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“I thought you were like one of my paintings,” Alexandre says softly, when I’m sitting on the edge of the bed next to him. “Beautiful and damaged, forever changed by what happened to you. But now I see differently.”
“What do you mean?” I whisper, and I feel the first tears dripping from my eyelashes as I grip the edge of the bed. “Alexandre, what are you saying?”
“I see now you are not those paintings, Anastasia. You are the Japanese vase instead, the one that I once paid Kaito Nakamura an obscene amount of money for. The Irishman you love has filled in all your cracks with gold, and you are stronger now because of it. Strong enough, even, to leave me behind.”
“You filled in some of those cracks too,” I whisper, crying softly now, my voice breaking. I can feel him letting me go, forgiving me as I forgive him, and it heals us both in a way that neither of us could have expected. When he reaches out to take my hands, I let him, feeling his long fingers enclose mine for the last time.
“I have learned something else from Maximilian’s stories tonight,” Alexandre says softly. “I, too, have loved two women–but it is the opposite for me. The first woman I loved, I still do, and the distance of time and the grave has not changed that. But the second–”
He reaches out, letting go of one of my hands to brush a tear off my cheek. “The second I see that I must let go of, because someone else can love her better.”
I bite back a sob, looking into his crystal blue eyes as I reach out to touch his face gently. “I did love you, Alexandre,” I whisper. “It wasn’t a lie. I–” I take a deep breath, trying to hold back the rest of my tears. “I don’t know if I’ll choose to find out who the biological father of my baby is. But if I do, and it is yours, I promise you this.” I press my hand against his smooth cheek, feeling him lean into the touch, his eyes closing as I lean closer. “I’ll only tell them the good, Alexandre. I will only ever tell them about the beautiful, eccentric Frenchman who, in his own way, saved my life as much as Liam did. I promise you, that is one vow to you I will not break.”
Alexandre’s eyes open, and he reaches up to cover my hand with his. “No,” he says softly, smiling at me. “If the baby is mine, when they are old enough, they should know it all–the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the cracks and the gold. It’s all a part of me, Ana, and of you. All a part of our story. And while it lasted–”
He takes a deep breath, his eyes closing again momentarily before locking with mine as he takes my hand and brings it to my lips.
“It, too, was beautiful,petit.”
His lips brush against my skin, cool and dry, and I can feel them linger a moment longer, as if he wants to memorize this one last caress. And then he lets go of my hand, letting it fall back to the blankets as his gaze holds mine one last time.
“Au revoir, petit,” he whispers. “Goodbye, Anastasia.”
TWENTY-FIVE
ANA
There are still tears sliding down my cheeks when Liam and I step out of the hotel room, and I half expect him to be hurt that I’m so upset. But instead, he turns towards me, brushing his thumb gently over where the tears have fallen, and tilts my chin up so that I’m looking into his eyes.
“I don’t know if this is the right time to ask this, Ana,” Liam says quietly. “But I think I need to know. Do you know what it is that you want?”
There’s no hesitation in me. “Yes,” I tell him firmly, looking up into his green eyes. “I know it might feel hard to believe right now, after what just happened, but I do know. That last moment with Alexandre was the closure I needed, and Liam–I want you. Forever.”
“There may be more hard times to come,” Liam warns me gently. “It won’t be an easy path to us being together. But I want you too, Ana–and I’m willing to fight for us, whatever comes our way.”
“I am too,” I promise him, reaching for his hand.
“Then I want you to marry me.”
I blink up at him, startled. “What? When?”
“Now,” Liam says firmly. “I know this isn’t a traditional proposal, and I don’t have a ring, but nothing about the way we’ve done this hasbeentraditional. I want to marry you now, Anastasia Ivanova, before something else happens or something else tries to stand in our way.” He reaches out, taking my face gently in his hands, the smooth skin warm against my damp cheeks. “I want you to be my wife, Ana. It’s all I’ve wanted since I found you again.”
The door opens behind us, but I barely hear it. It’s not how I’d imagined a proposal would be. Liam isn’t down on one knee, there’s no romantic location, no sparkling ring. I feel a little jealous, thinking of the oval diamond on Saoirse’s finger, the grand church where he promised to marry her–but the feeling flees as quickly as it comes.
Liam was forced to sign that contract–in part because of his eagerness to find me–but no one is forcing him to stand here and say any of this now. We might be in a hotel hallway making hurried plans, but he’s asking me because he loves me, not because anything else is forcing his hand.
“Yes,” I whisper, and the way his face lights up makes every bit of it worthwhile. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Liam.”
“When is the date?” Max’s voice comes from behind us, and we both turn to see him standing there. “Sorry I missed the proposal.”
“Is Alexandre stable?” Liam asks, and Max nods.
“He’s in rough shape, but he’ll survive. The doctor you sent managed to get the bullet out and stitch up the wound nicely–he won’t be going back to Paris for a little bit yet, but he will soon enough. Niall took care of Yvette’s remains. She won’t be coming back to haunt us. And you don’t need to worry about Alexandre bothering you any longer,” Max adds. “He was serious when he said we had a long talk. We talked for hours, in fact. And it clearly made a difference.”
“You should probably call in that favor with Viktor sooner rather than later,” Liam says wryly. “You clearly were meant to be a priest.”
It’s meant to be a compliment, but Max’s face goes somber at that, his gaze flicking away. “Well,” he says finally. “We’ll see what Viktor can do for me.”
