Happy (Almost) October my freaky little darlings. I will be writing for Kinktober this year and I'm very excited to share what naughty little treats I've been whipping up in my Google docs. I will be using the prompt list provided by @kinktober26.
I will be updating this list and bolding the ones I've completed as we go to keep the excitement growing. Feel free to send any ideas my way.
Please note: All stories are written using a female reader insert.
Condoms – Bratting – Watersports
Orgy – Embarrassment – Bestiality
Hate Sex – Suspension Bondage – Mind Control
Body Writing – Subspace – Master/Slave
Glory Hole – Cloning/Selfcest – Body Modification
Held Down – Riding Crops – Feeding/Stuffing
Dirty Talk – Cockwarming – Aphrodisiacs
Face Sitting – Switching – Scat
Orgasm Delay/Denial – Discipline – Whips
Gentle Sex – Chains – Noncon
Age Gap – Breathplay – Religion Kink
Phone Sex – Dr. Robby x Reader
Frottage – Temperature Play – Emetophilia
Strength Kink – Roleplay – Vore
Corsets – Power Imbalance – Human Furniture
Predator/Prey - Dark Reed Richards x Reader
Rough Sex – Begging – Furry
Deepthroating – Rope Bondage – Transformation
Cigars/Cigarettes - Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader x Captain Price
(Ok, yes this is a thinly veiled psyop to get you to write a Take a Sip sequel...)
Oh. MAHGAWD. 🤍
I love you for this. I cannot EXPRESS how much I love you for this, because yes! This is peak Max in New Orleans. You, my muse, kissed me. And I had to write it immediately!
Wanted it to be a short drabble... turns out I cannot do short and it is a 2.5k peek into the new life of Max & Ashley. I thought, maybe all you "Take a Sip"-consumers would be interested too, so... without further ado...
Learning the Rhythm
“You know I hate jazz, right?” you called from the living room, still searching for the damn clutch you could have sworn had been on the coffee table five minutes ago.
“You just haven't listened to the right kind yet,” Max answered from somewhere near the front hall, his voice carrying through the old house with that effortless confidence even though you highly doubted that.
Still, despite yourself, the corner of your mouth twitched upward.
Eventually you found the missing bag tucked beneath one of the cushions - courtesy of Oreo, no doubt - and straightened, turning toward the large antique mirror leaning against the wall for one final inspection.
The woman staring back looked strangely unfamiliar.
Months ago, you would have laughed if someone had told you this would become your life. That you'd be living in a creaking New Orleans townhouse flat with a centuries-old vampire, owning more designer sunglasses than practical shoes, and getting ready for a proper date night because your undead boyfriend had declared that eternity required active maintenance.
“Otherwise we'll end up one of those miserable immortal couples that communicate exclusively through passive aggression and hate fucks.”
His exact words.
You had agreed before asking for details.
Only afterward had he mentioned the jazz bar.
So here you were.
The dress was simple - black silk, cut just low enough to feel elegant without crossing into intimidating. You didn't actually own many dresses, and if someone had offered you betting odds a year ago on wearing one voluntarily, they would've made a fortune. The heels still felt foreign after years of living in combat boots, and you'd spent an embarrassing amount of time deciding whether eyeliner counted as trying too hard.
Apparently it didn't. At least that's what you decided after one final adjustment of your lipstick.
Oreo barely acknowledged your existence as you knelt to scratch behind his ears. The black-and-white-menace remained sprawled across his favorite chair beside the doorway, accepting the affection with the detached dignity of someone convinced the house existed solely for his comfort.
“You've got food,” you informed him. He blinked slowly. “Ungrateful little freeloader.” His tail flicked once.
Chuckling quietly to yourself, you slipped your clutch beneath your arm before stepping out into the hallway.
The laughter died somewhere in your chest.
Max was waiting exactly where the old staircase curved toward the front entrance, sitting on one of the lower steps as though he'd wandered out of another decade entirely.
Or another century.
You had seen him in suits before.
You had seen him in sweats.
You had even seen him wear a leather jacket so painfully nineties that you'd briefly considered staging an intervention.
None of those prepared you for white.
The suit fit him as though it had been tailored around him, the crisp jacket contrasting beautifully with his warm skin. His dark curls had been combed back just enough to tame their usual chaos, his beard was neatly trimmed and the gold in his eyes caught the soft glow of the hallway lights the moment they found you.
He looked...
Ridiculous.
Ridiculously handsome.
And he knew it.
His expression shifted almost immediately as his gaze wandered over you with no attempt whatsoever to hide his admiration.
“Well,” he breathed.
You raised an eyebrow.
“Well?”
“I'm suddenly very grateful neither of us actually needs oxygen anymore.”
You laughed.
“Oh, it's nothing, I just -”
He lifted one finger, stopping you before you could finish your sentence, then slowly extended his hand toward you instead.
You found yourself stepping forward without thinking, as though there had never really been another option. The old wooden floor creaked softly beneath your steps while he remained seated, waiting for you to close the last bit of distance.
When you came to a stop between his knees, his hands settled lightly against your thighs, warm even through the silk of your dress. He didn't rush to stand. Instead, he simply looked up at you.
His golden eyes wandered over your face with quiet admiration before settling on yours again, and for a long moment he said nothing at all. The expression on his face was so utterly unguarded that it stole the teasing remark right off your tongue.
Finally, a slow smile spread across his lips.
“You are a sight for gold eyes, Ashley Vale.” His voice had softened into something almost reverent. “May I have the honor of taking you out tonight?”
A quiet, almost relieved laugh escaped you. Your fingers drifted to his jaw on instinct, brushing over his stubble before coming to rest beneath his chin. You tilted his face up just a fraction farther, making him meet your gaze completely.
“Depends.”
One dark eyebrow lifted.
“On what?”
You smiled, unable to stop yourself.
“How willing you are to pay for dessert afterward…”
Okay... maybe jazz - the right kind, apparently - wasn't nearly as bad as you had expected.
The little club Max had picked looked exactly like what you imagined when someone said New Orleans without trying too hard. The walls were lined with dark, weathered wood polished smooth by decades of elbows and laughter. Brass lamps and candles cast pools of amber light over cramped little tables, while old black-and-white photographs of musicians covered nearly every inch of exposed wall. Somewhere behind the bar, glasses clinked in easy rhythm with the music, and conversations rose and fell like another instrument folded into the melody.
The band occupied nothing more than a slightly raised corner of the room. An elderly trumpet player stood at the center, eyes closed as if every note came from somewhere far older than himself. Beside him, a clarinet danced effortlessly through the melody while an upright bass kept everything grounded with lazy, rolling pulses. A drummer brushed soft circles over his snare instead of striking it outright, and somewhere in the background a piano stitched the whole thing together with playful little runs that made the room feel alive.
Max returned to the table just as the trumpet slipped into another solo, setting down two Bloody Marys with an exaggerated flourish even though you both knew neither of you would be drinking it.
Everything tasted muted now. Food had become texture more than flavor, cocktails little more than colorful decorations with the occasional nostalgic memory attached to them. Blood remained the only thing that truly carried taste anymore - a realization that was still unsettling enough for you to avoid dwelling on it.
Max slipped into the seat opposite of you, and wrapped long fingers around his untouched drink before his attention shifted toward your leg beneath the table.
One corner of his mouth lifted.
“Ashley Vale…” You froze. “Do I detect someone's knee bouncing to the beat?”
You glanced down. “Nervous tic at best.”
“Nervous?” His grin became positively insufferable. “Because of the devastatingly handsome man you agreed to spend your night with?”
“Oh, don't flatter yourself.” You leaned back in your chair, taking another look around the room. “I'm just... getting used to the rhythm.”
“I certainly hope so.” Before you could ask what that meant, Max leaned across the small table until his lips brushed lightly against the shell of your ear. “Because that's exactly what I hope you'll be saying again later tonight.”
The ghost of a kiss followed along your jaw before he leaned back again as though he'd done absolutely nothing. Goosebumps erupted over your arms.
Instead of rewarding him with the eye roll he clearly expected and deserved, you caught his gaze, held it for a lingering second, then closed the remaining distance yourself.
Your kiss was brief.
When you pulled back, your forehead lingered against his for just a heartbeat.
“Thank you,” you murmured. "For this."
The grin he answered with lost every ounce of its cockiness.
“Always.”
Max watched you watch the band.
Or rather, he tried to.
It should have been easy. The candlelight softened your features beautifully, the silk dress caught the warm glow every time you shifted in your seat, and the trumpet's melody wrapped around the room like smoke. It was almost offensively romantic.
Except...
Your eyes never stayed on the musicians for long.
They drifted to the entrance.
Then to the bartender.
A couple arguing quietly in the far corner, the waiter weaving between tables, the emergency exit and the windows, the man who had ordered whiskey but hadn't touched it.
Years of police work had carved patterns into you that not even death had managed to erase.
“You already solving a case over there, Detective?” Max asked eventually, lazily stirring the celery stalk through his drink.
You blinked.
“What?”
He nodded subtly toward the room. “You've profiled half the bar.”
A guilty smile appeared almost immediately. “I…” You sighed. “Sorry.”
“You don't have to apologize.”
“It's just…” You searched for the right words before giving up. “Old habits.”
He quietly pushed both drinks toward the side of the table until there was nothing separating you anymore.
Then he reached across the wood and simply held out both hands.
No words.
Just the invitation.
You slipped yours into them.
His fingers folded around yours with practiced familiarity, thumbs absentmindedly tracing slow circles across your knuckles.
“You miss it,” he said softly.
It wasn't really a question. You looked down at your joined hands, buying yourself a few seconds. Max could almost see the lie forming.
Then, your shoulders sagged.
“Yeah.” The single syllable carried more weight than a paragraph ever could. “I do.”
He nodded.
No surprise or disappointment in that.
He'd caught you enough times over the past months lingering in the true crime aisle of the library or listening a little too carefully whenever a police scanner crackled from somewhere nearby.
You opened your mouth, clearly preparing to soften the confession with an apology.
His thumbs squeezed your hands ever so slightly.
“It's okay.” Your eyes lifted again. “It was the same for me.” A faint smile crossed his face, touched with something bittersweet. “Sometimes…” He glanced toward the trumpet player before looking back at you. “It still is.”
Something shifted in your expression.
“I've... never actually asked.” Your thumb brushed absentmindedly across the back of his hand. “What did you do before…?”
Max considered you with theatrical seriousness.
“Would you believe me if I said dolphin trainer?”
A laugh escaped you so suddenly that a few nearby heads turned.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
“No?”
“Your hair would've been ruined by the salt water.”
He gasped dramatically.
“The detective still lives.” He chuckled before resting back against the booth. “I wanted to be an actor.”
You studied him for a moment. “...Actually, that tracks. You lived in Los Angeles. And you're charming enough to convince strangers to follow you into dark alleys." You shrugged. “The signs were there.”
He laughed. “I even got into acting school.”
Your eyebrows rose. “So what happened? Didn't make it big?”
His smile lingered, though it grew quieter. “I wasn't serious enough.” His tongue brushed absentmindedly over one canine. “I preferred parties.”
You followed the tiny gesture without needing another explanation.
Silence settled comfortably between you as the trumpet climbed into another soaring phrase. Around you, people laughed, toasted, danced between crowded tables, living entirely inside the present.
“How did you…” you began before stopping yourself. “Why photography?”
Instead of answering, Max simply let go of your hands.
Only for a second though, then he rose from his chair and, with a small bow dramatic enough to earn himself an amused look from the elderly couple at the next table, held one hand out toward you.
“I believe this answer deserves a dance.”
Now you rolled your eyes, but the smile gave you away long before your fingers slipped into his. With effortless ease he guided you away from the table and onto the small patch of floor the guests here had collectively decided qualified as a dance floor.
The music had changed while you'd been talking. The lively brass from earlier had softened into something slower, richer.
Max drew you close, one hand enclosing yours while the other settling gently against your waist, warm through the thin silk of your dress. You let yourself melt into the rhythm almost immediately, following without having to think.
You rested your head lightly against his shoulder.
After a moment, you felt his chin settle atop your hair.
“I tried a lot of things,” he said quietly, his voice nearly disappearing beneath the music. “After... everything.”
You nodded against his chest, waiting.
“Photography was the closest I found to acting without actually standing on a stage.” His thumb traced absent circles against your side as he guided you through another slow turn. “You're still telling stories. You're still making people feel something. Just... differently.”
“And you are good at it.”
A quiet chuckle vibrated beneath your cheek.
“Yeah. Turns out I wasn't half bad.”
Silence settled comfortably between you for another few steps before he continued.
“I don't think the longing ever disappears.” His voice had grown softer, more thoughtful than sad. “You just find something that scratches the same itch.”
You lifted your head, searching his face.
“It's enough?”
His smile was small but genuine. “It's like Oreos.” You blinked. “The memory is still there,” he said with complete conviction. “The taste is just... muted.”
A laugh escaped you despite yourself.
He rewarded it with a gentle kiss against your forehead before guiding you through another slow sway.
“So.” His golden eyes met yours. “What's your itch, Ashley? Besides being incapable of walking into a room without profiling everyone in it.”
You opened your mouth.
Nothing came out.
Working for the NYPD had never been just a career. It had been the plan. The goal. The thing you'd chased since you were old enough to understand that justice wasn't guaranteed unless someone fought for it.
You had spent so many years making that dream happen that you'd never stopped to imagine another one.
“I…” You let out a quiet breath. “I honestly don't know. I have to think about it.”
Max smiled with a tenderness that made something inside your chest loosen. He spun you gently beneath his arm before pulling you back against him, closer than before.
“Then don't rush it.”
You huffed a laugh. “I suppose we've got time.”
That earned a warm laugh from him too, and eventually the dancing slowed until you were barely moving at all, simply swaying together while the band carried the night around you.
“Whatever you decide,” he murmured, cupping your cheek, “we'll figure it out.”
His thumb brushed softly across your skin before stopping just short of your lips.
“Together.”
You both knew neither of you could simply conjure a new future into existence.
But standing there in his arms, wrapped in warm jazz and a city that somehow already felt a little like home, you realized something.
For the first time since your life had been turned upside down...
Summary: A family emergency turns out to be Eloise with a plan, your hormones have officially entered their dramatic era, and Harry decides to do something dangerously romantic about it. Unfortunately, the past has plans too.
Warnings and WC: 19.8k (yes, I missed writing this much 😌) 18+ MDNI / mature themes, time-jump, fluff, kissing, emotional intimacy, secret beach wedding, surprise wedding, private vows, second wedding / remarriage, Harry becomes the most romantic man alive because his very pregnant fiancée cried over a movie, overly emotional pregnant reader, comedy, hormonal crying, pregnancy cravings, twins gender reveal, high-risk twin pregnancy, pregnant reader, body changes, protective daddy-to-be!Harry, overprotective husband energy, soft Harry hours, second chance romance, exes to lovers, established relationship, mention about orgasm, billionaire romance, rich people problems, elite Manhattan society, family therapy ambush, Eloise being Eloise, family dynamics, childhood wounds, emotional distress, hurt/comfort, pregnancy complications, early labor scare, domestic fluff, banter, humor, old money aesthetics, private love vs public image, OC Characters (Ron=Harry’s assistant, Emily=Reader's bestie, Chloe=Reader's elite friend, Mikey=Readers brother Scarlet&Richard=Reader's parents, Yuliana=Reader's maid, Vivienne=Harry's mother, Sienna=Harry's sister, Dana=Reader's EA (Executive Assistant), Eloise=Harry’s Grandmother.)
authors note: My loves, this chapter kept growing while I was writing it, and I can't believe it almost passed 20k. I almost split it into two parts… but changed my mind. It's officially the longest chapter I've ever written, and I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it. Enjoy! ❤️
• The Songs: Stand By Me — Florence + The Machine
You are the Reason — Olivia Penalva
What Belongs to You Will Find Its Way Back
April 13th...
