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‘You don’t have to do that, Nikhil...’
‘I love you, Isla,’ he cut in. ‘It’s that simple. And maybe one day you’ll be able to tell me that you love me too.’
‘I already love you.’ The words tripped off her tongue.
That easily.
‘Isla...’
And this time it was her who cut him off.
‘I love you, Nikhil,’ she repeated, and wasn’t it incredible how each time she said it something feverish, and glorious, filled her from the inside out?
‘You are mine,’ she echoed softly. ‘And I am yours.’
Isla had no idea who moved first; she didn’t particularly care. She only knew that one moment they were standing apart, where an entire continent might have divided them and it wouldn’t have made her feel any more distant from him than she already felt—and the next she was back in his arms, her body moulded to his.
As if it had always been meant to be there.
‘The more people who know it, the better, I think,’ she murmured, moments before tilting her head up and pressing her lips to his.
‘The world?’ he muttered against her mouth.
‘It’s a start.’
The most magnificent start she could ever have imagined.
EPILOGUE
STANDING AT THE prow of the Star of Hermione, the sun setting behind her, Isla reflected that the past seven months with Nikhil, and two consecutive voyages as a proper couple, had possibly been the best of her life.
But now she was waiting, her heart once again pounding in her chest, as Nikhil had been summoned to the Captain’s cabin. A part of her celebrated the fact that it could only mean he had already been offered a new captaincy, whilst another part of her was terrified.
She’d already been unofficially approached about joining the Hestia, the ship she’d been intended to join almost a year ago now, that first day back in Chile. But it was surely too much to hope that Nikhil had been offered captaincy.
Whichever ship they offered him, he couldn’t turn it down a se
cond time, she knew that, but it would mean the end of their perfect little bubble.
She turned as she heard the sound of his soft footfall across the deck.
‘Which ship?’ she asked without preamble, forcing herself to inject a note of excitement into her tone.
He eyed her speculatively, but there was no mistaking that hint of shock in his expression that could only mean it was better than either of them had anticipated for him.
As much as she was proud on his behalf, a little corner of her heart seemed to crumble a little. They had been so happy together on the Hermione. How was their relationship to survive such a move? Not that she didn’t trust him. Unlike Brad, she had no fears that Nikhil would ever betray her; it simply wasn’t who he was. But that distance just made things that much...duller.
Still, Isla was determined to betray none of those qualms as she forced herself to smile at him.
‘Which ship, Nikhil?’ she repeated.
‘It is scarcely to be believed,’ he managed, and there was an edge to his tone that was as unsettling as it was unfamiliar.
Her brain spun. ‘Not the Hestia?’
‘Not the Hestia,’ he confirmed.
‘Then which?’
