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‘Then whatdoesmatter?’ he asked.
And this time her smile faltered. Flashed with the uncertainty on the edge of her thoughts. She wanted to say it was love that mattered. But she needed him to see, to understand thathemattered too. So very much to her. That she would take care of him when he was putting everything but himself on the list.
‘Trusting yourself to write new rules,’ she said, her chest tight. ‘With me standing right beside you.’
Her hand, unclaimed, trembled in the air.
‘Trusting myself?’ he echoed.
‘Let’s write a brand-new script. Walk into that church by ourselves,forourselves, together. Just you and me. I’ll give myself away because you’ll be there, claiming me, just the way I’ll claim you.’
His hand rose from his side, reached out, and there in the graveyard their fingertips met. He pulled her in and she reached out for his shoulders. He gripped her waist and looked down into her face as she looked up into his.
‘Together?’
She nodded. Did he get it now? Did he understand?
‘Side by side, Raffaele. Through those doors, up the aisle, to say the words, vows, and promises to the only people that matter. The people getting married.Us.’
His chest heaved against hers. He dipped his head. But she didn’t look at his lips. Didn’t let herself feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. Because it wasn’t a time for kisses. It was a time for words.
‘Let go, Raffaele, and put all that rage and regret inside you into something new. You can’t build on rotten foundations—so let’s rip them out. Start again. Start again with me. Right now. Start something that’s ours. Nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the future.’
His fingertips pressed into her hips and she felt the fight in his body. The battle between duty and the temptation of what she was offering. A life where they mattered to each other. Made choicestogether.
This time she didn’t resist. She inched in at the same time he did. Their lips met. Held. Pressed to each other. A promise? A vow?
He grasped her hand tightly and pulled away. ‘Let’s get married,piccolina.’
Step by step they walked up the path leading to the front of the church. Hand in hand they turned the corner. And then—
Applause.
It burst the silence with a thrum of a hundred clapping hands and smiling eyes.
A man in an ill-fitting suit stepped forward. The gasp she heard from Raffaele’s lips pushed every hair on her body into an upright position.
‘Matteo...’ Raffaele’s said.
And the man pulled him into a tight embrace and held him against him for longer than was customary in any tradition, whispering words she couldn’t hear into his ear.
Raffaele closed his eyes, and she felt the surge of emotion in the hand clasping hers. The man stepped back, stood eye to eye with Raffaele, and both men nodded.
The man Matteo turned his attention and his smile to her. Kissed her heartily on both cheeks and squeezed her hand. And so it went on. Embraces and kisses. But not once did Raffaele let go of her hand, as side by side they moved through the crowd.
The community.
The community who had saved the boy who’d pulled them up in the world.
Who loved the man the boy had become.
And Flora felt it in every hug. Every handshake. Each heavy tap on the shoulder.
He’d always been loved.
He’d just never understood it.
Pulled along by grasping hands, they stood at the entrance of the church. An arch of green foliage with red, violet and white flowers surrounded the double oak doors.
