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“Chloe! What did you say? Did you… did you say something?”
She smiled and wrapped her fingers around my wrist. “Mama!” Then she pointed her chewed up breadstick at Pierce and said, “Daddy!”
I don’t know why, maybe it was an overflow of all the emotion from the last week, but I burst into tears. Pierce pulled Chloe into his lap and showered her in kisses.
“It’s not much, but it’s a start! I bet she’ll be talking up a storm before we know it,” he said with a laugh.
“And you’ll be longing for the days when she didn’t speak at all,” James said with a sly grin. Carol gave him a smack on the arm, but everyone chuckled. I wiped the tears from my eyes as Pierce handed Chloe to his mom, then got up from the booth with a bit of a grunt. Ever since the incident at the warehouse, his leg had been a little stiffer than usual, so he’d been working out double-time to try and get back to his usual self. But he was still more sore than he cared to admit. Yet, he stood at the edge of the table, tall and handsome, and gave me his most dashing smile.
“Arie, this seems like the perfect time to ask you something I’ve been meaning to for a while.”
Pierce reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a little blue box, and my heart practically stopped as he got down on one knee. I couldn’t even utter a word, but Carol more than made up for it when she shrieked loud enough that several of the chefs and a few waiters came running over to see what commotion was. They immediately stopped in their tracks with giant smiles on their faces. I had a feeling they’d been privy to this scene many times before.
However, when Pierce open the little blue box, it was my turn to make a scene. The ring was a huge pear-shaped diamond in a platinum setting. The entire band was encrusted with smaller diamonds, and even the main stone was surrounded by little sparkling stones. The lights from the candle hit the largest diamond and set off sparkles all over the wall like a prism, and Chloe exclaimed happily as she tried to grab at them. But I shook my head, terrified to so much as touch it.
“Pierce… I can’t accept that. It’s too much. It’s too big. I can’t…”
He got up from the floor and sat back down in the booth next to me, then slid the ring on my finger with a smile. “You deserve this, Arie. You deserve all of it and more. You deserve a thousand rings, you deserve every diamond in the world. And if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life chasing them down for you. And for Chloe.”
I started crying again and threw my arms around him. “Yes, of course yes. Forever, yes.”
The rest of the night was spent talking about details for a wedding, and listening to Carol try to convince us again not to move to Auckland. But the first thing Pierce had done once we were sure that Cannizzo was firmly in prison was book our tickets back to New Zealand, so there was no question about us leaving. The only question left was whether we’re going to get married in Manhattan, or New Zealand.
In the end, we decided to have the wedding in our new home. But not before I had to testify at the trial of Sebastian “Angel” Cannizzo.
The pre-trial phase had moved a lot faster than Penny had anticipated. For a moment, she even thought Cannizzo might cut a deal, which would have prevented me from testifying at all. But then, Sonny Cannizzo died in his white collar prison, a sudden heart attack taking him out on the racquetball court, and Angel had decided that meant he needed to take over the Cannizzo crime family. And while it was possible for him to control things from jail, he made it perfectly clear that he didn’t intend to, and he started the process of doing everything in his power to get out of his charges.
It started subtly, with the Cannizzo family paying whatever they had to to high-priced lawyers who would use any underhanded tactics they could to get Angel off. When they couldn’t find any legal loopholes to get him out of jail, they started resorted to illegal ones. First? It was witness tampering. And by tampering, I mean that Angel’s right-hand-man, Danny Lorenzo, was found floating in the East River, a bullet between his eyes. There was no evidence to prove that Angel was connected, but Penny was sure he had him killed so he couldn’t testify for the prosecution.
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After that, Pierce, Chloe, and I had round-the-clock FBI protection until the trial. At first I thought it was going to be intrusive and terrifying, but it wasn’t long before we got used to having the agents around. They were always in the apartment, the car, at dinner with us eating our food, and attending family events. Penny tried to speed things up so we could get on with our lives, and before we knew it, Pierce and I were sitting outside a courtroom, waiting for a bailiff to bring me inside.
