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“And do you feel the same? Do you want the same?” she asks me.
“More than anything,” I say quickly.
I can’t stop my voice from flaring with all the love stowed inside of me, with all my hope for the future shivering through me.
“I want to be with him. I want to have children with him. But I don’t want to ruin what we have, Lena.”
“Are you saying you’d break it off if I had a problem with it?” she asks, a bite in her voice.
I flinch and sit back, as though her words have struck me, my mind turning her question this way and that as though I can make some sense of it. But I’ve lied to her enough already, and there’s no freaking way I’m going to carry on.
“I don’t think I could,” I tell her, doing my best to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry, Lena. But we tried. For days, we tried to ignore each other. But Jocko noticed our secret looks. You noticed them. It’s just so freaking difficult not to become consumed with each other. So no. I’m sorry, but I don’t think so.”
Lena holds my gaze for a while longer, giving me no indication about how she feels. But then the corners of her lips twitch and her smile spreads, wider and wider until it’s like there’s a song of joy moving through her.
“Okay.” Lena nods. “I get it now. I understand. If this is real. If this isn’t some fling—”
“No,” I say.
“No,” Kane growls at the same time. “It’s real. I promise.”
“Then I can find a way to be happy for you both. Because the bottom line is this… I can’t lose either of you, let alone both of you. I’m pissed off that you went behind my back like I said, but I can see how difficult it must’ve been, how sudden. If you’d been sneaking around for months or years, I don’t think I could forgive you. But just over a week? Yeah, yeah, I can deal with that.”
“I’m so sorry.” I reach over the table and take her hand, squeezing it softly. “I’ll never do anything like this again.”
She giggles. “Well, duh. I only have one dad. And it sounds like you two are in it forever.”
I can’t stop myself from breaking down at her words, the tears springing into my eyes and sliding down my cheeks. Lena lets out a sob and stands, walking around the table.
Bolting to my feet, I wrap my arms around her and we hug each other tightly, both of us filled with the importance of this moment, with the gratitude of being able to remain friends. I move my hands through her hair and she squeezes tightly against me.
“Dad, get over here,” Lena says, waving over at Kane.
I turn as a smile lights up my face, and then Kane grins and swaggers over. He loops his arms around us both and we stay like that for a long time, as the Maltese sun glows down at us, as our future lays out before us like a glittering, inviting road.
“I’m so happy you don’t hate me,” I say once the hug ends, taking a step back and dabbing at my eyes.
“Kelly,” Lena says firmly. “I’ve already told you, there’s no way I could ever hate you. Ever. So get that silly thought out of your head.”
You know, one day I might be your stepmother, I almost say, but I bite the words back at the last moment. I can’t presume that Kane is going to ask me to marry him.
We haven’t even said the L-word yet.
But Lena has given us her blessing, and that’s the most important thing.
A flare of worry ignites inside of me, disturbing the moment.
What the heck are Mom and Dad going to say when they find out?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kane
“This is a lot to take on board,” Henry says.
Relief floods me when I study Kelly’s father, who’s sixty-five and twenty years older than her mother. It gives me a flurry of hope when I think about the way they glanced at each other as Kelly and I explained the situation – the love in their eyes, the implicit understanding.
Surely they can understand, can accept the age gap, the blistering beautiful fact of our relationship.
I almost laugh when the thought crashes into me. It’s so much less grim than the thoughts that used to run through my mind when I was on the run and all I could think about was the next day, the next hour, the next minute unless I went insane.
But now there’s a hope swelling inside of me, prompted by Lena’s acceptance. After we hugged and cried together, I surprised them and myself by running around the rooftop and punching the air, letting out whooping noises like I was ten years old.
