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“I can forgive, but I don’t know if I can trust and I need to trust you to marry you.”
“I did not tell you about the deal because I knew it would upset you.”
“You were right.”
“But I would have wanted you even if your father had not made his offer. From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you. Your father noticed my interest. It was only after doing so that he made his offer.”
“He told me that. He said he thought I was interested, too.”
“You were.”
“I was,” she agreed.
“Ellie, I need you to be mine for a lifetime. You can trust me. I will never hide anything from you again.”
“Because you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Like with your mom?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m scared, Sandor. I realized tonight that I don’t know how to be part of a family. I don’t know how to believe in the goodness going on around me…how to believe that you can love me.” The admission hurt.
But he shook his head decisively. “You are fooling yourself to think that. Belief is something you are very good at. You had faith in your father for years when anyone else would have given up on him. You had faith in me, or you never would have come back from Spain prepared to marry me. You’re a woman full of faith and I’m the man prepared to prove to you that it’s grounded in something real.”
“You think you can do that?”
“Give me a try.”
She stared at him. It couldn’t be that easy. “Is this the happily ever after from the fairy tales?”
“I am no knight, but I think, Elliemou , that this is the happy beginning of two people so much in love they cannot live apart.”
“You won’t leave me?”
“Never.”
“I won’t have to be alone ever again.”
“I will be your anchor and you will be my sea, surrounding me, washing over me, keeping me always with you.”
“And you will stay steadily always with me.”
“Yes.”
“I do love you, Sandor.”
“Mama said you did.”
“She did?”
“Uh-huh.”
“When?”
“When I cried in my coffee over losing you.”
“You did not.”
“I most certainly did. You can call and ask her, but later…right now I have something else in mind to do with your mouth.”
She’d opened it to ask him what when he kissed her.
She’d been isolated for so long, and now she had a family. A whole family. Warmth and gratitude filled her as her brain lost contact with reality under Sandor’s loving and provoking kiss.
Ellie went back to visit her sister the next day as promised and this time, found that she could not keep quiet. They talked and talked until once again Sandor was declaring it time to return to the hotel. They stayed in Southern California for three days, returning to Boston with Helen and Amber’s promise to come to visit very soon.
When Ellie and Sandor were married a month later, Amber stood up for Ellie while George Wentworth, Helen Taylor and Hera Christofides looked on in teary-eyed bliss. There was another man there. He looked familiar, but Ellie was sure she’d never met him. When he put his arm around Hera Christofides and smiled down at her, Ellie almost fainted.
She turned to Sandor right in the middle of their wedding vows and blurted, “You found your father.”
“More precisely, Hawk did.”
“He wasn’t married.”
“Never had been. Apparently when a man in our family loves, it is for a lifetime.”
Joyous tears washed into Ellie’s eyes as she turned back to the minister to finish repeating her vows.
But Sandor squeezed her hand before she spoke. “I also destroyed the merger contract your father and I signed.”
Her knees did buckle this time and Sandor swept her up against his chest, her voluminous skirts cascading over his arms.
“You did what?” she demanded.
“Took away your last reason for doubt.”
He had and she felt light-headed because of it. “But what about Dad’s company?”
“I’ve got a lot of good years in me yet. Helen is coming to work for me as a close advisor. She’s a savvy business-woman. And one day I’ll have grandchildren.”
Ellie looked around her from the grinning minister who didn’t seem to mind the odd ceremony to the small group of people all of whom were now her family. Finally she met Sandor’s possessive and adoring gaze.