I walked in the courtroom, and the only people in there were the jury, a judge, Penny and her assistant district attorney… And Angel, surrounded by his cadre of lawyers. I’d be lying if I said was petrified, but I did the only thing I could: I told the truth. About everything. No matter which lawyer was asking me questions, I told the truth. When you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything. So, my story was consistent, and there was nothing Angel’s lawyers could poke holes in. Just facts: I owed him money, he and Danny kidnapped me, and threatened to kill me. End of story. After two hours of testimony, I walked out of the courthouse, holding Pierce’s hand. Then we went home, picked up Chloe, got on a plane to Auckland, and didn’t look back.
Three days later, we got a call from Penny. Angel had been convicted. But more than that, because he and Danny had pulled guns on me, assaulted me, and inflicted serious bodily harm on me, the judge had added level after level on to his actual sentence. By the time he was done, Angel Cannizzo had been sentenced to seventy-five years in prison with no chance of parole. The whole of New York City could probably hear my excited screams from New Zealand at the thought that I was finally free of that man.
Once we were sure that the trial was finally over, we were free to plan our big day. And what a day it was. Family came from all over the world for our Kiwi wedding, including my Aunt Marie and Uncle Sal, who Pierce bought airline tickets for. We ended up getting married on the Bay of Islands at a resort on the Kauri Cliffs near Matauri Bay in Northland, and it was the most incredible experience of my life. The lodge and all of the guest cottages looked out over the cliffs and onto the beautiful beaches and ocean below. Our room had a huge fireplace and a massive bed with a view of the ocean and a private infinity pool, where we spent most of our time with Chloe. However, James and Carol were kind enough to keep her in their room, so we could truly be alone, and take advantage of the romantic spa, the amazing dinners, and the quiet walking trails.
By the time the actual wedding day rolled around, we’d practically forgotten we weren’t the only two people in the world.
The wedding was beautiful. We were married under a canopy on the cliffs in full view of the Pacific Ocean, and the perfect warm summer winds danced around us as we took our vows. I expected that I would be the one to cry like a baby, but it was Pierce who broke down in tears when we said our vows. I don’t think either of us expected to end up where we did, when we did, with who we did, or go through so much to get there. The emotion of the moment overwhelmed both of us, and then I started crying too, which made our families break down in tears. Luckily, the tears quickly turned to laughter, and before I knew it, Pierce and I were husband and wife.
I was Mrs. Arie June Cochran, and with my husband holding my hand on that beautiful cliff, I felt like there was nothing we couldn’t accomplish together.
Now, we are on our honeymoon in Fiji, and I wake up every morning surprised at how relaxed, and free I feel. It’s the third morning of our two-week honeymoon, and I wake up in the massive bed in our overwater bure at the resort where we are staying on Malolo Island. I stretch and look around, surprised to find that Pierce isn’t in the room. I crawl out of the bed, marveling at the sparkling blue water beneath the glass under my feet, and wrap the bedsheet around my naked body. No one is around us, so we’ve had ample privacy, and it’s allowed us certain liberties that we’ve taken full advantage of.
I walk out onto our private patio, and find Pierce laying naked on the dock on a lounge chair. He’s already developed a deep tan, and his rippling muscles are shiny from a thin sheen of sweat. I feel my insides start to twist up just at the sight of him, and have to remind myself how unbelievably lucky I am that this is my husband. He seems to become aware of my presence, because he lifts his head from the chair, and lowers his sunglasses with a smile.
“Good morning, Mrs. Cochran. You’re looking especially beautiful this morning.”
I feel myself break out in a full-body blush. I will never get used to his compliments.
“I could say the same thing about you. Speaking of, we’re bound to have neighbors soon. I’m not sure how much longer we can get away with nude sunbathing.”
Pierce reaches over and yanks away my sheet, throwing it down on the dock, and leaving me standing in front of him, totally exposed. Then he takes my hand and pulls me onto his lap. I can feel his body heat, combined with the warmth of the morning sun. And then he is growing against me. So masculine. So big. And I so want him inside of me that I suddenly can’t think of anything else.
Our gazes fix on each other, and a heartbeat later, Pierce takes me by the shoulders and pulls down to him. His lips desperately reach for mine and he kisses me with every ounce of the passion he has inside of him. My reaction is based on unadulterated reflex. I returned his kiss with the same appetite, the same demand. We are practically mauling each other.