Rhinebeck, New York
Three black cars swept up the long drive to Rhinebeck as though bad news had learned to travel in formation.
From the back seat of the first, you watched the estate emerge through the trees—gray stone, climbing ivy, and tall windows catching the last pale light of the afternoon.
It had always looked peaceful from a distance.
Today, it looked like the kind of place where families gathered to hear something they would never forget.
Harry hadn't let go of your hand since Ron received the call. His fingers remained tightly threaded through yours, his thumb brushing slowly over your engagement ring and across your knuckles in a steady rhythm that was probably meant to calm you.
It wasn't working.
Not when his jaw had been locked for the past forty minutes.
Harry had walked out of a meeting without his coat, picked you up before you'd even had time to change, and ordered the driver toward Rhinebeck without waiting for another explanation.
Across from you, Ron sat unusually still, his phone dark in his hand. He'd already called the house twice.
Both times, Eloise's nurse had given him the same answer.
Mrs. Castillo had suffered a difficult morning. She wanted the family in Rhinebeck immediately.
Nothing more.
"Did she sound frightened?" you asked again.
Ron looked up. "The nurse?"
"Yes."
"She sounded controlled."
"That wasn't my question."
Ron hesitated a fraction too long. Harry's grip tightened around your hand. You turned toward him. "Maybe we should've gone straight to the hospital."
"If she needed a hospital, her nurse would've sent her to one," Harry said evenly. "She knows what she's doing." His voice was calm. Deliberately calm.
It might've convinced anyone else.
Not you.
Harry was terrified. He was simply doing everything he could to keep that fear from reaching you. "Eloise is probably fine," he continued, his thumb brushing over your hand again. "It could be exhaustion. A medication adjustment. Anything."
"You don't believe that."
His gaze met yours. "I believe worrying before we know anything won't help you or the babies."
"I'm all right." You leaned closer, covering his hand with yours. "Hey. She's the strongest woman I know. She's going to be okay."
Harry held your gaze for a long moment, as though he wanted to borrow your certainty but wasn't sure how. "She'd better be," he said quietly.
He lifted your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles before lacing your fingers together once more.
Your free hand drifted instinctively to the gentle curve beneath your dress.
At five months, hiding the pregnancy was no longer possible—not with twins, and certainly not from a man who'd spent the past several weeks monitoring every meal, every yawn, and nearly every step you took.
Harry noticed immediately. "What is it?"
"Nothing."
"Was that a cramp?"
You smiled. "One of the babies."
"Which one?"
You waited until another tiny flutter danced beneath your palm. "The mischievous one."
Ron blinked. "You can already tell them apart?"
"Of course I can."
"They're identical twins."
"That doesn't mean they have identical personalities."
Another tiny kick answered for you.
You laughed softly. "This one waits until I'm trying to sleep. The other prefers interrupting my calls with Gerard."
Harry considered that. "The second one sounds strategic."
"Definitely a Castillo," Ron said with a smirk.
Harry slowly turned his head. Ron calmly redirected his attention to the window.
Before Harry could answer, the iron gates opened, and the car began its final climb toward the house.
A second car followed close behind.
Through the rear window, you caught a glimpse of your mother and Vivienne sitting side by side, both unnaturally rigid.
Lately, the two women had been spending an astonishing amount of time together.
Ever since you stopped speaking properly to Scarlet... and Harry had grown just as distant from Vivienne.
That, however, was another story.
Probably several.
A third black car turned through the gates.
You frowned. "That's Mikey's car."
Harry glanced over his shoulder.
Ron followed his gaze. "Michael was called as well."
"Of course he was," Harry muttered.
Ron's expression hinted there was more to say. He wisely chose continued employment instead.
The first car rolled to a stop beneath the portico.
Harry was out before the driver had fully opened the door. He rounded the car and offered you his hand. As you stepped out, his other hand instinctively rose above your head, shielding you from the doorframe.
You smiled. "I'm not quite big enough to need help getting out of a car."
"You're carrying our babies." His voice softened. "The least I can do is take care of my queen."
You slipped your hand into his. "You're supervising every limb I own."
Once both your feet were on the gravel, he rested an arm around your waist instead of letting go. He leaned down, pressing a lingering kiss beneath your ear. "I'm very attached to them," he murmured.
You laughed. "All of them?"
"Every single one."
Behind you, Scarlet and Vivienne climbed out of the second car.
Scarlet looked as though she'd abandoned her reading glasses somewhere along the drive. Vivienne, meanwhile, had lost every trace of color.
Your mother's eyes found yours first. Hope flickered across her face, fragile enough to disappear almost immediately.
She took the smallest step forward. At the same moment, Vivienne looked toward Harry with nearly the same uncertainty.
You felt Harry's arm tighten around your waist. Your fingers quietly found his hand.
No words were exchanged. None were needed. Together, the two of you turned toward the house. Scarlet stopped. Vivienne did too. Ron watched the mothers...
...then their children.
He let out the quietest sigh.
The third car pulled beneath the portico. Sienna stepped out first. Mikey emerged from the opposite side. For one suspended moment...
Neither of them moved. Sienna's hair was slightly less polished than usual. Mikey's tie was missing. The top two buttons of his shirt hung open beneath his coat. He looked exactly like a man who hadn't expected to arrive at his grandmother's estate with Harry Castillo's younger sister.
Harry noticed. Slowly... His attention shifted from Sienna...
...to Mikey.
Mikey straightened immediately. Sienna lifted her chin. Even Scarlet and Vivienne forgot their panic long enough to look between them.
"We ran into each other," Mikey said.
"At lunch," Sienna added a little too quickly.
"She needed a ride."
Vivienne frowned. "Weren't you supposed to be at the gallery all afternoon?"
"I was."
"Then how exactly did you run into Michael at lunch?"
Sienna opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
Mikey rescued her. "Manhattan becomes a very small place when two people are hungry."
Scarlet's eyes drifted over his missing tie...
...his open collar...
...and finally the restaurant bag still hanging from his hand.
"Apparently."
Ron glanced toward the company sedan assigned exclusively to Mikey.
"A fortunate coincidence."
Harry remained silent. Which, somehow, was much worse. You felt the exact moment suspicion began arranging itself inside his head.
Questions were coming.
Before the first one could leave his mouth, you caught the front of his coat and gave it a gentle tug.
He looked down.
You held his eyes for a beat.
Not now.
His brows drew together. Somehow...He knew you knew something. He also knew this wasn't the place to ask.
You pulled your coat tighter. "Can we go inside? I'm freezing."
Mikey disappeared from Harry's mind instantly.
His arm settled around your shoulders. "Come on."
Together, you headed for the front entrance.
The interrogation disappeared.
For now.
The front doors were already open.
Two members of staff stood inside the foyer, their expressions solemn. The housekeeper held her hands clasped tightly at her waist, while a young footman stared fixedly at the marble floor.
Something about them felt wrong. Not grief.
Performance.
The realization flickered through you and vanished before you could fully grasp it. Perhaps they had simply been instructed not to say anything. Perhaps your fear was making everything seem strange.
“Where is she?” Harry asked.
“Upstairs, sir,” the housekeeper replied softly. “Her nurse is waiting.”
Scarlet moved first.
Her heels struck sharply against the marble as she crossed the foyer, Vivienne close beside her. Sienna and Mikey followed without looking at each other.
Harry kept one hand at your back as you climbed the stairs.
Too slowly for everyone else. Too quickly for him.
His arm tightened every time you reached another step.
“Harry, ” you warned beneath your breath.
“I’m not carrying you.”
“You were thinking about it.”
A reluctant smile touched his mouth.
You would have answered, but Eloise’s nurse appeared at the top of the staircase. Her face was composed. Almost suspiciously composed. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
Harry stopped in front of her. “What happened?”
Vivienne stepped beside him. “I was gone for two days. She was perfectly well when I left.”
“She’s resting.”
“That isn’t an answer,” Harry said.
“She asked me not to discuss anything until everyone was present.”
Vivienne looked around sharply. “We are present.”
The nurse’s gaze passed over the group, pausing briefly on Mikey and Sienna before returning to Vivienne.
“Yes,” she said. “You certainly are.”
She turned and led all of you down the corridor. The house had gone unnaturally quiet. No distant clatter from the kitchen. No music from one of the sitting rooms.
Only footsteps and the steady ticking of the old clock near the staircase.
At Eloise’s bedroom door, the nurse paused. “Please try not to upset her.”
Vivienne pressed one hand to her chest. “Oh, God.”
The nurse opened the door. The curtains had been drawn halfway, leaving the room washed in muted silver light. Eloise lay beneath a pale cashmere blanket, her head resting against a mountain of pillows.
Her eyes were closed.
For the first time since the call, Harry released your hand.
He crossed the room in three strides. “Abuela?”
Eloise did not respond.
Vivienne hurried to the other side of the bed. “Mama?”
The rest of you gathered near the footboard. Scarlet reached blindly for your hand, and despite everything that had passed between you, you let her take it.
Sienna stood stiffly beside her. Mikey’s usual restless energy had disappeared completely. Eloise’s nurse closed the door behind all of you.
A long moment passed.
Then Eloise took a faint breath. “Is everyone here?”
Her voice was weak enough to make Harry bend closer. “Yes,” he said immediately. “We’re all here.”
“Scarlet?”
“I’m here,” Scarlet whispered.
“Vivienne?”
“Here, Mama.”
“Sienna?”
“Yes, Abuela.”
“Mikey?”
Mikey blinked. “Uh… yes, ma’am.”
Eloise’s eyes remained closed. “Mi reina?”
You stepped closer, Harry’s hand finding yours again. “I’m here.”
From somewhere near the door, Ron cleared his throat. “For the record, I’m here as well.”
Eloise remained motionless. “Ah, Ronald,” she breathed. “I remembered you.”
Ron gave a small nod.
Eloise released a long, tired sigh. Then her eyes opened.
Clear. Sharp. Entirely alert.
“Bueno,” she said.
Before anyone could react, she pushed herself upright against the pillows with surprising ease, pulled the cashmere blanket neatly over her lap, and held out one hand.
Her nurse placed her reading glasses into it.
Eloise slipped them on and looked around the room, visibly pleased by the collection of pale, frightened faces before her. She clapped her hands together once, bright and decisive. “Everyone is here. Perfect. Then we will not waste Dr. Adler’s time.”
Silence.
The door to the adjoining sitting room opened.
A woman in a navy suit stepped through, carrying a leather notebook and wearing the professionally neutral expression of someone who had already been warned about the family waiting for her.
“Good evening,” she said. “I’m Dr. Vanessa Adler.”
No one moved.
Harry stared at his grandmother. “Abuela.”
Eloise adjusted her glasses. “What?”
“Did you fake a medical emergency?”
Her mouth fell open in theatrical offense. “Fake? Ay, por favor (please). I did no such thing.”
“Your nurse said you’d had a difficult morning.”
“I did. My eggs were cold, the coffee was weak, and none of you have answered a direct question in nearly a month. It was a terrible morning.”
Scarlet made an outraged sound. “We thought you were dying!”
“You frightened all of us,” you added. “We came here expecting the worst.”
“I left an entire boardroom without saying a word,” Harry said.
Sienna folded her arms. “That was cruel, Abuela.”
Mikey whined. “I abandoned my dessert.” Everyone looked at him. “What?” he said. “Grief affects people differently.”
Eloise waved one dismissive hand at all of you.
“Dios mío, look at these faces. At my age, death is always somewhere nearby. I never said it had entered the house.”
Vivienne turned toward the nurse. “You allowed us to believe something had happened to her.”
“I said Mrs. Castillo wished to see the family urgently,” the nurse replied calmly. “That was accurate.”
“You trapped us,” Sienna said.
Eloise looked at her over the rim of her glasses. “Had I said, ‘Come to Rhinebeck, niños, there is a therapist waiting to discuss your feelings,’ would you have come?” Sienna opened her mouth. Nothing emerged. “Exactly,” Eloise said. “Do not argue when you know I am right. It gives me a headache.”
Mikey looked between Eloise and Dr. Adler. “You used mortality as a scheduling tool.”
“And you arrived on time for the first time since I met you.”
Mikey considered that. “That’s incredibly manipulative.” Then a slow, appreciative grin appeared on his face. “I like it.”
You stepped closer to the bed. “Eloise, I’m five months pregnant with twins. You cannot summon me by implying that you may be dying. There are currently three heartbeats inside this body, and you frightened all of them.”
Eloise reached for your hand. “Come here, mi reina.”
You gave her a suspicious look but allowed her to take it.
She squeezed your fingers between both of hers, her expression softening. “I am sorry I frightened you, mi amor.”
“You don’t look very sorry.”
“No, because I am not sorry that it worked.”
“Eloise.”
“Ay, let me finish.” She patted your hand. “I would not have done any of this if all of you had not become completely impossible.”
A chorus of protests began.
Eloise lifted one finger. “¡Basta! (enough!)” The room fell silent. “At our last family dinner, Scarlet and mi reina spoke exclusively through the salt and pepper.”
You glanced toward your mother. Scarlet looked away with great dignity.
“Harry and Vivienne exchanged six words all evening,” Eloise continued. “Four of them concerned the rain.”
Vivienne folded her arms. Harry said nothing, which did very little to help his case.
“And now Vivienne is spending every free hour with Scarlet. Just like schoolgirls. Their son and daughter are sulking in separate corners, so naturally the mothers have abandoned them to whisper together.”
Scarlet’s expression became carefully blank.
Vivienne lifted her chin. “We are allowed to enjoy one another’s company.”
“Sí, of course.” Eloise looked between them over the rim of her glasses. “And I am supposed to believe the two of you have no secrets while you disappear for lunches, lower your voices when I enter a room, and suddenly stop speaking whenever one of your children appears.”
Neither woman answered.
Eloise gave a satisfied nod.
“You may fool your children. You may fool one another. But you will not fool this old woman. Whatever you are hiding, whatever ridiculous problem has driven you into one another’s arms, you will solve it.”
Scarlet’s expression remained perfectly composed.
Which, in your experience, generally meant Eloise was right. Sienna lowered her head, hiding a smile. Then Eloise turned toward her.
“And you.”
Sienna blinked. “What about me?”
Eloise narrowed her eyes. “You have been happy.”
Sienna stared at her. “I’m sorry?”
“Too happy,” Eloise said. “Smiling at your telephone. Disappearing for lunch. Wearing perfume in the afternoon.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Sí, sí. And I am a foolish old woman who has never seen a girl hide a man.”
Mikey coughed. Eloise’s head turned toward him immediately.
