t have to agree with me, but you were supposed to love me, no matter what I did. I deserve that.”
And because everything she had said was true, and because words were insufficient to address everything that had passed between them, her father had merely nodded, tears streaming down his face, and opened his arms.
Smiling through her own tears, Rita had gone into them. And after they’d hugged, they stepped back from each other to look at how the years had changed them.
Her father had looked at her enormous belly and a thousand emotions flashed across his face. Settling on a soft smile, he said, “You got pretty fat.”
And Rita had snorted and said, “Your hair turned gray.”
With a chuckle, her father reached a hand to pat the salt and pepper of his hair. “A lot of time has passed. Too much. I’m so sorry, my sweet Amrita. I was a fool, but I have never stopped being proud of you. You did everything you promised to do, my girl.”
And it had been enough to get to this point, her father walking her down the aisle in a beautiful dress to once again marry the man she loved, this time in the presence of her mother and father, her sister, and her uncles, and the family she was growing and would protect with her life.
It was a far cry from a judge and a jumpsuit.
Eleven weeks later