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‘So do you,’ Aurora said. She smiled and looked at Antonio. ‘And you look so handsome! Yourmammais going to be so proud when she sees you at the temple ruins.’
Nico had arranged for them to come to the wedding, and they were both Aurora’s flower-pickers and her little escorts on the walk to the temple.
And as she walked towards the ruins on her father’s arm the resentment slid away, for there was nowhere more calming nor more beautiful than the temple ruins at sunset…
Aurora had been absolutely right about the staff uniforms, because Persian Orange was the colour of this night.
As well as cinnamon, and gold, plus a thousand unnamed shades of orange with which the sky blazed.
And orange did not give Nico a headache tonight.
Pino nudged him needlessly, to say that his bride was here.
Her dress was white, and fell in heavy drapes, and to Nico she looked like a goddess walking towards him.
Aurora cared not for the eyebrow-raises of certain people in the village, who were clucking behind their hands at the audacity of a single mother wearing white.
It washerwedding.
The day of which she had dreamt.
Only it was better than her dreams. For in those they had not been at the temple, and Nico had not smiled at his bride the way he did on this day approaching night.
In her earlier dreams Nico had been a whole lot younger and perhaps, she conceded, just a touch less certain. On this new night and for evermore she was his chosen one. Of that she was ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain.
The whisper of doubt was so tiny in comparison that sense and hope combined to make her believe that Nico wanted this just as much as she did.
‘Aurora and Nico,’ said the celebrant, ‘we stand today amidst these ancient ruins to celebrate your unending love.’
And itwasboth unending and without a clear beginning, for neither could quite pin down when their love had commenced.
When she’d used to open the door and tease him with ‘Hello, husband’?
Or when Nico had denied to himself the fact that tears had pooled in her eyes when he had told her he would never marry?
Had there been love there that night on her father’s sofa?
And had it returned again on the night Gabe had been made?
Or had it never left them?
It was Nico who answered as he pushed the ring on her finger. ‘I have always loved you.’
First he had loved her like a sister, and for a while they had failed as friends. But they were friends now. And they were lovers and partners and parents too.
‘And I always shall,’ Nico said, looking right into those dark velvet eyes. There was nothing more beautiful than this beautiful Sicilian woman.
And now it was Aurora’s turn to speak, and to push her ring onto his finger. ‘I tried so hard not to love you,’ she told him, and the world. ‘I can stop fighting with myself now. I love you, Nico Caruso.’
‘And I loveyou, Aurora Eloise Caruso.’
‘Finally!’ She smiled as her groom kissed his bride.
Nico was not a sociable person, and Aurora was not expecting a wild party. But back at the hotel the champagne flowed, and he accepted the many congratulations and danced with his bride.
Nicodanced!
He pulled her in, he twirled her—and he even, to Aurora’s delight, dipped her.