“And there he is.”
Mikey straightened. “Why am I suddenly involved?”
Eloise looked from him to Sienna and back again.
“I may be eighty-six, cariño, but when it comes to romance, deception, and badly concealed attraction, my mind is still sharper than most of yours.”
Sienna abruptly found the carpet fascinating. Mikey looked toward the window. “Come on, Eloise,” he said with an unconvincing laugh. “This is becoming wildly speculative.”
“Mm-hm.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly does that mean?”
Eloise waved one hand dismissively. “Nothing you need to worry about yet.”
“Abuela.”
“Do not ‘Abuela’ me. If there is something to know, I will know it before you do.”
From near the door, Ron murmured, “At least we now know where the Castillos inherited their observational skills.”
Eloise released your hand and settled back against her pillows, looking around at the family with the weary affection of a woman who had raised too many stubborn people and somehow acquired several more.
“So I have decided that all of you need therapy.”
“We do not all need therapy,” Vivienne said.
“Some people need boundaries,” you murmured.
Scarlet looked at you. “Some people need to communicate instead of freezing out their mothers.”
“Some people need to stop investigating other people’s private lives,” Vivienne added.
Harry’s jaw tightened. “Some people need better judgment regarding men.”
“Ay, Dios mío.” Eloise struck the mattress lightly with her palm. “Listen to yourselves. You sound like children arguing over one toy.” No one answered. “As the eldest person in this family, I am asking for one afternoon without secrets, sulking, investigators, secret lunches, mysterious interviews, and whatever else you are all doing behind closed doors.”
She pointed toward Dr. Adler.
“You will speak to this nice woman. You will tell her the truth. Not the elegant version, not the corporate version, and not the version where you are all innocent little angels. You will solve your problems, or at the very least, you will learn to argue more quietly. I would like to enjoy the rest of my life.”
Dr. Adler cleared her throat and stepped forward.
“My plan is to begin with a few brief private conversations. Afterward, we’ll meet together to discuss the patterns affecting the family as a whole.” She glanced around at the collection of reluctant faces.
“Shall we begin?”
The private sitting room was smaller than Eloise's bedroom, warmer too, with tall windows overlooking the gardens and a low fire crackling beneath the marble mantel. A carafe of water sat on the table beside a box of tissues with the quiet menace of something fully expecting to be needed.
Dr. Adler was already seated in one of the armchairs, her notebook resting open across her lap. She gestured toward the sofa opposite. "Please. Make yourself comfortable."
You lowered yourself carefully onto the cushions, one hand supporting the underside of your stomach. "Comfortable stopped being an available position about three weeks ago."
A faint smile tugged at her lips. "Would another cushion help?"
"If you bring me another cushion, Harry will somehow sense it through the wall and order six more." That earned a soft laugh. You adjusted your skirt and glanced toward the closed door. "I still can't believe Eloise actually did that."
"I'm observing that her method was effective," Dr. Adler replied. "Everyone she asked to come arrived."
"Because we thought she was dying."
"Which says something rather lovely about how much she means to all of you."
You narrowed your eyes. "That sounds suspiciously like therapeutic manipulation."
"It sounds like an observation."
"You're going to fit into this family beautifully."
She smiled, letting the joke pass. Instead, her attention drifted briefly—not intrusively—to the curve of your stomach. "Before we discuss your family… how are you feeling? Is everything going well with the pregnancy?"
You rested your palm over the place where one of the babies had been moving throughout the drive. "I'm about as well as anyone five months pregnant with twins can be."
"Tired?"
"Constantly."
"Any pain today?"
"No. Just pressure, backache, occasional insomnia… and two tiny people with very strong opinions about where my internal organs should be."
She nodded. "And emotionally?"
You looked at her. "That feels like a much more expensive question."
"It usually is."
A comfortable silence settled between you.
Then she asked, "Where would you like to begin?"
You gave her a knowing look. "You already know where Eloise wants us to begin."
"She gave me a broad outline."
"And?"
"I'd rather hear your version."
You sighed. "Of course she did." Another quiet pause. "If we're actually doing this…" You drew a slow breath. "Everything started after I moved into Harry's house."
At the time, you had been barely three months pregnant. The babies were still easy enough to hide beneath tailored coats and structured dresses. The nausea wasn't. Neither was the exhaustion. But Queen Financial had only just begun recovering, and the last thing you wanted was for anyone walking into a boardroom to mistake pregnancy for weakness. For weeks, you carried ginger tea in coffee cups and smiled through mornings when simply remaining upright felt like an act of corporate defiance.
"And your mother knew?"
"Everything."
"Was she supportive?"
You let out a quiet, humorless laugh. "I thought she was."
When you told Scarlet, she'd cried. She'd held your face, kissed your forehead, and told you that after everything you'd survived, you deserved something beautiful. Then, less than twenty-four hours later…
…the conversation became strategy.
"Her first concern wasn't my health. It was the company."
Dr. Adler remained silent.
"Queen Financial was still fragile. Investors were watching everything I did. And she believed a public pregnancy would overshadow the recovery. She thought it would become the only thing people saw."
Scarlet's voice still echoed in your memory.
You cannot announce this yet, darling. Not until the company is stronger.
At first, you'd agreed. It seemed reasonable. Temporary. You'd wait until refinancing was complete. Then the board transition. Then quarterly earnings. There was always another milestone. Another reason to wait.
"How did that make you feel?"
You looked down at your hands. "Like I wasn't carrying two babies. Like I was carrying a liability."
Dr. Adler let the silence sit. "And the wedding?"
You leaned back carefully. "That was worse."
Scarlet had been thrilled when you and Harry found your way back to one another. She'd told you pride wasn't a substitute for love. That you'd regret letting fear choose your future. But once the ring was on your finger…
…and the pregnancy could no longer be hidden…
Everything came with conditions.
You cannot marry him while you're visibly pregnant.
"I honestly thought I'd misheard her."
"What was her reasoning?"
"That Manhattan would turn it into a circus."
Another memory surfaced.
They'll say Harry rescued you, rescued your company, got you pregnant, and rushed you down the aisle before anyone could ask questions.
"None of that was true."
"No," Dr. Adler said quietly. "It wasn't."
You gave a faint smile. "But she wasn't wrong about the headlines."
The smile faded. "She wanted us to wait until after the girls were born."
Twenty minutes later, Scarlet occupied the same sofa.
Her posture was immaculate, one elegant leg crossed over the other. Even now, she looked more like a woman preparing for a board meeting than a therapy session. Dr. Adler closed her notebook from the previous conversation and opened it to a fresh page.
"Tell me what changed from your perspective."
Scarlet folded her hands neatly in her lap. "She finally looked happy."
Dr. Adler waited.
"I had watched my daughter spend years carrying responsibilities that should never have belonged to her. Then she found her way back to Harry. She was expecting twins. She had a future." A faint smile touched Scarlet's lips. "I wanted to protect it."
"And what did protecting it look like to you?"
"Managing the circumstances around it."
"You mean the company."
"Among other things."
Scarlet glanced toward the window before continuing. "Queen Financial had only just survived the worst crisis in its history. Investors were watching everything. I believed one public pregnancy would eclipse everything she had accomplished."
"And the wedding?"
Scarlet didn't hesitate. "I wanted that to belong to them."
Dr. Adler tilted her head slightly. "Ms. Queen remembers it differently."
"I'm aware."
Scarlet let out a slow breath. "I told her she wasn't a spectacle. My concern wasn't the marriage. It was how the world would rewrite it. I wanted her achievements to remain her own."
Silence lingered for a moment. Then Dr. Adler asked quietly, "And what do you think Queen heard?"
Scarlet's brow furrowed.
"I…"
She stopped.
Dr. Adler didn't rescue her. Instead, she simply waited. Scarlet's shoulders lowered almost imperceptibly. "…That I cared more about appearances than about her."
Another pause. "Was she wrong?"
Scarlet didn't answer immediately. Finally… "No." She looked toward the floor. "Not entirely."
Dr. Adler turned back to you. “What happened after that conversation?”
"I stopped telling her things."
Scarlet's response came without hesitation.
"She punished me."
"I set a boundary."
"She excluded me from the pregnancy."
"She knew the babies were healthy."
"She wouldn't let me attend the next scan."
"She tried to relocate my obstetrician to Rhinebeck."
"I suggested an alternative arrangement."
"She had an examination room prepared in the house."
"It was discreet."
"It had a chandelier."
"The chandelier was already there."
Dr. Adler paused.
"And the flowers?"
Scarlet's eyes narrowed slightly. "Medical rooms are unnecessarily bleak."
Back in your session, you looked toward the ceiling. "Do you see what I'm dealing with?"
"I'm beginning to," Dr. Adler admitted.
"The second baby had already been identified as a girl," you continued. "The other refused to cooperate."
Despite yourself, a smile appeared.
"A few days ago… we finally found out."
Dr. Adler smiled back.
"And?"
"Another girl."
The words still warmed something inside you.
Two daughters.
Two tiny heartbeats.
Two entirely different futures already unfolding.
"And you haven't told your mother."
"No."
"Why?"
You looked down at your engagement ring before answering.
"Because I wanted one thing to belong to Harry and me before it became a theme, a luncheon, a guest list… and twelve thousand flowers."
That earned the smallest laugh.
Then Dr. Adler grew thoughtful.
"So withholding that information became a boundary."
"It did."
"And it remained one?"
"For a while."
"And after that?"
You hesitated.
"…Maybe it stopped being only a boundary."
"A little?"
You sighed.
"Moderately."
One corner of Dr. Adler's mouth lifted.
"Elegantly punitive."
Despite yourself…
You laughed.
"So Harry wasn't exaggerating."
"Oh?"
"He told me your sense of humor usually appears about twenty minutes after your honesty."
You smiled despite yourself.
"He's annoyingly perceptive."
"I've noticed."
Dr. Adler closed the notebook.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Finally, she said,
"I'd like to ask you one last question."
You nodded.
"When Scarlet said she was protecting you…"
"…did any part of you believe her?"
Silence. A long one. Eventually…
"Yes."
"And yet?"
"I didn't need protecting."
"You needed trusting."
Your voice had become barely more than a whisper. "I needed her to trust that I could live my own life."
Dr. Adler nodded once. "I think that's a very important distinction."
She stood, gathering her notebook. "I won't ask you to forgive her today." You looked up. "I don't think either of you is ready for that. But I do think you're both grieving the same relationship."
You frowned. "The same relationship?"
"The one each of you thought you had. And that's usually where healing begins."
By the time Harry took your place on the sofa, Dr. Adler had already filled several pages. She turned to a fresh one and poised her pen above it. “Mr. Castillo. Tell me about your mother.”
Harry settled back, resting one ankle over his knee. “My mother is seeing a man.”
Twenty minutes later, Vivienne answered the same question with visible irritation. “I had dinner with a perfectly respectable gentleman.”
“Four dinners,” Harry said in his own session.
“Three dinners and one lunch.”
“Two lunches.”
Vivienne sighed and looked toward the ceiling. “My son apparently keeps a ledger.”
“There was also a weekend in Connecticut.”
“There were twelve bedrooms in that house,” Vivienne protested.
“That doesn’t make the weekend less concerning.”
“It makes it considerably less intimate.”
“He sent her roses.”
“He is French.”
Harry looked directly at Dr. Adler. “That is not a defense.”
Dr. Adler rested the tip of her pen against the page. “Mr. Castillo, your mother is an autonomous adult.”
“I’m aware.”
“You had the man investigated.”
“Autonomy does not eliminate due diligence.”
"And did your mother ask for your protection?"
"No."
"Then why did you decide she needed it? What are you afraid will happen?"
“He could take advantage of her.”
“Financially?”
“Financially, socially or emotionally. Those things often overlap.”
“And did your mother ask for your protection?”
“No.”
“Then why did you decide she needed it?”
Harry’s fingers moved once against the arm of the sofa. “People rarely ask before something goes wrong.”
“That sounds less like an answer about this man and more like an answer about someone else.”
His eyes lifted to hers. “My father left.”
The words were flat and controlled. Dr. Adler did not immediately begin writing again.
“Your parents divorced?”
“No.”
She paused. “Your mother is still legally married to him?”
“Yes.”
“And yet he has not been part of her life for years.”
“No.”
Harry looked toward the window. “My mother never received an ending. He simply left her with the consequences.”
“Not anymore. We don’t remind her. The last time her condition worsened, the doctors told us to avoid anything that could trigger another episode.”
Dr. Adler regarded him quietly. “So your father’s absence is something the entire family is required to live around, but never fully discuss.”
“That isn’t why we’re here.”
“Perhaps not. But it may explain why another man entering your mother’s life feels less simple to you than it does to her.”
When Dr. Adler later asked Vivienne about Harry’s behavior after Eduardo left, her irritation softened. “He became efficient.”
“That sounds like an unusual response to grief.”
“It was Harry’s response. He dealt with the lawyers, the accounts and every practical problem Eduardo left behind. Sienna was nineteen and furious. Harry called her constantly until she threatened to block him.”
“And you?”
“I was still married to a man who had chosen not to be my husband.”
Vivienne looked down at her hands.
“Harry decided that if Eduardo had abandoned his responsibilities, he would assume all of them.”
“Did you ask him to?”
“No. Harry has never waited to be asked.”
Back in his own session, Dr. Adler said, “Has this new man given you any reason to believe he intends to hurt her?”
“Not yet.”
“So you’re preparing for a betrayal that has not occurred.”
“I’m being cautious.”
Dr. Adler lowered her pen. “Your mother’s marriage never formally ended, your father’s absence cannot be openly discussed around your grandmother, and you have spent years managing the consequences. It makes sense that you want this new relationship verified before you allow yourself to trust it.”
“Allow myself?”
“Yes. Because this is not only about whether your mother trusts him.”
Harry said nothing.
“It’s also about whether you can tolerate her beginning a new life when the old one was never properly closed.”
In Vivienne’s session, Dr. Adler asked, “Does being legally married to Eduardo affect how you feel about seeing someone else?”
Vivienne was silent for a moment. “Sometimes.”
“Guilt?”
“Not toward Eduardo.” Her answer came sharply. “He surrendered any right to ask for loyalty when he left.”
“Then what?”
Vivienne exhaled. “The strangeness of it. Beginning something new when part of my life is still sitting unfinished in a locked room.”
“And Harry knows that.”
“Harry knows everything.” A faint smile touched her mouth. “That is both his best quality and his most exhausting one.”
Later, when Dr. Adler brought them into the room together, Harry sat at one end of the sofa and Vivienne chose the other.
“Harry,” Dr. Adler began, “your mother understands that your actions come from love.”
“And arrogance,” Vivienne added.
“And arrogance,” Dr. Adler allowed. “But she is not asking you to erase the risk. She is asking you to trust her to decide whether it is worth taking.”
Harry looked at his mother. “Does he know you’re still legally married?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know why?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know about Abuela?”
“Only what he needs to know.”
“Has he asked for money?”
“No.”
“Professional introductions?”
“No.”
“Access to the family?”
“No.”
“Has he—”
“Harry.”
He stopped.
Vivienne’s voice softened. “I’m not replacing your father. I’m trying to stop living as though the life he abandoned is the only one I’m allowed to have.”
That silenced him.
