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I walked over to my mirror and took a look at my reflection. My eyes skimmed over the burns that a few months ago had been the center of my attention, but I didn’t fixate on them. I took in my sky blue dress instead and the ways that it made it look even deeper. I looked good and that was enough for me to walk quickly out of my room, so that I could meet James for our dinner.
He was waiting for me in the hallway. I smiled when I looked over and saw that he was holding a single red rose in his hand. “This is for you,” he said as he passed it to me.
I lifted it to my nose so that I could smell its sweetness, and I looked back at him to see him laughing. “What?” I asked him, confused.
He reached over and wiped something off of the end of my nose. “Pollen,” he explained when I frowned at him.
“Oh,” I said quickly. “You look amazing,” I said as I took in the crisp suit that he was wearing and the way it played against his broad shoulders and toned arms.
“Thanks. You don’t look bad yourself,” he said with a grin as he took my arm in his and walked me down the stairs.
“How come we’ve had to dress up all fancy?” I asked him when we reached the bottom and he walked ahead so that he could open the door for me.
“Oh, miss, you look beautiful,” the Spanish housemaid said to me as she walked over with her hands cupping her smiling face.
“Thank you,” I said as I smiled warmly at her.
“She looks beautiful, no?” the maid said as she turned to James, who smiled and nodded.
“That she does,” he agreed.
“You make sure you look after our little miss,” the maid warned him, and James laughed at her, before shrinking a little under her stare. “This is not a joke, sir; she’s a special girl is this one. You make sure you treat her like that.”
“I can assure you that you’re not the only one who sees that,” James said smoothly as he pulled open the door for me to walk out of.
“I’ll see you later,” I said as I turned back to the maid, and then I walked out into the crisp evening air.
James ushered me towards a black car and opened the back door for me. I stepped in slowly, so that I could be sure that I didn’t mark my dress and then he closed the door behind me. He got in the other side and before I’d had a chance to fasten my seatbelt, the driver had taken off down the driveway.
We drove in silence for a little while before I turned to James with curious eyes. “Where are we going?” I asked him, because I was dying to know.
“That’s a secret,” he said with smile.
I scowled at him playfully as I watched the city skyline starting to fade behind us. We stopped eventually when the car had taken a turn off of the main road and the world had gone almost black around us.
“Where are we?” I asked James as I stepped out of the car and shivered as the cold wind attacked my bare skin.
“Just wait for two more minutes,” he said as he took my hand and started to lead me down a slope that I would have taken quickly in flat shoes, but heels were another situation all together.
“You need to step up here,” James said, as he held me steady and I took the steps in the pitch blackness that was all around. “Okay, you wait here,” he said, and I heard a door opening and then a switch being flicked.
Blinding light filled my vision and, for a moment, I was sure that I’d gone blind with it. The light calmed down, though, and then I stepped back when I realized I was standing in front of a massive house that was right on the beach front. “What are we doing here?” I asked him as I took in the white-washed panels and huge lobby that the open doors were revealing.
“It’s ours,” James said with a grin.
I shook my head. I had to have heard him wrong. “What do you mean?” I asked him, because what he’d said didn’t make any sense and I was sure that I couldn’t have heard him correctly.
“I bought it this morning. My dad gave me some money a while ago to invest. He said I could keep everything I earned from it, and I’ve earned a lot. I mean, I’ve earned enough to skip the millionaire club completely,” James said with wildly excited eyes that I knew were telling the truth. “I thought you’d like a nice house by the beach, but if you would prefer, we could look elsewhere,” he said with a shrug, as though it was nothing.
“Are you being serious?” I asked him, because it sounded crazy.
“Deadly,” James said.
“I love it,” I said, because I did and nothing else would come close to how I was feeling. “I can’t believe you’ve bought us a house,” I said as I looked around at the place that I would soon be calling home.
“I’d do anything for you, Tilly. I want to build a life with you and that all starts with us having a home,” James said smoothly as he pulled me into his embrace.
“I love you,” I whispered into his chest as I listened to the gentle sound of the rolling waves and closed my eyes.
THE END
