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Not Flynn’s, though. He hadn’t even glanced in her direction.
‘Thea and Zeke’s wasn’t a conventional wedding, by all accounts, but, since nothing else about their relationship was conventional either, it seems only right that it happened this way.’ Flynn looked out over the crowd as he spoke, as if he was meeting every person’s gaze individually. ‘There’s no point pretending you don’t already know the story. Thea and I were, only last month, intending to marry each other—until Zeke drove back into our lives and reminded us all of something important. The power love has to override all plans, make a mockery of any schedule and lead us to places we never thought we’d want to go.’
Helena’s heart clenched at his words, so similar to the speech he’d made on their wedding day. The tightness in her chest only grew when Flynn turned to gaze directly at her as he spoke again.
‘Since my own marriage, I seem to have learnt a lot about love, and about life. Far more than I ever knew before. And that is entirely down to my beautiful wife, Helena.’ He motioned towards her and Helena blushed at the ‘ahh’s from the crowd.
What was he doing? Keeping up the charade? Making it impossible for her to walk away? Or was it just possible that this was something else? Something more?
Helena held her breath and allowed herself a moment to hope.
‘In fact, I needed so much education that my wife wrote me a memo, to help me make sense of it all.’ The crowd laughed as, from a side table nearby, Flynn picked up a stack of paper and held it up. Helena’s eyes widened. Her manifesto!
She’d poured every hope and dream she had into that pile of paper. Every small detail and moment that would make her future happy. And Flynn had read it, and carried it with him tonight. Did that mean...did he want them to have another chance?
‘I won’t read this aloud, although I think every married couple should have a copy. In fact, I have a photocopy here for you, Zeke!’ More laughter, and Helena grasped at her skirt with clammy hands. She wanted this over. She wanted to know what this was, what he was doing. She wanted to understand.
‘But I did want to quote just a couple of lines.’ He flicked through the pages to a sheet towards the end, and Helena held her breath. ‘Helena wrote: “Love is about more than where it can take you or what it can provide—a marriage, a home, a family, status or money. Love is about experiencing any or all of those things with the one person who makes them worthwhile. Who makes life meaningful.”’
Flynn lowered the paper and gazed out over the crowd at her again, and the hope that had budded tightly in Helena’s heart began to blossom.
‘Helena is the only person who could ever and will ever bring that meaning into my life, whatever our future brings. And I feel so incredibly lucky to have realised that, at last.’
He looked away, smiling out at his audience again, but Helena didn’t mind. Those were the words she hadn’t even known she needed to hear.
‘Life doesn’t follow a plan, any more than love does,’ Flynn went on. ‘Sometimes the best things in life just happen—and so do the worst things. What makes it harder is that sometimes you can’t even tell which is which. But life doesn’t go backwards, and neither does love. You can’t switch love off or pretend it never happened. All you can do is love and live in the now, and look to the future with amazement and joy. And that, my friends, is what I wish for my brother and his wife, and for my mother and Thomas. And, most of all, for Helena and me.’
He stepped down to wild applause, but he didn’t seem to hear it. Instead, he walked straight to Helena, took her hand and placed something in it, folding her fingers over it before she could see. But she knew from the shape, the feel of it, exactly what Flynn had given her.
And she smiled and let him take her other hand and lead her outside.
* * *
Flynn’s heart beat double time as he walked Helena out to the outdoor seating area behind the house. There was a slight drizzle in the air, which he’d normally hate, but tonight it just meant that they were able to be alone.
‘My manifesto,’ Helena said. ‘You know that was just a sort of joke, really.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ Flynn said, and tried not to focus on how long it had been since he’d seen her, and how much he had hurt her. ‘It told me everything you felt and wanted. It let me know you, see you clearer than I ever had. That and finally hearing the full story about what happened to you.’
She looked away and Flynn reached out to rest his palm against her cheek, to keep her eyes on him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me in Tuscany?’
‘Because it wouldn’t have made any difference,’ Helena said, and her mouth twisted up into an almost smile. ‘Everything you said was still true.’