After a moment, Harry nodded once. “If something feels wrong, you’ll tell me.”
“Yes.”
“Immediately?”
“Within a reasonable period.”
“Define reasonable.”
Dr. Adler lifted one hand. “No negotiations.”
Harry looked dissatisfied but relented. “Fine.”
“And you will not investigate him further,” Vivienne said.
“I won’t authorize any new investigation.”
“That isn’t the same sentence.”
“It’s the sentence I’m offering.”
“Harry.”
He sighed. “I will not investigate him further.”
“Or ask Ron.”
His silence lasted half a second too long.
Dr. Adler looked at him. “Or Ron,” he added.
Vivienne’s shoulders eased. She reached over and touched his cheek. “My poor baby boy.”
Harry leaned away. “Mama.”
“You’ve always been so devoted to me.”
“I am forty-six years old.”
“And still my baby.” Vivienne smiled. “When you stop treating me like a helpless abandoned wife, I’ll stop treating you like a worried little boy.”
Harry looked toward Dr. Adler. “Is this therapeutically appropriate?”
She made one final note. “It appears to be working.”
Vivienne patted his cheek again. “My baby boy.”
Harry closed his eyes. “This was a mistake.”
Dr. Adler turned to a fresh page.
Across from her, Mikey settled into the armchair as though he had been waiting his entire life for an audience legally required to listen to him.
"Before we start," he said, leaning forward with a conspiratorial smile, "everything we say in here stays in here, right? I can tell you anything?"
"Within the boundaries I explained earlier, yes."
She regarded him over the top of her notebook.
"Although I was under the impression we would be discussing your problem."
"I don't have a problem."
"Are you certain? You and Miss Castillo appear to be concealing something from your families."
His smile faltered.
"Did Eloise tell you that?"
"She shared several suspicions."
"That woman missed her calling."
"What was her calling?"
"International espionage." He leaned back with a sigh. "Fine. It was a problem. Mostly."
Dr. Adler waited.
"I realized I liked Sienna." Another pause. "I then tried several strategies that failed spectacularly." She waited again. "And eventually everything worked because of my little sister."
That finally earned a smile. "You asked your sister for advice?"
"I did."
He leaned forward again, lowering his voice. "My little sister is the smartest woman I know. Smarter than my mother. If that sentence leaves this room, I'll deny it under oath."
The corner of Dr. Adler’s mouth curved. “And you asked your sister for advice about Sienna?”
“I did. She told me to stop trying so hard and just be myself.” He leaned back, satisfied. “She was right.”
Twenty minutes later, Sienna occupied the same chair. She looked considerably less pleased by Queen's advice. "I'd never thought of Mikey that way before," she admitted.
"He was funny. Different." A small smile appeared. "But whatever this is… it only started last week."
"What changed?"
"He came to an auction I'd curated." A pause. "Everything went downhill after that."
One Week Earlier
The Belcourt Auction House, Manhattan
The auction room was exactly what wealthy New Yorkers liked to imagine culture looked like—polished wood, quiet lighting, priceless objects behind glass, and enough restrained elegance to justify spending absurd amounts of money.
Mikey wandered through it wearing a burgundy velvet jacket, cropped black trousers, martini-print cashmere socks, tinted glasses, and the cream trilby Sienna would later describe as a personal attack against art.
A numbered paddle rested in one hand.
An open packet of gummy bears occupied the other.
He stopped in front of an abstract painting made up of three black lines.
A member of staff approached.
"A striking piece, isn't it, sir?"
Mikey tilted his head.
"Is it finished?"
"…Yes, sir."
"Good for him."
Then he saw Sienna.
She stood near the front beside the auctioneer, dressed in a sharply tailored dark suit that somehow made everyone around her look underprepared.
His grin appeared before he could stop it.
He had come for her. Entirely for her. Mostly for her. He lifted the paddle and waved. Sienna noticed immediately.
Her expression passed through surprise…
…disbelief…
…suspicion…
…and something softer that disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived.
She gave him the smallest wave in return. Unfortunately… So did the auctioneer.
Genevieve Crane smiled from behind the podium.
Mikey, meanwhile, looked at her with absolutely no recognition. An unfortunate situation… considering she remembered him perfectly.
"Two hundred and eighty thousand from bidder seventy-four."
Mikey blinked.
"What?"
The auctioneer rested one hand beside the gavel.
"Two hundred and ninety thousand on the telephone."
Mikey frowned.
"No, I was waving to—"
"Three hundred thousand from bidder seventy-four."
A ripple spread through the room.
Across the aisle, Sienna's eyes widened.
She shook her head frantically.
Mikey pointed at her.
"No. Her. I was waving at her."
"Three hundred and twenty thousand."
"What? No."
The auctioneer's smile never wavered.
"Three hundred and forty?"
Mikey threw both hands into the air.
"Stop looking at my hands!"
"Three hundred and forty thousand from bidder seventy-four."
Sienna mouthed,
Put. The paddle. Down. You idiot.
Mikey stared at the paddle as though it had betrayed him personally.
He shoved it inside his jacket.
The auctioneer waited.
The room fell silent.
"Three hundred and forty thousand, once."
Mikey cautiously raised one finger.
"Can I ask a question?"
"Three hundred and sixty thousand."
"Oh, come on."
"Three hundred and sixty thousand, once."
Sienna covered her face.
"Twice."
Mikey looked at her helplessly.
The gavel struck.
"Sold."
Polite applause echoed through the room.
Mikey remained frozen. "What did I buy?"
The gentleman beside him closed his catalogue. "A seventeenth-century Venetian cristallo marriage goblet."
Mikey stared at the stage.
"Singular?"
"Yes."
"For three hundred and sixty thousand dollars?"
"Plus buyer's premium."
He closed his eyes.
"…I don't know what that means."
The moment the auction ended, Mikey headed straight for the auctioneer.
"Excuse me."
She looked up pleasantly.
"Yes?"
"There has been a terrible misunderstanding."
"Has there?"
"I was waving."
"You raised your paddle."
"To say hello."
"Several times."
"Because you kept selling me things."
"I sold you one thing."
"For the price of an apartment."
She smiled.
"You should probably familiarize yourself with auction procedure, Mr. Queen."
A beat.
"Although I suppose rules have never been your strength."
Mikey frowned.
"…Do we know each other?"
Sienna stopped walking. The auctioneer laughed once. "Typical Mikey."
Recognition finally dawned. "…Genevieve?"
Her smile vanished. "Oh. So you do remember."
"Fuck."
"Perhaps the rules of an auction slipped your mind…
the same way the woman you left alone in a hotel suite apparently did."
Sienna quietly turned away and began speaking to another member of staff.
"Hey."
Mikey hurried after her.
"That was six years ago."
"I was a different person."
She didn't even look at him.
Behind them…
Genevieve smiled.
Mikey slowly turned back toward her. "You vindictive witch."
"You just ruined everything."
Two attendants approached carrying the goblet on a velvet tray.
It was breathtaking. Centuries old. Delicate. Beautiful.
Mikey looked at it with absolutely no emotional attachment.
"Congratulations, Mr. Queen."
"Shall we process the purchase through the Queen Foundation account?"
Mikey closed his eyes. "…Of course it's the foundation account."
He looked at the goblet. "…Well. I bought it. So it's mine."
He reached into his coat… removed the packet of gummy bears… and tipped them directly into the three-hundred-year-old Venetian goblet.
Silence. Genevieve stared. "That object has survived three centuries."
"And now it has purpose."
The administrator held the tablet toward Mikey again. As he prepared to sign, Genevieve leaned closer.
“Try not to forget this one by morning, Mr. Queen. It cost considerably more than the women you leave behind.”
Mikey’s hand stopped above the screen.
He looked at her for a moment, then lowered the stylus. “One second.”
He took out his phone and started a video call. "You asked for it."
The screen rang twice before you appeared. You were seated somewhere bright in a silk blouse, one hand resting beneath the pronounced curve of your stomach. Yuliana stood beside you with a tray of tea.
“Mikey.”
“Hey, baby sister. You look beautiful. Radiant. Glowing.”
“What did you do?”
“That’s hurtful. You don’t even know why I’m calling.”
“You only call me ‘baby sister’ when money, police, or bodily injury are involved.”
“Technically, none of those.”
Dr. Adler interrupted the story. “You called Ms. Queen—your sister?”
Mikey nodded. “She was the only person who could get me out of it.”
“And she did?”
A proud grin spread across his face. “Without even setting foot in the building.”
Mikey turned the phone toward Genevieve. "Someone would like a word."
Genevieve took one look at the screen. "…Queen." Her face fell. "Shit."
Mikey held the phone closer anyway.
The change in your face was almost imperceptible. Your posture remained relaxed and your voice gentle, but every trace of warmth disappeared.
“Genevieve, darling. Listen carefully, because I am five months pregnant with identical twins, I slept for approximately three hours, one of them has mistaken my ribs for a rehearsal studio, and the other appears to be conducting experiments on my bladder. What little patience I have left is reserved for members of my immediate family.”
Yuliana nodded solemnly behind the phone.
Genevieve raised her chin. “Your brother placed a valid bid. He should know the rules.”
“My brother should know many things—auction procedure, women’s names, and when to stop wearing that hat among them. His intellectual limitations are not the matter presently under review.”
Mikey looked offended.
You continued without acknowledging him. “The auction was recorded. Your staff saw him attempting to correct the bid. Half the room watched you accelerate the increments while addressing a registered bidder with whom you have an undisclosed personal history.”
Genevieve’s expression faltered. “That has nothing to do with—”
“It has everything to do with professional conduct. Do not mistake my brother’s stupidity for an opportunity.”
“Hey, sister-” Mikey protested.
You ignored him.
“Michael may be an idiot, but he is our idiot. You used a charity auction to settle a six-year-old grievance with a man who did not even remember you well enough to understand that he was being punished.”
Genevieve’s face flushed.
You studied her for another second. “Also, whatever you’ve been earning by selling antiques to harmless fools appears to have been reinvested in self-tanner. That was an unfortunate decision. The shade is less Saint-Tropez and more decorative terracotta.” Yuliana tilted her head, considered Genevieve on the screen, and nodded again. “And is that Valentino from four seasons ago?” you continued. “Genevieve, honestly. If you intend to humiliate my family in public, at least don’t do it dressed like an archived press sample.”
Sienna’s eyebrows rose.
Mikey beamed at the phone as though you had complimented him personally.
“That is insulting,” Genevieve said.
“No. It is embarrassing. There is a difference.”
Your hand moved over your stomach as one of the babies shifted. “Here is what happens next. You void the sale, apologize to Mr. Queen for the misunderstanding, and return the goblet to its case before he attempts to serve breakfast cereal in it.”
Mikey glanced at the gummy bears. “I wouldn’t use milk.” You gave him a look. He closed his mouth.
Genevieve folded her arms. “And if Belcourt refuses?”
Your smile appeared—small, beautiful, and lethal. “Then the Queen Foundation will dispute the transaction, suspend its annual patronage, and request a formal ethics review into why a senior auctioneer accepted repeated accidental gestures as bids from a former sexual partner without disclosing the conflict.” Genevieve’s lips parted.
“I am currently carrying the future beneficiaries of both the Queen and Castillo families and, regrettably, I am one of the most discussed women in Manhattan. If I say this was personal retaliation disguised as a charitable transaction, by breakfast every board member, donor, and consignor attached to Belcourt will know exactly which phrase to repeat.”
Silence fell around the podium.
Mikey slowly selected another gummy bear.
You tilted your head. “Have I explained the available options clearly?”
Genevieve swallowed. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Ms. Queen.”
“Wonderful. I knew we would understand one another.” Your smile vanished as smoothly as it had appeared. “Yuliana, end the call before she mistakes any more of my attention for social relevance.”
“I love you, baby sister,” Mikey called quickly. “Take care of my nieces.”
“Try taking care of your own reputation for the rest of the day.”
The screen went dark.
Genevieve turned toward the administrator. “Void lot forty-seven.”
The attendants took the goblet from Mikey. Before surrendering it, he scooped the gummy bears out with one hand and dropped them into his mouth.
From across the room, Sienna laughed.
She finished her conversation and walked toward him, glancing once at Genevieve and the retreating attendants. “Let me guess. Queen fixed it?”
“Yes.” Mikey removed his tinted glasses. “Sienna, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.”
“For putting gummy bears in a three-hundred-year-old Venetian goblet?”
“No. Well, partially.” He glanced down at the paddle still protruding from his jacket. “I came to an auction you curated because I wanted to support you, and somehow I made the entire thing about me.”
“That does seem to happen around you.”
“I know.” His confidence disappeared for the first time that afternoon. “But I came because of you. I care about you. More than a little, actually. And when I’m around you, my hands apparently stop communicating with my brain, and then I forget what I meant to say, and—”
Sienna began to laugh again.
Mikey frowned. “This feels like a vulnerable moment.”
“You really are unlike anyone I’ve ever met, Mikey.” She shook her head. “I told you to put the paddle down, and instead you hid it inside your jacket and kept raising your fingers.”
“I panicked.”
“That was obvious.”
“Does the fact that you’re laughing mean you forgive me?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What if I buy you dinner?”
Sienna looked at him for a moment. “One dinner.”
By the time everyone returned to the sitting room, the April light beyond the tall windows had begun to fade, softening the edges of Rhinebeck into shades of blue and gold.
Without anyone consciously deciding it, everyone drifted back to the same places.
You settled beside Harry. His hand found yours immediately, his thumb brushing lightly across your knuckles. He didn't ask how your session had gone. Somehow, the gesture promised he would—later, when the answer belonged only to the two of you.
Across from you, Scarlet sat with the same composed posture she always carried into difficult conversations. This time, however, when your eyes met, neither of you looked away.
Beside her, Vivienne crossed one elegant leg over the other. She still looked faintly offended by several events of the afternoon, but no longer refused to acknowledge Harry's existence.
Harry gave her the smallest nod.
It wasn't quite an apology. It wasn't forgiveness. But it was a beginning.
Sienna chose the armchair nearest the fireplace.
Mikey sat on its broad arm without asking.
She looked up at him and, for the first time all day, didn't tell him to move.
Dr. Adler closed her notebook.
"I've heard four very different stories today," she began. "But they've all led me to the same conclusion."
The room grew quiet. "When this family is frightened, none of you asks for control." She looked around the room. "You simply take it." Harry lowered his eyes. Scarlet folded her hands. Vivienne's expression softened almost imperceptibly. Mikey suddenly found the pattern in the rug fascinating. "You investigate." She looked at Harry. "You plan." Scarlet. "You withhold." Your turn. "And sometimes…" her gaze shifted toward Mikey and Sienna, "…you attempt to solve problems before anyone has admitted they're problems."
Mikey slowly raised a finger.
"I feel mildly targeted."
"You should."
A ripple of laughter moved through the room. Even Harry smiled.
Dr. Adler waited until the laughter faded.
"Every one of you described those choices as protection."
She paused. "The person on the receiving end experienced them as control."
Silence settled once more. "I'd like each of you to try something different."
No one spoke. "The next time you're frightened for someone you love… ask them what they need before deciding for them."
Nobody argued.
For this family…
…that alone felt like remarkable progress.
The door opened.
