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“Fate brought us together four years ago and it brought us together again in London, a month ago. I don’t want to lose you, Elizabeth, but what happens next is your decision.”
“My decision?” She shook her head and his body froze thinking she was going to do the smart thing and tell him he’d ruined it all, for good. Then, she kissed him. “There’s no decision to be made. It’s not like that. I love you – it’s fate, just like you said. I can’t not love you. Why do you think I let you bully me into this marriage?” She said it with a half-smile but it didn’t soften the pain from the accusation.
“Don’t,” he groaned, pulling her to him and lifting her, cradling her to his chest. “I regret every moment that brought you pain…”
“I know,” she whispered. “It wasn’t you.”
“It was me. It was what life without you was turning me into. You’ve brought me back to life, my darling Elizabeth. Please let me do the same for you now. No more tears. No more pale face, and tormented sleep. Let me kiss you and love you and hold you tight and make you laugh. Please, my darling, beautiful wife?”
She sobbed and she nodded, and right there, on the edge of the earth, she held his hand and his heart and she agreed to step into the unknown with this man by her side – as he always would be, for evermore.
They didn’t stay at Borde del Mondo. Instead, they’d climbed back into the helicopter, two people so dramatically different to those that had disembarked only an hour earlier, and Xavier flew them a short distance along the coastline, to Casa por Azul, the house he’d spoken of to Elizabeth, many years earlier. The house in which she’d pictured him.
And he’d described it so vividly that as she stepped out of the helicopter and the white gravel of the drive crunched underfoot, reality perfectly matched her imaginings. A sprawling Spanish hacienda, enormous and somehow homely all at once, with frangipani trees on either side and pomegranate trees scrambling down the hill to the side. The ocean glistened in the distance.
“So here it is,” she said softly, under her breath.
“And here you are,” he murmured, turning to face her, his smile spreading across his face almost as brightly as the late afternoon sunshine. “Can I tell you something?”
She arched a brow. “It seems to be an afternoon for confessions.”
“Your ring,” he reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss into her palm and then curving her fingers over it. “I bought it years ago.”
Ellie looked at it, confusion swirling inside of her. “What do you mean?”
“I saw it in a jeweler’s window and I couldn’t say why, but I was drawn to it. I thought of it for weeks afterwards and finally bought it. I told myself I was simply collecting a lovely piece of value, as though it were just an investment. But I bought it for you. Somehow, from deep within my mind, I knew that the ring was for you.”
A single tear glistened on her lashes and then found surrender on her cheeks. “I’m sorry you can’t remember that weekend,” she said, standing up on tiptoes and kissing him gently. Her heart fluttered in her chest, for it was such a simple gesture and yet it meant the world to her. A kiss freely given, openly received. What bliss! What simple grace!
“I am also,” he agreed, putting an arm around her shoulders and guiding her through the large glass doors. The ocean sparkled through the windows and she stared at it for a moment, sighing at the perfect outlook. “But I cannot dwell on the past when the whole future is ours.” He smiled. “Besides, you can tell me all about it, yes?”
“Yes,” she agreed, and he wrapped his arms around her and she turned to face him, and everything fell into perfect harmony. “I love you,” she said simply. “And I always have.”
“It is exactly as I feel,” he agreed. “When I think how close I came to losing you –,”
“Not possible,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m sure we were fated to find one another again.”
His smile was lopsided. “Yes. You must be right.”
Much later that night, after they’d swum and eaten a relaxed platter-style dinner and made love beneath the ancient, star-lit sky, Xavier propped up on one elbow, and watched his wife, as she stared at the stars above. “I used to call you Ellie, didn’t I?”
Her heart twisted. Hearing that name on his lips brought back so many memories, all of them exquisitely perfect.
“Yes,” she nodded. “You called me Ellie. And querida.”
“And I told you I loved you?”
Ellie’s heart turned over in her chest. “No.”
“No?” He frowned.
“You told me, when we made love, that I was your dying breath and you were mine. You said we were sand and water, designed to be together. You said life without me is like the night sky painted black. You told me you’d been waiting for me all your life. But you never told me you loved me.”
“You don’t think?” He drawled, with a little laugh.
“Not in those exact words,” she answered, pushing up on her elbow and trailing her fingertips over his chest.
“And what did you tell me, Ellie?” he asked, catching her fingers and lifting them to his lips.