‘No,’ Flynn said, as firmly as he could. He had to make her believe this. ‘I judged you as the person I thought you were, without even thinking about you as the woman I’d fallen in love with. I...before I read what you’d written, I was angry with myself for falling in love with you. For loving someone who had done something I considered unforgivable. But now...now I feel I know you better. And I know, even if you don’t, that the woman who wrote this doesn’t have it in her not to love. You think you wouldn’t have loved that child? You’re wrong.’
‘In which case, I still did the wrong thing by giving her away.’ Helena pulled away. ‘So nothing changes.’
‘I changed,’ Flynn said quietly. ‘You changed me. I thought...I thought I had to follow a plan, my rules, my schedule. That anything outside of them was wrong. By my rules, what you did was wrong, yes. But you don’t live by my rules—or anyone else’s. You made the decision you had to make at the time, with the best information you had. And that decision had a big part in shaping who you are today, in making you the woman I love.’
‘So...you’re saying you forgive me?’ Helena chewed on her lower lip as she looked up at him with those big bluebell eyes.
‘I’m saying that you don’t need my forgiveness. You need to forgive yourself.’
* * *
She couldn’t stop the tears, didn’t even want to. And, as Flynn pulled her into his arms and held her against his chest, she knew she’d come home again, at last.
‘Do you forgive me?’ Flynn asked against her hair. ‘The things I said...they were unforgivable, I know. But do you think...?’
‘Yes,’ Helena said. ‘I forgive you.’ But if forgiveness was the start for them, she knew it wouldn’t be everything. They had a long way to go yet.
‘But, Flynn,’ she said, leaning back to see his face, ‘I can’t just forget—any of it. You, or what happened to me. That’s going to take time.’
‘I have all the time in the world for you.’ Flynn set his cheek against her hair and Helena sighed. It felt right. She wanted it to be right. And yet...
‘I can’t promise you anything,’ she said. ‘Well, nothing beyond the fact that I’m apparently always going to love you. Can’t seem to shake that one.’
‘Good.’
‘But I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to have children.’ It hurt to say the words, hurt to think it. She’d been happy, imagining her life without kids, until she’d married Flynn. Now, it stung—not just because she couldn’t give him what she knew he wanted, but because for the first time she wondered if she might want it too.
Flynn loosened his arms from around her waist and took her hands in his instead, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles of the fingers, still wrapped around the object he’d placed in her palm.
‘I promise you this,’ he said, his expression solemn. ‘There is no schedule for our life together, no plan. Not any more. If it happens one day that you turn to me and tell me you’re ready to try for a baby, I’ll be the happiest man on earth. And if it doesn’t?’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll still be the happiest man on earth because I’ll be married to you.’
; Slowly, he dropped to his knees and Helena bit back a sob. Could he really be giving her everything she’d ever wanted? And could she forgive herself enough to accept?
Peeling back her fingers, he took her engagement ring from her hand and placed it at the tip of her ring finger. ‘Helena Juliette Ashton. Will you do me the honour of being my wife?’
Through her tears, Helena giggled. ‘Isn’t this where we came in?’ she asked as he slid the ring home.
‘It’s the only place I want to be,’ Flynn said, and tugged her down for a kiss.
EPILOGUE
THE TUSCAN SUN shone down as bright as ever, and Helena pulled the brim of her straw hat down to shade her eyes as she watched her niece and nephew chase each other through the grapevines, racing after their new friend Casper.
It had been five years since she and Flynn had first visited Gia’s vineyard, but Helena still felt exactly the same sense of home as she had the first time.
Up ahead, Thea and Zeke quizzed Gia about her growing methods, about how the wine was made, and Gia answered patiently the questions she must have been asked a thousand times before.
Helena tuned them out and focused instead on the warm sun on her shoulders, the buzz of summer insects in the air, and her husband’s hand in her own.
‘This is a wonderful place for a family, don’t you think?’ she asked, and Flynn murmured his agreement.