Eloise stepped inside, carrying her cane less as a walking aid and more as a symbol of authority.
She surveyed the room carefully.
No one appeared to be crying.
No one appeared ready to disown anyone.
She gave a satisfied nod.
"Bueno." She tapped the floor once with her cane. "Enough emotional growth for one afternoon." A beat. "Dinner is ready."
"And if any of you start another family crisis before the soup…"
"…I'll schedule a second therapist."
Mikey stood immediately. "What kind of soup?"
"The kind you'll eat."
"That still doesn't narrow it down."
Sienna quietly caught the back of his jacket before he could continue and steered him toward the hallway.
Scarlet and Vivienne followed together, their conversation noticeably quieter than it had been only an hour earlier.
Harry rose beside you, offering his hand.
Once you were standing securely, his palm settled against the small of your back.
"Ready?"
You nodded. "Starving."
"Good."
"I intend to steal at least half your dessert."
"You always do."
"I know."
Together, you followed the others into the corridor. Within moments the sitting room fell silent. Almost.
Dr. Adler slipped her notebook into her leather bag and reached for her coat. A discreet knock interrupted her. The door opened just enough for Ron to step inside before quietly closing it again.
He remained standing. "May I ask you something?"
Dr. Adler smiled faintly. "Is this about the family?"
"No."
"Good."
She gestured toward the empty sofa. "Then it's probably about you."
"I'd prefer not to turn this into a session. If a man has never had a serious relationship but his current girlfriend wishes to get married and he doesn't believe he's ready…" He adjusted his cuff. "…there also happens to be a childhood friend."
Dr. Adler considered him for a moment. "Does your girlfriend know you're emotionally preoccupied with someone else?"
"No."
"Then you shouldn't agree to marry her."
"And the childhood friend?"
"Do you want a future with her or is she simply a safe possibility that allows you to postpone making a difficult decision?"
Ron frowned. "How does one determine that?"
"By telling both women the truth."
He looked genuinely disappointed. "That sounds unnecessarily human."
From somewhere down the corridor came Eloise's unmistakable voice.
"¡Ronald! Harry is already answering emails at the dinner table!"
Ron reached for the doorknob. "This conversation never happened." "¡Ronald!"
"I'm coming, Mrs. Castillo."
The door closed behind him.
April 23rd
A week after Rhinebeck, Queen Financial had settled into a rhythm that was not quite normal, but no longer felt like an emergency.
Gerard called every morning with whatever developments he believed required your attention. Dana sent carefully filtered briefings twice a day, having apparently decided anything capable of raising your blood pressure required written authorization before reaching you.
Emily and Chloe phoned almost daily, supposedly to discuss work and inevitably ending with questions about the twins, your appetite, and whether Harry had yet attempted to place you under medically supervised house arrest.
He hadn't. Technically.
By Friday evening, your final call with Gerard had lasted twelve minutes longer than promised.
“The revised projections are in your inbox,” he said through the speaker. “You don’t need to look at them tonight.”
“You sent them to me tonight.”
“I sent them so you would know they exist.”
“And now that I know they exist, you expect me not to open them?”
“Yes.”
“That’s an unreasonable understanding of my personality.”
From the other end of the sofa, Harry calmly reached over and removed the phone from your hand. “We’re done,” he said.
Gerard did not hesitate. “Thank you, Harry.”
“You’re both becoming intolerable,” you informed them.
“Monday morning,” Gerard replied. “Good night, Ms. Queen.”
The call ended before you could object. Harry placed your phone facedown on the coffee table, well beyond your immediate reach. You looked at him. He looked back. “That was hostile.”
“That was twelve minutes past your own deadline.”
“I was receiving information about my company.”
“You were reorganizing the executive committee from the sofa.”
“They needed reorganizing.”
“They’ll still need it on Monday.” You narrowed your eyes. Harry had already picked up the television remote. “No more work tonight.”
“What are we doing instead?”
“Watching a movie.” He moved closer and began scrolling. “No.”
You glanced at the screen. “What’s wrong with that one?”
“Home invasion.”
“It’s listed as a romantic comedy.”
“I checked the parents’ guide.”
“You checked the parents’ guide?”
“I’m being thorough.”
You laughed. “Harry.”
He ignored you and continued scrolling.
Finally he stopped. “This one.”
You looked at him suspiciously.
“Have you already researched it?”
“IMDb. Two reviews. Parents’ guide.”
“…Of course you did.”
The poster showed two people standing beneath strings of lights beside the sea. “A woman returns to the coastal town where she grew up,” Harry read. “She meets a man renovating an old hotel.” You considered it. Harry nodded once. “No violence. No blood. No psychological torment.”
“Finally.”
He pressed play. As the opening credits rolled, he stood.
“Where are you going?”
“Popcorn.”
“With actual salt?”
He gave you a look. “I’ll be right back.”
You settled deeper into the cushions he had arranged behind your back. A minute later Harry returned carrying a large bowl of popcorn. He sat beside you, glanced at the curve of your stomach, and carefully balanced the bowl on top of it.
You looked down.
Then slowly back at him.
“I’m carrying your children.”
“I’m appreciating the engineering.”
“You’re using me as furniture.”
“You’re beautiful in every form, baby.”
Before you could answer, he leaned over and kissed you, slow and gentle. You reached for the popcorn.
Your face fell almost immediately. “There’s a rumor of salt.”
“We’re watching your sodium.”
You sighed dramatically. “This family has become a dictatorship.”
The film began exactly as promised. It was gentle, romantic, and occasionally funny without trying too hard. The heroine inherited a weathered seaside hotel.
The hero knew how to repair everything except his own emotionally guarded heart. Harry disliked him immediately. “He should tell her why he left.”
“It’s been twenty minutes.”
“He has already created unnecessary confusion.”
You smiled. “That’s how films work.”
By the middle of the film, your head had settled against Harry’s shoulder while his fingers moved absentmindedly along your arm.
Beneath the blanket, your stomach gave a sudden, unmistakable ripple.
Harry looked down immediately.
Another tiny movement answered beneath the fabric.
He smiled, leaned over, kissed your stomach, and rested his palm gently over it.
“Easy, girls,” he murmured. “We’re trying to watch a movie with your mother.”
Another kick answered beneath his hand.
You considered it seriously.
“I think they want pistachios.”
“Five minutes ago they wanted popcorn.”
“They changed their minds.”
“They’re growing.”
“…Fair enough.”
He started to stand.
You caught his hand. “The roasted ones.”
“The roasted ones.”
“And bring the whole bag.”
Harry bent to kiss your forehead. “One full bag of roasted pistachios coming right up.”
As he disappeared toward the kitchen, you settled deeper into the cushions, both hands curving around your stomach as though congratulating the girls on another successful negotiation.
On the screen, the film drifted quietly toward its conclusion.
The hotel had been restored.
Something tightened painfully behind your ribs. Before you understood why, your vision blurred. One tear escaped. Then another. Within seconds they were falling too quickly to hide.
Harry turned immediately. “Hey.”
You wiped beneath your eyes, only making the tears worse.
“Hey, hey…” He set the popcorn aside at once, his hand instinctively finding your stomach. “What happened? Are you hurting?”
You shook your head.
“The babies?”
“No.”
“Then why are you crying, baby?”
You pointed helplessly toward the television. “The movie.”
Harry looked at the screen, then back at you. “The movie?”
“They're just…” Your voice cracked. “They're just getting married.” He stayed quiet. “They're just doing it.” Another tear slipped free. “There isn't a wedding planner shouting into a headset. No ballroom booked two years in advance. No security outside checking guest lists.”
You swallowed hard.
“No board wondering whether the timing is strategically responsible. No journalists deciding what the wedding means for my company. No headlines about my dress, my body, or whether marrying you affects the markets on Monday.”
Harry didn't interrupt.
On the screen, the couple exchanged vows while the ocean rolled gently behind them.
“They're just getting married,” you whispered again.
“They get to live it before the rest of the world starts talking about it.”
Harry reached up and gently brushed another tear from your cheek. “Oh, baby.”
A shaky laugh escaped you.
“I know. I'm crying over a fictional beach wedding.”
“I don't think that's why you're crying.”
You looked back at the television. The bride had slipped off her shoes. Her guests were laughing. The waves reached the edge of the aisle.
“I don't think I want all of it anymore.”
“All of what?”
“The spectacle.”
The word hung quietly between you.
“For years I thought that if I ever got married again, it had to be… perfect.”
You gave a tiny, humorless smile. “Perfect enough to justify everything that came before it.” Harry remained silent, listening. “But watching this…” Your eyes drifted back to the screen. “It just looks… peaceful.”
You leaned against him a little more. “I don't want our wedding to become public property before we've even lived it.”
His hand tightened gently around yours. “I don't want to spend the day wondering which photograph they'll print first… or what the markets will do on Monday.”
“You won't.”
“We can't control that.”
“No,” Harry said softly.
“But we can control what we choose to give them.”
You lifted your head to look at him. “I want one thing that's ours first.” A pause. “Before anyone turns it into a headline.”
Harry studied you for several quiet seconds. “Do you want a beach?”
Despite the tears, you smiled. “Maybe.”
“Barefoot?”
You looked back at the television. “Let's not become primitive.”
A laugh escaped him. “Fair.”
The newlyweds ran laughing toward the water while their friends chased after them.
You watched them for another moment before speaking again. “Besides… Scarlet and Vivienne already decided we should wait until after the girls are born.”
Harry listened. “That's still months away.”
You looked down at your stomach. “And by then everyone will spend the entire wedding talking about the babies instead of us.”
He brushed a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “You're the one who said you didn't want to be a bride with an enormous stomach.”
“I know.”
Your voice softened. “But if it were something like this…” You glanced back toward the beach on the screen. “Small. Quiet. Just family.” A tiny smile appeared. “I don't think I'd care.” You looked at him again. “Everything in my life has to happen in front of an audience simply because I'm a Queen.”
Your hand drifted toward the small bowl on the coffee table.
It was empty.
You stared into it for a long second.
“The pistachios are gone.”
Your face crumpled all over again.
Harry looked from the empty bowl to you just as another sob escaped.
“Oh, no.” He cupped your cheek immediately. “Shh, baby. Don't cry.”
“I wanted more.”
“I'll order more.”
“Two bags.”
“Two bags.”
“And the lemon sorbet.”
He had already unlocked his phone.
“And those thin crackers Dana brought last week.”
His thumb moved across the screen.
“Added.”
“And strawberries.”
He glanced up. “You said pistachios.”
“The situation has developed.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Clearly.”
“And chocolate-covered pretzels.”
“Anything else?”
You frowned thoughtfully, genuinely considering the question. “…The little tangerines.”
Harry added them without another word before setting the phone aside. “Everything's coming. ” He drew you gently back against his chest. “Now breathe for me.”
You nodded, still sniffling as you wiped beneath your eyes.
“I’m fine.” A pause. “It’s just the hormones.”
His lips brushed the top of your head. “Our wedding will be beautiful, baby.” You curled closer against him. “However we do it.”
“Okay,” you whispered.
The movie continued quietly in the background, but neither of you was really watching anymore.
Harry's fingers moved slowly through your hair until your breathing gradually steadied.
Only then did his eyes drift back toward the television.
The bride and groom were laughing barefoot beneath the driftwood arch. No ballroom. No photographers. No headlines. Just the people they loved. Harry watched in silence. His gaze lingered on the weathered wooden arch… the shoreline… the small gathering of family and friends. Then something almost imperceptible softened in his expression. A thought. Nothing more.
He said nothing.
He simply looked back down at you, asleep against his shoulder, one hand resting protectively over the gentle curve of your stomach.
A faint smile appeared.
The Following Morning
Chez Akiko
The restaurant had not yet opened for lunch, but the table nearest the kitchen was already occupied by six people who had been summoned with varying degrees of urgency and almost no useful explanation.
Emily sat at the head of the table with coffee in front of her. Chloe had arrived carrying two garment bags and the conviction that every crisis could be improved with appropriate tailoring. Dana was answering emails beneath the table, while Ron had placed a leather folder beside his plate and appeared to be the only person who had anticipated an agenda.
Mikey was eating something the kitchen had not officially served him.
Harry remained standing.
“We need to plan a wedding.”
Everyone stopped.
Mikey lowered the croissant in his hand. “Whose?”
Harry looked at him.
Mikey considered the question. “Right. Context clues.”
Emily leaned back in her chair. “You and Queen are already getting married. After the babies are born.”
“Scarlet and Vivienne have interviewed three event planners,” Chloe added. “One of them presented a forty-page proposal for the flowers alone.”
Dana finally looked up from her phone. “The preliminary date is being held for late summer.”
“And an entire team of professionals is supposed to organize it,” Emily said. “So why are we here?”
Harry placed both hands against the back of the empty chair in front of him.
“I’m not talking about that wedding.”
The table went quiet again.
Mikey slowly set down his croissant. “There are two weddings now?”
“Technically, yes,” Harry said.
Chloe narrowed her eyes. “What exactly are you planning?”
“Something private. This weekend.”
Six faces turned toward him.
Even Ron blinked.
Emily slowly placed her coffee on the table. “Harry, it’s Thursday.”
“I’m aware.”
“You want us to arrange a wedding in two days?”
“A small one.”
“Rich people always say that,” Emily said, “before describing a small country.”
“No ballroom, no hotel, no press. No guest list beyond the people in this room and immediate family.”
Emily studied him. “What changed?”
Harry looked down at the table. “We watched a movie last night. There was a wedding on a beach.” He paused, remembering the way your voice had broken when you said the couple had simply been allowed to marry. “She said she didn’t want ours to become public property before we’d had the chance to live it.”
The room grew quieter.
“No reporters,” he continued. “No analysts deciding what our marriage means for the companies. No photographs released before she chooses them.
She wants something that belongs to us.”
“A private beach wedding,” Emily said softly.
“Yes.”
“Just friends and family.”
“Yes.”
“And Queen doesn’t know.”
“No.”
Mikey raised one finger. “Are you sure we’re talking about my sister? She used to plan her wedding while she was still in elementary school.”
“I can confirm that,” Chloe said. “There were sketches.”
“Sounds like her,” Emily agreed.
Ron glanced down at his folder. “Ms. Queen being the only person unaware of her own wedding presents a significant degree of risk.”
“Her hormones have made her more emotional lately,” Harry said. “She cried last night because the pistachios ran out.”
Emily sighed. "Aw."
“Oh, poor thing,” Chloe murmured.
“My sister cried during a comedy when she was pregnant with my niece,” Dana added. “No one in the movie was even sad.”
“Fine. Whatever she wants, we give her,” Emily said.
Harry’s expression remained serious. “That doesn’t mean we decide for her. I’m not bringing her to a wedding and expecting her to perform because everyone is waiting. I’ll show her what I arranged and ask whether she wants to marry me that day. If she says no, the officiant leaves, we have dinner on the beach, and no one makes her feel guilty.”
Emily nodded once.
“If she says yes,” Harry continued, “everything needs to be ready.”
Mikey looked at Harry. “Where exactly is this happening? And how are you telling our mothers? Because mine is not going to celebrate being excluded from wedding planning.”
“Scarlet and my mother will be told last.”
Ron opened the leather folder. “A sound security decision.”
