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I expected bitterness to follow that thought, squeezing my heart in its painful grip, but it didn’t come. Instead, there was a strange acceptance that washed over me. The way I felt about Walker… was something I didn’t think I’d ever experience with another person in my lifetime.
Accept… and let go?
No. Never let go. Not fully. Accept and let whatever came to pass come to pass, perhaps?
The direction was still unclear, but I painted anyway. I dipped my brushes into blocks of watercolor and pressed them to the fine, prepped canvas. I watched as the hollow expression surrounding those haunting black eyes morphed into something softer, something… familiar.
The expression in those eyes whispered, It’s okay. I love you, and it’s okay.
I didn’t even consider the possibility that it wasn’t the truth on Walker’s part. It didn’t matter. What mattered was my closure. My acceptance. My admitting that I loved Walker and probably always would, and that it was okay.
Maybe the way we went about things—the plan, the marriage, satisfying his father’s deal for his inheritance—maybe that was all wrong. But our feelings? My feelings? No one could take that away from me, and I should stop trying to do that to myself. I should stop trying to sit here and make our time together out to be something it wasn’t. Love and loss were a part of life.
This piece would be an homage to a chapter in my own life that had exemplified that fact.
Forty-five minutes later, another knock came to my door. Alex and Jeremy peeked their heads in, curious expressions on their faces as they eyed me where I stood.
I smiled, looking at two people I hoped to have in my life for a very, very long time.
“It’s finished.”
22
Walker
I was rarely ever a nervous man, especially when it came to women. My father had raised me to be confident, if not arrogant, when it came to the opposite sex. He’d said that a Prince was to know his place in the world, and his place was at the top.
The more I thought about my father and his will, his last attempt to guide me in life, the more I realized he really had changed at the end of his own. He’d finally seen that his outlook on life was a foolish one.
I wondered, in the weeks that followed Mackenzie moving out, if my father ever truly came to the realization that him pushing me so hard the way he had was in part the reason I had fought so hard against him. I wondered whether, if he’d realized his foolishness sooner—or if I hadn’t foolishly walked in his footsteps for so many years—things might’ve been different for Mackenzie and me.
Would we have already been married—the right way—before this? Would we have children?
It was impossible to know at this point, but I couldn’t help but ask the question, and it was that question that’d led me to where I currently stood.
The jewelry sto
re was small and funky. My first instinct had been to drive straight to Tiffany’s, but I’d quashed that immediately. I knew that Mackenzie had a thing for unique pieces of jewelry—not unique as in expensive, but unique as in crafted by loving hands and with care in the heart. And with that in mind, I had found the perfect ring.
It was a custom order by a jeweler who reminded me a lot of Macks—except her medium was metal, not paint. I’d placed the order not too long after my conversation with Grant, using what I remembered of Mackenzie’s sizing in order to get it right.
If things went well but the ring didn’t fit, I could always get it resized. If things went poorly… Well, resizing wouldn’t be an issue, anyway, because I would just be locking the damn thing up in a drawer.
I hoped like hell that wouldn’t happen.
As soon as the idea had come into my head, I’d known that what I wanted more than anything was Mackenzie by my side. Always. The weight of the little box in my pocket as I slid it in was strangely comforting, like I was a man about to go out to battle, leading forth the cavalry to win the war.
Only, I was a lone soldier, and what I was trying to win was more important to me than any war.
This was something I’d never talked about with my father—what it was like to want to be with someone forever. What it was like to try to fix things with that someone after you made a mess of it all. I’d asked my father all about the business, about figures and stats, about the best way to handle what happened when a partner tried to buy you out of your own share of a company—but I’d never asked him about love.
I guess we had something in common. We were terrible when it came to relationships.
But it wasn’t too late for me to fix that.
* * *
Mackenzie’s studio was putting on another massive exhibit. From what I’d gathered, they were becoming wildly popular among every strata of community in the city. Rich, poor. Young, old. Articles were being written about the innovative art pieces and the affordable showings. Many of the people that could afford to donate more did. Those who couldn’t were never barred from the doors.
