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ve babies with you, to be a father to our children, a husband, lover and best friend to you.’ Her beautiful blue eyes shone with tears of happiness and he hoped that she could feel his heart pounding beneath her palm. ‘I want to fight with you, make up with you, laugh and cry with you. I’d personally prefer not to play games with you again...’ he paused as she laughed ‘...because I’d lose. Every time. But even then I’d still die a happy man.’
Sia looked up at him, complete trust and love in her eyes, and he was humbled by it. He took the small black velvet box from his back pocket and, getting to one knee, ignoring the way people around them had begun to stop and stare.
‘Will you, Artemisia Henrietta Keating, do me the greatest honour of being my wife?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, a happy tear sweeping down over her cheek.
Sebastian surged onto his feet, pulled her to him and kissed her with all the love he felt in his heart. It was only when the wolf whistles and cat calls intruded that he finally let her go.
‘I do have one condition, though,’ she said as he rounded the car to the driver’s seat.
‘Get in the car, Sia,’ he mock-growled. He was genuinely not looking forward to the day she realised that he’d give her whatever she wanted.
‘You don’t want to hear my condition?’ she said, her tone wicked and full of tease.
‘I want to get you home so that I can make love to you. You can tell me the condition later,’ he replied, loving the way her eyes widened and her pupils responded to his sensual promise.
‘It’s bad form to make agreements—’
He stopped her words with the first kiss of the many more they would share over the years. As Sebastian pulled away from Goodge Street, his future wife beside him and his past as a thief firmly behind him, he knew he’d stolen the most beautiful, most precious thing of all. Sia Keating’s heart.
EPILOGUE
‘MUMMY! MUMMY! MUMMY! Jacob is writing on the walls again,’ cried Maria’s youngest daughter, running into the garden where everyone was gathered.
‘It’s okay, my love. Auntie Sia has put special paper on the walls so that everyone can draw whatever and wherever they like there.’
Sia smiled at her sister-in-law’s daughter. ‘Would you like to have a go? Here,’ she said, reaching for a spare set of pencils and sharing them with the girl, who looked very much like her mother and her grandmother.
‘Thank you,’ the girl replied and ran off to the large wooden workshop that had been built in the back of the garden for her to paint in. Sebastian had designed and constructed it the moment she’d expressed even the vaguest notion to return to her art and she was thankful each and every day for his unending support. She had returned to university to focus on the practice of her own art rather than the history and analysis techniques of others. She had built up a small but dedicated following, which kept her happy as it allowed her to find that magical line of balance between enjoying and delighting in her family and her passion for painting.
Sia couldn’t help but laugh as Theo Tersi played out an invisible sword fight with his daughter and Sia and Sebastian’s son Jacob. Lord knew where the other two of her sons were, usually hiding up a tree or swimming in the lake.
‘I don’t know how you do it with three boys,’ Princess Sofia of Iondorra said.
‘And I have no idea how you run a country,’ Sia replied with a laugh.
‘Oh, that,’ Sofia said, swiping the notion away with her hand. ‘I have people to help me with that.’
Ella came rushing over to her mother and pulled on Sofia’s elbow, holding her hand in front of her mouth. ‘Mummy,’ she said in the loudest whisper, ‘why is there a briefcase on the wall above the fireplace?’
Sofia looked up at Sia, and Maria looked at Sofia, each of the women smiling.
‘It is a game Uncle Seb and Auntie Sia are playing.’
‘What’s the game?’
‘Not to open the briefcase,’ Sia replied with a smile.
‘That doesn’t sound like much of a game,’ Ella said, frowning and then running off.
‘I think it’s crazy,’ Sofia replied with a smile. ‘Aren’t you ever going to open it?’
‘I don’t need to.’ Sia laughed.
‘So the painting stays in the briefcase, hanging on the wall above the fireplace like it’s a painting. A—’ she dropped her voice to a real whisper, leaning forward ‘—one hundred million pound painting?’ Sofia leaned back. The look in her eyes definitely said she thought they were crazy.
‘I think it’s romantic,’ stated Maria firmly.