The planning moved quickly after that. Ron would secure a private beach, confidentiality agreements, transport and discreet security. Dana would clear your calendar without making the absence too obvious. Emily took charge of dinner, cake and a small reception, while Chloe handled the flowers and overall design.
Then Chloe tapped her pen against the table. “We still have one significant problem.”
Everyone looked at her.
“The dress.”
Harry’s attention sharpened. “What about it?”
“She’s carrying twins. Her old measurements are useless, and her body is changing every week. I can’t fit a gown correctly by guessing.”
Mikey added. “The dress is important, man. Those hormones can turn into rage when she looks at the photographs ten years from now. I’m warning you in advance.”
Chloe pointed her pen at him. “For once, he’s right. We have very little time to make something beautiful and unforgettable.”
“How quickly can you do it?” Emily asked.
“I can alter an existing gown if I have accurate measurements tonight. Soft structure, an empire waist, room around her stomach—nothing restrictive.” Chloe turned to Harry. “I need her shoulders, shoulder to floor, bust, underbust and the fullest point around her stomach.”
Mikey sat back, delighted. “You’re going to measure a sleeping pregnant woman without telling her why. That may be the most dangerous plan I’ve heard today.”
Harry stared at Chloe. “There’s no other way?”
“You could tell her.”
“No.”
“Yuliana could possibly do it,” Ron suggested.
Harry shook his head immediately. “No. I’ll do it.”
Chloe tore a page from her notebook and slid it across the table. “These measurements. In inches. Don’t pull the tape tight.”
Harry studied the instructions as though they described an unfamiliar explosive device. “I’ll handle it.”
Ron closed his folder. “I recommend waiting until she’s asleep.”
“Thank you, Ron."
That evening, Yuliana met Harry outside his study and lowered her voice as though reporting a delicate security matter.
“She fell asleep upstairs.”
“In bed?”
“She said she was only going to rest for ten minutes.” A small smile touched Yuliana’s mouth. “She was listening to classical music.”
Harry glanced toward the staircase, then at the flexible measuring tape concealed in his hand.
Perfect.
Or as close to perfect as this plan was likely to become.
He opened the bedroom door carefully and stepped inside. The curtains had been drawn against the evening light, leaving the room dim and quiet except for the faint piano music escaping from one of the wireless earbuds in your ears.
You were asleep on your side, one hand tucked beneath your cheek and the other curved protectively over your stomach. The second earbud had fallen onto the pillow beside you.
Your phone rested on the nightstand, still playing the same gentle piece on repeat.
Harry stood beside the bed for several seconds, simply looking at you.
Then he unfolded the list Chloe had sent him.
This should have been easy.
Harry had negotiated acquisitions involving several governments. He had once completed a merger while both legal teams threatened to walk away. He regularly managed people who considered compromise a moral failing.
He could measure his sleeping fiancée.
Carefully, he sat on the edge of the mattress and removed the remaining earbud from your ear. You made a quiet sound and shifted deeper into the pillow.
Harry froze.
Your breathing remained even.
The first measurement was uncomplicated. He placed one end of the tape near your shoulder and extended it gently across your back, recording the number in his phone.
Shoulder to floor required an approximation from the side of the bed. Chloe had specifically written that an imperfect number was preferable to waking you, although Harry suspected she had not fully considered what would happen if you woke and found him standing over you with tailoring equipment.
The underbust measurement was next. Harry stared at the instruction. Then at you. Then back at the instruction. The circumference of your stomach seemed safer.
Harry lifted the edge of the blanket and passed the tape carefully around the fullest curve, reaching beneath your side to bring the ends together.
Your eyes opened.
Harry stopped breathing.
You blinked down at the measuring tape wrapped around your stomach, then slowly raised your gaze to him. “Harry.” Your voice was rough with sleep. “What—what are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
You stared at him.
He was sitting beside you with a measuring tape in both hands.
“Nothing?”
“I can explain.”
“Are you measuring my waist?”
Your voice rose sharply as you pushed yourself upright, shock and hurt chasing the last traces of sleep from your face.
“No—no, baby. Not like that.”
You pulled the tape from his hands and looped it loosely around the back of his neck before he could react.
“Harry Castillo, I will strangle you with this.”
“Baby, wait.”
“You measured me while I was asleep?”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“What do I think?”
“That I was—”
“Checking how much weight I’ve gained?”
Harry’s expression changed immediately. “No. Absolutely not.”
“How many inches was it?” Your eyes began to shine. “I’ve gotten huge, haven’t I?”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“I didn’t hesitate.”
“You looked terrified.”
“Because you threatened to kill me.”
“With a fabric tape. You would’ve survived.”
The first tear slipped down your cheek. Another followed before you could wipe it away.
“I knew I’d gained too much weight.” Your voice broke. “I look awful, don’t I? I’ve become enormous and ugly.”
Harry gently removed the tape from around his neck and dropped it onto the carpet.
“That is complete nonsense.” He moved closer and cupped your face between his hands. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world.”
More tears spilled down your cheeks.
Harry wiped them away with his thumbs, his voice softening further. “You’re carrying our daughters. Your body is changing because it’s making room for two people. There is nothing ugly about you. Not one thing.”
You sniffed and looked down at your stomach. “My face is puffy.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“My ankles are swollen.”
“Still beautiful.”
“None of my clothes fit.”
“I’ll buy you new ones.”
“That isn’t the point.” You opened your mouth to continue, but a sudden yawn interrupted you. Your shoulders sagged as quickly as your anger had risen. “I’m so tired.” The abrupt change left Harry staring at you. “I just want to sleep.”
His expression softened with relief and guilt in equal measure. “Okay, baby. Sleep.”
You lay down again, then caught his wrist before he could move away. “Stay.”
“I’m here.”
You pulled his arm against your chest and settled around it, resting your cheek near his shoulder. So many emotions had passed through you in the space of a few minutes—anger, humiliation, tears and exhaustion—that Harry could not stop himself from feeling responsible for every one of them.
“Will you stroke my hair?” you asked sleepily.
“Of course.”
His fingers moved gently through your hair, smoothing it away from your face. Every few moments, he bent and pressed a quiet kiss to your temple.
Your breathing gradually slowed. “Harry?”
“I’m here, baby.”
“Don’t measure me again.”
“I won’t.”
Harry looked down at you suspiciously, but a faint sleepy smile touched your mouth before disappearing.
Within moments, your breathing deepened.
Harry continued stroking your hair long after you had fallen asleep. At first, he intended to remain for only a minute.
Then five.
Your fingers stayed curled firmly around his wrist, and every attempt to move made you shift closer. Eventually, Harry lay down beside you fully dressed, one arm trapped beneath your head and the other resting over your stomach.
One of the babies moved beneath his palm.
A quiet smile crossed his face.
“Easy,” he whispered. “Your mother has already threatened me once tonight.”
Twenty minutes later, his trapped arm had gone completely numb.
He endured another ten.
Then a faint snore escaped you.
Harry looked down.
Your lips had parted slightly, your head angled back against his arm. The snoring had appeared with the pregnancy and grew louder whenever you were exhausted—something you denied with absolute conviction every morning.
Another soft snore followed. Harry smiled. “You’d call me a liar if I told you.”
He gently touched beneath your chin and turned your head slightly toward the pillow, just as he had on countless nights before. The sound stopped almost immediately.
You murmured something indistinct. Harry froze. “Harry…”
He bent and kissed your hair. “I’m right here.”
Your fingers loosened around his wrist, and your breathing settled again.
Moving slowly, Harry reached down for the tape. He passed it around your stomach once more, careful not to pull it tight. When the ends met, he secured the exact point beneath one finger and eased the tape away without losing the measurement.
This time, you did not wake.
Harry carefully freed his arm, replacing it with the pillow before sitting up. He opened his phone, added the final number to his notes, and sent the measurements to Chloe.
Harry: This is everything I could get.
Her reply arrived almost immediately.
Chloe: Did she wake up?
Harry: Briefly.
Chloe: Are you alive?
His gaze returned to you. You were sleeping peacefully again, one hand spread across your stomach, your mouth beginning to fall open.
Harry: Barely.
He set the phone on the nightstand and watched you for another moment, smiling despite himself.
Saturday Morning
When you opened your eyes, Harry’s side of the bed was empty.
The sheets still held the faint warmth of him, but the room had gone quiet in the particular way it did only when he had been awake for some time. The curtains were partially open, allowing the soft April sunlight to spill across the carpet.
You reached blindly toward his pillow. Nothing.
“Harry?”
No answer came from the bathroom.
You pushed yourself higher against the pillows, one hand automatically settling over the curve of your stomach. “Harry?”
Still nothing.
That was when you noticed the folded card resting against the lamp on his nightstand, placed beside the snow globe.
You reached for it.
Good morning, baby.
I have something planned for you. Trust me for a few hours and let Yuliana help you.
I’ll see you soon.
I love you.
H.
You read it twice, then narrowed your eyes at the empty room.
“Trust you with what?”
A soft knock sounded against the bedroom door. Before you could answer, Yuliana stepped inside carrying a tray of tea. Her usually restrained expression had been replaced by a smile she was making very little effort to hide.
You held up the card. “What is happening?”
“I was instructed not to say, Ms. Queen.”
You accepted the tea and took a cautious sip while studying her over the rim of the cup. “You understand that smiling like that only makes you look more suspicious.”
Yuliana glanced at her watch.
“You’re timing me?”
“Perhaps.”
She waited patiently until you finished, then placed the cup aside and offered her hands.
“We should get you up now, Ms. Queen.”
“Why?”
“Several people are waiting for you.”
The way she said it made you immediately suspicious. “Which people?”
Yuliana continued holding out her hands.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Very much.”
With a sigh, you let her help you sit up. One of the babies shifted as you moved, a slow rolling sensation beneath your ribs. You pressed your palm against it. “At least one person in this room should tell me what’s happening.”
“Trokhy terpinnya, Ms. Queen,” Yuliana said gently. “Just a little patience.”
She helped you into your robe, tied it securely around you, then waited while you slipped your feet into your house shoes.
The moment you stepped into the corridor, you heard several voices coming from the dressing room.
You stopped.
Emily appeared first. “Look who’s finally awake.”
“Our Queen has arrived,” Chloe added from behind her.
Emily came directly toward you, placing one hand gently against your stomach. “How are you feeling? And how are these two?”
“We’re confused,” you said. “What are all of you doing in my house?”
“First, breakfast,” Emily said. “There’s a full table waiting.”
“No. First, someone tells me what is happening.”
Chloe exchanged a glance with Emily. “Perhaps it would be easier to show you.”
She opened the dressing-room door.
The room had been transformed.
A small hair and makeup team stood near the windows beside neatly arranged cases and brushes. Fresh white flowers had been placed on the vanity, restrained enough not to resemble one of Scarlet’s productions. Dana stood near the wardrobe holding two phones—yours and her own—while appearing entirely untroubled by the fact that she had confiscated your professional life.
“Good morning, Ms. Queen,” the team greeted.
Your gaze moved from Emily to Dana, then Chloe.
Finally, it settled on the garment bag. “What is that?”
Dana’s smile became dangerously emotional. “Morning, Ms. Queen.”
“What is in the bag?”
The room fell silent.
Emily quietly moved a plate of toast closer to the nearest chair. Dana looked down at the phones.
Chloe reached for the zipper. “Why don’t you take a look?”
She opened the bag.
Soft ivory fabric appeared first, followed by delicate folds of silk, a gracefully structured bodice and a skirt designed to fall around the curve of your stomach without constricting it. There was no excessive beading, cathedral train or rigid corsetry. The fabric caught the morning light with a quiet sheen, elegant without demanding attention.
It looked effortless.
Which meant an extraordinary amount of work had gone into it.
Your breath caught. “Oh, my God. That... looks like—”
A wedding dress.
Not something inspired by one. A real wedding dress. Pinned carefully to the front was another folded card. Chloe removed it and held it toward you. Your fingers trembled slightly as you opened it.
Baby,
Chloe and her mother made this for you. I hope it’s close to what you wanted.
There’s a car waiting downstairs. At the end of the drive, you’ll find a beach, the people closest to us, and me.
I made today possible. Whether we marry here or wait for the wedding they’ve been planning is your decision.
I’ll be waiting.
H.
You stared at the page until the words began to blur. Then your gaze dropped to the dress again, and understanding arrived all at once.
“Oh, my God, Harry.”
A tear struck the card.
You looked toward Chloe. “That’s why he was measuring me.”
Chloe pressed her lips together, already close to tears herself.
You laughed, covering your mouth as more tears followed. “Oh, that man.”
Emily stood immediately. “Hey.”
“I cannot believe him.”
She placed both hands gently on your arms. “Is that a good cannot believe him?”
You looked down at the note. “He listened to me.”
The words emerged so softly that everyone in the room went still.
Emily’s expression changed. “Yes. He did.”
“And then he made it happen in two days,” Chloe added quietly.
You touched the skirt with your fingertips.
It was beautiful, but not because it was expensive or perfectly made. It was beautiful because nothing about it felt designed for other people to admire.
Harry had remembered the beach, the quiet, the absence of reporters and boards and questions. The moment in the movie when you had cried because two people had been allowed to simply marry each other.
Your face crumpled again.
Chloe hurried toward you. “Oh. I think the crying spell has arrived.”
You nodded, tears already falling.
Emily handed you a tissue. “Get it all out before they start your makeup. This entire team is here to prepare you for today.”
“Then I should wash my face.”
“Yeah.” Emily slipped an arm gently around your waist. “Then you’re eating breakfast, and after that, we’ll get you ready.”
Chloe hesitated. “You do want this, don’t you? Because after five years apart and two babies on the way, I think you two have waited long enough.”
You looked at Chloe, then Dana, Yuliana, and the waiting hair and makeup team.
For one unsteady moment, the reality of it settled over you: a beach, no cameras, no audience, vows spoken before the rest of the world could claim them. Was this really what you wanted?
Then you pictured Harry waiting for you, and the question became almost embarrassingly simple.
Finally, your gaze returned to the dress.
“Yes,” you said. “I want this.”
Bridgehampton
The limousine turned through the gates of the Bridgehampton estate just after four.
Beyond the windows, pale dunes gave way to flashes of blue water beneath the soft April sky. The ocean wind moved through the beach grass, bending it toward the private stretch of sand Harry had somehow secured in less than forty-eight hours.
Chloe looked mournfully at the view. “The fact that I can’t put any of this on my story is cruel.”
“Post one frame and every paparazzi in New York will be outside the gates before we reach the sand,” Emily warned, holding up the one phone Dana had authorized for photographs.
“No one posts anything,” you added. “Turn off your location services too.”
“They’re already off,” Dana assured you.
“Good. Now move closer,” Emily said.
Despite her warning, she was already recording, the phone safely on airplane mode. You, Chloe and Dana leaned together while she turned the camera toward you. Yuliana sat opposite, watching with quiet amusement.
“Smile,” Emily instructed.
“I am smiling,” you said with a laugh as another small movement rolled beneath your hand. “They’re the ones refusing to hold still for the picture.”
You glanced at your reflection in the darkened window. “Do I look as nervous as I feel?”
“No,” Emily said immediately. “You look radiant.”
“Annoyingly beautiful,” Chloe added.
Dana nodded. “Exactly as you should.”
“Beautiful is insufficient,” Yuliana corrected, studying you with open admiration. “Vy prekrasna (you’re beautiful) Ms. Queen. Prosto neymovirna. (Simply incredible.)”
And, inconveniently, they were right.
The ivory silk dress fell cleanly from beneath your bust, following the curve of your stomach without trying to conceal it.
Its deep V neckline was softened by delicate embroidery that gathered just above the swell of your belly, while the long skirt moved fluidly around your legs. There was no veil, no heavy train and nothing that required you to become someone else to wear it.
You smoothed both hands over your stomach. One of the girls moved beneath your palm. “Apparently they’re as excited as I am.”
“They’re half Queen and half Castillo,” Dana said. “Of course they assume the entire event is being held in their honor.”
The limousine slowed. Your heartbeat immediately quickened. Emily lowered the phone. “We’re here.”
Down on the beach, Harry checked his watch for what Ron estimated was the ninth time.
“She crossed the gate three minutes ago,” Ron said.
“She’s here,” Harry replied, and the words came out softer than he intended.
He stood near the small flowered arch in a black tuxedo, his attention fixed on the wooden walkway leading down from the house. Mikey waited beside Ron, while Captain Mateo Alvarez—Richard’s oldest friend and, thanks to Ron’s exhaustive planning, a legally registered officiant—stood nearby with the ceremony papers secured inside his jacket.
Sienna adjusted one of the white flowers in her hands. “The florist reinforced the arch. It won’t collapse unless the wind develops personal hostility toward us.”
Harry barely heard her.
Vivienne approached and straightened his boutonniere, her expression warm with emotion. “Breathe, sweetheart.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re waiting aggressively.” Her hand lingered briefly against his lapel. “You get to marry her again. Try to enjoy this part too.”
A small smile finally broke through his nerves.
Before he could answer, the limousine appeared beyond the dunes.
Every conversation stopped.
Scarlet immediately moved toward the end of the walkway with Richard beside her. He relied on his cane for balance, his steps slower than they once had been. Scarlet slipped her arm through his without drawing attention to the support she provided.
The car came to a stop.
Harry went completely still, though from where he stood, the vehicle concealed most of the drive.
“They’re here,” Sienna said, already moving. “I’ll go make sure she has everything.”
A member of the staff opened the door. Emily stepped out first, followed by Chloe and Dana. Then the attendant offered you his hand.
You took it.
Emily immediately gathered the skirt so it would not catch beneath your shoes as you carefully stepped onto the stone drive. The ocean breeze caught the silk, pressing it briefly against the curve of your stomach before letting it fall into its clean, graceful lines again.
For one suspended moment, no one spoke.
Scarlet’s eyes filled before you had taken three steps. “Oh, my baby,” she whispered. “You are so beautiful.”
You approached her, and she caught both of your hands. “You too,” you said, looking over her pale blue silk dress, structured hat and entirely unnecessary pearl gloves. “Though you appear to have dressed for a royal garden party.”
Scarlet lifted her chin. “I was given forty-eight hours and absolutely no authority. I had to express myself somehow.”
Richard sighed beside her. “They’re doing this the way they want, Scarlet.”
“I know,” she replied, never taking her eyes from you. “I’m adjusting with remarkable dignity.”
You turned toward Richard. “Dad.”
His face softened completely.
“My beautiful girl.” His gaze dropped affectionately to your stomach. “How are all three of you?”
“Nervous, happy and extremely pregnant.”
“That sounds about right.”
You hugged him carefully, feeling one of his hands settle against your back.
When you pulled away, your gaze dropped briefly to his cane before returning to his face. “You look very handsome.”
“I had an important place to be.”
Your throat tightened.
Before the tears could begin, Mikey appeared and opened his arms. “Baby sister.”
He attempted to hug you, only to discover that your stomach reached him first. He looked down between you.
“I think your stomach arrived before the rest of you.”
“Careful,” you warned. “You’re insulting three Queen women at once.”
“I would never.” He bent and spoke toward your stomach. “Your mother has always been this threatening.”
You pushed lightly at his shoulder. “Move.”
Laughing, Mikey kissed your cheek and stepped aside.
Sienna approached carrying a bouquet of white ranunculus, sweet peas and small ivory roses. She placed it gently in your hands before glancing toward the beach.
Harry was visible at the other end of the walkway.
He had not moved.
Even from a distance, you could see the way he was looking at you—as though the rest of the beach had disappeared the moment you stepped from the car.
Sienna smiled softly. “Whenever you’re ready.”
You took a deep breath, then another, waving your hands to calm your emotions. “Oh, no.”
Emily was instantly beside you. “What?”
“The crying spell.”
She opened her bag and produced a tissue with the speed of a trained emergency responder.
Chloe pointed at you. “Do not rub your eyes. We used waterproof makeup, but I refuse to test its limits before the ceremony begins.”
“I’m trying not to cry.”
“You’re failing beautifully,” Dana said.
A laugh escaped through your tears.
Emily carefully dabbed beneath one eye. “There. Crisis contained.”
Richard moved beside you and offered his arm.
You looked at the wooden path stretching across the dunes, then toward Harry waiting at its end.
“Are you sure?” you asked softly.
Richard straightened, tightening his hand around the top of his cane. “I didn’t spend two months learning to walk across rooms again just to sit down for this part.”
Your eyes filled all over again. “Chloe,” you warned.
“Ugh, honey breathe,” Chloe said firmly. “We have reached the maximum permitted tears.”
Richard smiled and held out his arm once more. “Ready?”
You slipped your hand through it, supporting him as subtly as he supported you.
Your gaze returned to Harry. This time, there was no hesitation.
“Yes,” you said. “I’m ready."
The first notes of the music drifted across the dunes as you and Richard stepped onto the wooden walkway.
Everyone rose.
Warm applause followed, unrestrained and familiar. Mikey brought two fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly before stepping directly into the aisle with his phone raised.
“Mikey,” Sienna hissed, catching the back of his jacket and pulling him out of the way.
“I’m documenting history.”
“You’re blocking history.”
Laughter moved through the small gathering as he allowed himself to be dragged back beside her, though he continued filming over her shoulder.
There were no camera flashes, no reporters calling your name, no phones raised for an audience waiting somewhere beyond the beach. Emily and Chloe recorded from their places, but only so you and Harry could keep the moment. Near the second row, a single videographer followed your progress through a discreet lens, having been warned by Ron so thoroughly that he looked prepared to surrender the camera, memory card and all personal identification at the slightest provocation.
Nothing was being broadcast.
Nothing had to become public before it belonged to you.
The aisle was not lined with investors, board members or distant relatives invited out of obligation. There were only two short rows of chairs, and every person standing beside them was someone whose face you knew well enough to read without effort.
Scarlet was already crying behind the sunglasses she had apparently worn to prevent exactly that. Vivienne held one hand over her heart, her expression radiant. Ron remained beside Dana, who was wiping beneath one eye while pretending to inspect Emily’s recording. Lara stood near Scarlet, openly crying without attempting to disguise it, while Yuliana watched you with quiet pride.
They were all family.
Some had witnessed the first marriage and the way it had broken. Some had arrived later, carrying you through the strange, tender work of finding your way back to one another. But every person standing there had seen enough to understand what this moment meant. They had seen the love, the damage, the silence, the repair—and they had stayed.
The realization settled warmly beneath your ribs.
Your free hand moved instinctively over your stomach. One of the girls shifted beneath your palm, followed by the faintest answering movement from her sister.
You smiled down at them.
Richard glanced toward you. “All right?”
“More than all right.”
The boards of the narrow aisle beneath your low ivory heels were dusted with sand carried over them by the wind.
Beyond the gathering, the Atlantic stretched endlessly blue beneath the afternoon sky, its waves folding softly against the shore and filling the spaces between the music.
Then you looked ahead.
Harry stood on a low wooden platform beneath the simple arch of white flowers.
For one dangerous second, you nearly missed a step.
He wore a perfectly cut black tuxedo, the ocean breeze moving lightly through his hair. A white ranunculus and a small sprig of olive rested against his lapel, chosen to match your bouquet without surrounding you with the heavily scented flowers that always made your eyes water.
But it was his expression that caught you.
The tension he had carried while waiting disappeared the moment he saw you. His entire face softened into a wide, unguarded smile reserved only for you.
Richard tightened his hold on your arm before your heel could slip from the edge of the board.
“Careful, darling.”
Your eyes locked with Harry’s.
Neither of you looked away.
Five years apart seemed to compress themselves into those final steps—every wrong decision, every unfinished conversation and every night you had convinced yourself that losing him had been necessary.
But the last six months had changed you both. There were no secrets left between you now, no assumptions allowed to grow in silence. You were not walking toward the marriage you had once lost. You were walking toward something you had rebuilt together, deliberately and without anyone else deciding what it should become.
In a few moments, you would be husband and wife again.
This time, you both understood exactly what choosing one another meant.
By the time you reached him, your eyes were wet again.
Richard stopped before the platform. Harry stepped down immediately, offering one hand to you before turning toward him.
For a moment, neither man spoke.
Richard placed your hand into Harry’s.
“I gave her hand to you once before,” he said, his voice low with emotion. “But she was never mine to give away. She is my girl because she chose to let me love her like a father.”
Your throat tightened.
Richard looked from you to Harry. “So this time, I’m not giving her away. I’m asking you to stand beside her properly. Hold on to her. Listen to her. And when life gets loud, don’t let silence do the damage again.”
Harry closed his fingers carefully around yours. “I won’t.”
Richard studied him for another moment, then nodded. “Good.”
You leaned forward and kissed Richard’s cheek. “Thank you, Dad.”
His eyes shone as he stepped away.
“Go on, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Go marry the man who finally learned how lucky he is.”
Harry helped you onto the platform, one hand steady at your waist until you were safely beside him. Captain Mateo waited a few feet away, but Harry appeared temporarily unaware that anyone else existed.
His gaze moved slowly over the dress, your hair and the curve of your stomach.
“I knew the dress would be beautiful,” he said softly. “I wasn’t prepared for you in it.”
The words nearly started the tears again.
You looked over his tuxedo with exaggerated consideration. “You look very handsome yourself, Mr. Castillo.”
His smile deepened. “More handsome than the first time?”
“You’ve aged.”
One eyebrow lifted.
“Like an obscenely expensive wine,” you added.
Harry’s gaze softened. “Then I must be keeping suitable company.”
One of his hands settled gently over your stomach. A visible ripple moved beneath the ivory silk almost immediately.
Harry glanced down, smiling. “They look as excited as we are.”
“No. They heard their father arranged an excellent wedding cake.”
A quiet laugh escaped him.
His thumb moved lightly over the embroidered fabric before you looked around at the flowers, the two rows of chairs and the long table waiting farther up the shore.
“Harry,” you whispered. “What did you do?”
For the first time that afternoon, uncertainty flickered across his face. “Too much?”
“No.” You tightened your fingers around his. “It’s more beautiful than anything I imagined.”
His expression softened.
“Thank you,” you said. “For listening. For all of it.”
Harry lifted your hand and pressed his lips to your knuckles. “I wish I had done more sooner.”
“We had a great deal to survive first.”
“We did.”
His eyes remained on yours. “Then we shouldn’t give away any more time.”
Captain Alvarez cleared his throat with deliberate patience.
“I have married people on boats before,” he said, glancing toward the wooden platform that extended just over the water. “This is apparently the compromise Ron could manage in three days.”
Soft laughter moved through the gathering.
Ron adjusted his cuff. “A legally valid compromise.”
“The best kind,” Captain Alvarez said, smiling before he turned back to you and Harry. “We are gathered here with the people who know and love Harry and Queen best—not to begin their story, because that began many years ago, but to witness the choice they are making today.”
The ocean moved quietly behind him.
“This ceremony is small by design. There are no strangers here, no audience beyond those invited and no expectation except honesty. Before we continue, I need to ask one simple question. ”
His gaze moved first to Harry, then to you.
“Have you both come here freely, intending to marry one another today?”
Harry answered without hesitation. “Yes.”
You looked at the man who had arranged an entire wedding only to ensure you could still refuse it.
“Yes,” you said. “I have.”
Captain Alvarez nodded. “Then you may speak the promises you’ve prepared.”
Harry’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
You stared at him. “You prepared something?”
“Not a speech.” His fingers tightened around yours. “I don’t need one to tell you the truth.”
The last trace of humor faded from his expression as he looked directly into your eyes.
“The first time you chose me, I woke up the next morning and watched you sleep because I still couldn’t believe you were my wife.”
His throat moved.
“Then I lost you. And for five years, I learned exactly how much of my life had been built around loving you.”
Your eyes filled. “Harry, don’t make me cry.”
His thumb brushed beneath one of your eyes.
“Then you came back,” he said quietly. “And I felt like a prayer I had no right to make had been answered.”
A quiet laugh escaped you through the tears.
“You gave me a second life with you. You gave me our daughters." He paused, as though even he could not quite believe it. “I promise you this: you will never have to guess where I stand again. No silence, no pride, no misunderstanding will ever come before the truth.”
His voice lowered.
“I will choose you in every version of our life. I love you more than I did the first time. And I will spend the rest of my life being grateful that you chose me twice.”
For several seconds, you could only look at him.
Around you, no one seemed to breathe properly. Scarlet pressed a tissue beneath her sunglasses. Vivienne’s mouth trembled. Dana looked down quickly, and even Ron appeared suspiciously interested in the horizon.
“I loved you when I left,” you said finally, your voice unsteady. “That was the cruelest part. I loved you through every year I pretended I had moved on, and I love you now without fear, without secrets and without one foot near the door.”
Harry’s eyes shone.
“I choose you, Harry Castillo. I always have. And I always will.” You squeezed his hands. “This time, I intend to stay.”
Neither of you moved.
The silence stretched until Mikey called from behind you, “You can keep staring after you’re legally married.”
Laughter broke through the emotion.
Captain Alvarez gave him a patient look.
“It appears we have people here even more impatient than the bride and groom.” His eyes narrowed faintly with affection. “Mikey, you were always like this.”
Mikey grinned. “Thanks, Captain.”
Then he leaned toward Sienna and whispered, “He loves me.”
Sienna covered her mouth to hide her laugh.
Captain Alvarez turned back to Harry. “Harry Castillo, do you take this woman to be your wife—to love her, honour her and continue choosing her for the rest of your life?”
Harry did not take his eyes from you. “I do.”
“And Ms. Queen, do you take this man to be your husband—to love him, honour him and continue choosing him for the rest of your life?”
“I do.”
Ron stepped forward with the rings. Harry slid yours carefully onto your finger, his hand trembling just enough for you to notice. You placed his ring beside the one he had once worn before,
sealing a promise renewed rather than replaced.
Captain Alvarez smiled. “By the authority vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Mikey was already on his feet. “Kiss her!”
Others joined him, laughing and applauding.
“Kiss!”
“Kiss!”
“Kiss!”
Harry’s arm curved carefully around your waist. He drew you as close as your stomach allowed, his other hand rising to cradle your face.
Then he kissed you.
Slowly at first, as though the two of you were alone. Then more deeply as the applause rose around you and the ocean wind carried Mikey’s triumphant whistle across the beach.
When Harry finally pulled away, his forehead rested against yours.
“Mrs. Castillo,” he whispered.
You smiled through your tears. “You always did like calling me that.”
His thumb brushed your cheek. “I missed it.”
Later, after champagne had been poured and the official photographs had been taken, Chloe insisted that the bouquet had one final responsibility.
You turned your back to the small group gathered behind you and tossed it over your shoulder.
The wind caught the flowers, shifted their course and dropped them directly into Vivienne’s arms.
She stared down at the bouquet.
Then she looked toward Marc, standing several feet away.
Marc smiled.
Vivienne’s cheeks turned pink as everyone began laughing and applauding.
Beside you, Harry’s expression changed slowly.
You looked up at him. “Don’t even start.”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Your face is saying plenty.”
He gave a small shrug. “I’m only wondering whether we can return the bouquet and try again.”
You hit his shoulder lightly. “Shut up and dance with me.”
The first notes of the music began.
Harry turned toward you and placed both hands at your waist. You slipped your arms around his neck, though the curve of your stomach prevented you from moving as close as either of you wanted.
Harry glanced down at the space between you. “I had imagined holding my wife a little closer.”
“Your daughters have other plans.”
“They’ve been interfering all day.”
“They’re making sure you behave.”
Harry looked offended. “With my own wife?”
“Especially with your own wife.”
Harry laughed and lowered his forehead to yours, swaying with you as the music carried across the beach.
A few feet away, Scarlet and Vivienne watched with matching tears in their eyes.
“They deserved this happiness, didn’t they?” Vivienne whispered.
Scarlet nodded. “More than anyone.”
Vivienne dabbed at her cheek. “My eyes are leaking.”
“So are mine.”
Mikey appeared behind them.
“Should I call 911, or is this a shared maternal event?”
Both women turned toward him.
Sienna burst out laughing, and even Richard failed to hide his smile.
You extended one hand toward the others. “Come on. Join us.”
Scarlet joined Richard first, moving carefully around his cane. Ron drew Dana into his arms, while Sienna allowed Mikey to spin her with considerably more enthusiasm than skill. Vivienne hesitated only briefly before accepting Marc’s hand.
Harry watched them, a trace of old protectiveness tightening his expression.
You touched his cheek. “She looks happy.”
His gaze returned to you. After a moment, he nodded and relaxed beneath your hand.
“She does.”
Near the edge of the dance floor, Emily, Chloe and Yuliana formed a loose circle, laughing as they danced together.
Lara clapped in time from her chair until Captain Alvarez offered his hand and persuaded her to join him for several careful steps.
There was no ballroom, no orchestra and no audience waiting to judge what the day meant.
Only the ocean, the music and every person you had chosen as family.
Harry watched them for a moment—the people dancing barefoot or carefully around canes and hems, the laughter carried by the wind, the small, impossible life you had built out of everything that had nearly ended.
Then his gaze returned to you.
His arms tightened around your waist, and he rested his forehead against yours.
“A little late,” he murmured, “but I think we made it.”
You cupped his face in both hands. “We did. And we made it beautifully.” Your lips trembled. “Oh, no. I think it’s coming back.”
Harry’s eyes softened with immediate alarm and amusement. “No. No crying, we just survived the ceremony. You can give the makeup ten more minutes.”
You laughed, blinking quickly. “Okay. I’m not crying.”
“Good.”
“I’m almost not crying.”
“That’s progress.”
The wave passed slowly. You breathed in, steadied yourself, and looked up at him again.
Harry’s smile faded into something quieter, deeper. “I love you so much,” he said.
Your hands rested against his jaw as the music continued around you. “I love you too, Harry.”
And while everyone you loved danced around you beneath the open sky, you let the moment stay exactly what it was.
Yours.
Days turned into weeks.
For a while, you and Harry stayed married only in the places that mattered. At home, in the quiet, his ring never left his finger. But every morning before a public meeting, a board dinner or anything involving cameras, he removed it with an apology he never seemed to grow tired of giving. “I hate it. I want everyone to know you’re my wife.”
And every morning, you gave him the same answer. “They will. Wait until our girls are born.”
The world still believed the real wedding was coming later—the grand one Scarlet and Vivienne were already designing with terrifying enthusiasm. When reporters asked how the preparations were going, you smiled, touched your stomach and said something harmless about family, timing and taking things slowly.
Somehow, the rumors still began.
Did Harry Castillo and Ms. Queen Marry in Secret?
Private Beach Ceremony Reportedly Held in Bridgehampton.
No Guests, No Press, No Confirmation: Inside Manhattan’s Most Talked-About Non-Wedding.
Some said Bridgehampton. Some said it had only been an engagement celebration. Some insisted there had been a wedding, but no one could produce a single photograph.
You and Harry answered none of it.
There were more important things to survive.
Your stomach grew heavier by the week, until getting out of bed without assistance became less an act of independence and more an unnecessarily ambitious athletic event. Doctor’s appointments became nearly the only reason you left the house. Everyone else came to you.
Emily arrived one afternoon claiming she had only stopped by to bring soup, then sat at the edge of your bed and confessed that she had started seeing the man her mother had hired as a waiter at the restaurant. He was Asian, apparently devastatingly handsome according to Emily’s increasingly unprofessional description, and “too polite in a way that felt dangerous.”
Chloe gave her ex another chance and pretended she was being cautious about it, despite the fact that she blushed every time his name appeared on her phone. Scarlet and Richard came regularly under the excuse of checking on you, though Richard spent most of each visit asking the girls whether they intended to let their mother sleep. Lara moved in without ceremony, joining Yuliana in the practical, unspoken agreement that until the babies arrived, you were not to be left unattended for any length of time.
Mikey and Sienna came sometimes together, sometimes separately, each visit explained with suspiciously unnecessary detail. Mikey brought stories from the office,most of them delivered with the confidence of a man who had survived another day in corporate warfare and deserved applause for it.
Gerard still called when necessary, but even he had begun to respect the boundaries Dana enforced with frightening precision. For the last three weeks, he no longer patched you into meetings unless there was no alternative. Dana kept such careful notes that reading her briefings almost felt like being in the room.
Almost.
Queen Financial was not healed, not yet.
But it was rising.
The panic had passed. The structure was holding. The people who had expected you to disappear quietly were beginning to understand that you had only stepped back long enough to breathe.
Harry had done the same in his own way. He met with Ron over laptop screens more often than in boardrooms now, choosing home whenever he could. Some afternoons, you would wake from a nap to find him at the foot of the bed, muted on a call, one hand resting absently over your ankle while he listened to Ron speak.
By the time you entered your thirtieth week, your doctor stopped sounding politely cautious and began sounding direct.
“You cannot be alone at home now,” she said. “Not for long periods. Not with this level of risk.”
Harry’s hand tightened around yours. She reviewed the warning signs, the possibility of early labor, the need to avoid stress, overexertion and anything that might trigger contractions.
“I’m also recommending pelvic rest from this point forward.”
You glanced at Harry.
He looked straight ahead.
The doctor continued, perfectly professional. “That means no intercourse, no penetration, and no sexual activity that results in orgasm. Uterine contractions after orgasm are usually harmless in low-risk pregnancies, but in your case, with twins and your current risk factors, we are not encouraging anything that could increase uterine activity.”
Harry’s expression did not change, but his hand became very still around yours.
You bit the inside of your cheek.
He looked like a man receiving a sentence from a judge and refusing to appeal in public.
In the car afterward, Harry remained silent for almost three minutes.
“You’re being very mature,” you said.
“I’m being tested.”
You laughed and leaned your head against his shoulder. “It’s only temporary.”
“I understand that.”
“You look as if someone cancelled Christmas.”
“I said I understand it. I didn’t say I enjoyed it.”
But he was careful. More careful than you were, sometimes. When you curled into him at night, he kissed your forehead, your hair, your shoulder, then gently put space where space needed to be.
Sleeping became more difficult. Turning from one side to the other required planning, patience and, on particularly humiliating nights, Harry’s assistance. He surrounded you with pillows until the bed looked less like a bed and more like a medical nest designed by a luxury hotel.
Still, the girls pressed against your ribs, your bladder, your lungs and every other part of you they apparently considered negotiable.
Harry spoke to them every night. “Be kind to your mother,” he whispered, one hand spread over your stomach. “You’ll meet us soon enough.”
A small kick answered him. “Not that soon,” he added sternly.
You smiled into the pillow.
Eight weeks, the doctor had said.
Only eight weeks until you would meet your daughters.
Dinner was over when the call came.
You were lowering yourself carefully onto the sofa, one hand braced against the armrest and the other resting over your stomach, when your phone began to ring on the coffee table.
Unknown number.
You frowned, reaching for it. “Who calls after dinner anymore?”
Harry glanced up from where he was folding the throw blanket at the other end of the room.
You answered before he could say anything.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice spoke on the other end. Careful. Professional.
“Ms. Queen? My name is Claire Walsh. I’m calling from a long-term care facility—”
“A care facility?” you repeated, confused.
Harry was beside you before the woman finished her next sentence. He took the phone gently but firmly from your hand.
You stared at him. “Harry?”
He ended the call.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
“What was that?”
“Nothing important.”
Your eyes narrowed. “You just took my phone from my hand. And hung up on a woman from a care facility.”
“She shouldn’t have called you directly.”
The sentence landed strangely. You pushed yourself higher against the cushions, studying him more closely. His face had gone pale, the controlled lines of it too still to be casual. “Harry,” you said slowly. “What is going on?”
He looked away.
That was enough.
You knew every version of his silence. The business silence. The angry silence. The silence he used when he was trying to keep a room from collapsing around someone he loved. This was the last one. “How long have you been hiding calls from me?”
His jaw tightened.
Your breath caught. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? The last few days—your phone, Ron calling you outside the room, that woman—”
“Baby.”
“No.” Your voice sharpened. “Tell me. Please. What is going on?"
Harry stayed standing for another second. Then he exhaled, sat beside you and took both of your hands in his.
“Last Friday, a woman came to the building,” he said carefully. “Security didn’t let her up. She said she needed to speak to you.”
“About what?”
“At first, I didn’t know.”
Your fingers tightened around his. “And then?”
“I saw her again the next day. Outside. I asked what she wanted.”
Harry’s thumb moved slowly over your knuckles, as though he was trying to keep you anchored before he had even said the words.
“She works at a long-term care facility,” he said. “Your biological father is there.”
You swallowed. The room seemed to drop out from beneath you. For a second, you only stared at him. “My… what?”
Harry’s face softened with worry. He reached up and brushed his fingers along your cheek. “Breathe for me."
You drew in a thin breath. One of the girls shifted beneath your ribs, and your hand moved instinctively to your stomach. “Continue,” you whispered.
Harry nodded once. “She tried Scarlet first because he had been saying her name for weeks. Scarlet refused to speak to her. She tried to reach Mikey and couldn’t. Then she saw your name attached to mine in enough society articles to find the building.”
Your mouth parted, but no sound came out. “Why is he there?” you asked finally. “Why is some woman calling me? Why now, after all these years?”
Harry looked down at your joined hands.
“The woman he left your mother for is gone. She took what remained of his money and disappeared when his illness became inconvenient.” His voice stayed low, measured. “He has Alzheimer’s. Advanced enough that some days he doesn’t know where he is. Some days he asks for Scarlet.
Some days he asks about the little boy.”
“Mikey,” you breathed.
Harry nodded. “And lately,” he said, softer now, “she said he keeps asking whether the baby was born.”
The words moved through you like something cold.
The baby.
Harry did not answer immediately. Your eyes lifted to his. “Me?”
His expression broke just enough to hurt. A tear slipped down your cheek.
The daughter he had never met. The child he had left behind before she had even taken her first breath.
Harry wiped the tear away with his thumb. “Baby, talk to me.”
You stared past him, but all you could see was a man you had never known asking about a baby who had already grown up, married, divorced, survived him, and was now carrying two daughters of her own.
“I need to see him.”
Harry’s brow drew together, that familiar deep crease forming between his eyes as his whole face tightened in immediate refusal. “No.”
“Harry—”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“If we are talking about your health and our daughters’ safety, then I do get a say.”
“A say, yes. Not the decision.”
“You’re thirty weeks pregnant with twins. The doctor said no stress.”
“I know what the doctor said.”
“Then you know this is exactly the kind of thing she meant.”
You pulled your hands back, not harshly, but enough to make him feel the distance.
“I have to see him.”
“You don’t owe him that.”
“I know.”
“He left you before you were born. He doesn’t deserve the chance to hurt you now.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
You pressed one hand to your stomach and swallowed hard.
“Because if something happens and he dies, I will never know what was real.” Your voice broke. “I spent my whole life imagining him. When I was seven, I asked my mother about him, and after that I made up versions of him in my head. Younger. Better. Sorry.” You shook your head. “I don’t know if I want to see him. But I need to.”
Harry looked at you for a long moment, the fight in his expression slowly giving way to something heavier. You reached for his hand again. “I don’t owe him anything,” you whispered. “But I think I owe something to the seven-year-old version of me who thought he might still come back if she was worth coming back to.”
That did it.
Harry’s face changed completely. The anger left him first, then the argument. What remained was something softer, almost wounded.
“Oh, baby,” he murmured.
He reached for you at once, his hand sliding gently over your hair as he drew you closer.
His eyes had gone bright, though he tried to blink it away before you could see. “She was always worth coming back to,” he said quietly. “He was the one who didn’t deserve to find his way back.”
Your breath broke against his chest.
Harry closed his eyes briefly and let out a slow breath. When he opened them again, his fear was still there. So was the decision.
“We go together,” he said.
The facility smelled like lemon cleaner, old carpet and something medicinal underneath.
You hated that your first thought was how small everything seemed. The woman from the phone met you near the entrance and spoke softly to Harry while you stood with both hands curved over your stomach. He kept one hand at your lower back the entire time, steady and warm through the thin fabric of your dress.
When they brought you to the room, you stopped at the threshold.
The man sitting by the window was not the man you had imagined at seven.
He was not the famous director whose face you had cut from old entertainment magazines and hidden in the back of your drawer. Not the man smiling beside actresses at premieres, not the man whose interviews you had read in secret, searching for some trace of yourself in the shape of his mouth or the way his eyes held the camera.
That man had belonged to glossy paper and childhood invention.
This one was thinner than memory had any right to make him. Older than he should have been. His hair had gone almost completely white, his shoulders folded inward beneath a cardigan that looked too large for him. His hands rested in his lap, restless over the blanket.
For a moment, you could not breathe.
Harry leaned closer. “We can leave.”
You shook your head.
The man turned at the sound. His eyes moved over Harry first, then found you.
He stared.
Your body went cold.
“Scarlet?” he whispered.
Harry’s hand tightened at your back.
You tried to speak, but nothing came.
The man’s gaze drifted lower, to your stomach. Something in his face changed. Confusion. Wonder.
A grief too late to be useful.
“The baby,” he said.
Your breath caught.
He looked up at you again, eyes wet and empty of recognition.
“Our girl?”
The room tilted.
“No,” you whispered.
But he did not understand. Or perhaps some ruined part of him did, because his mouth trembled as he reached toward you with a hand that shook.
Harry stepped between you at once.
The movement broke something in you. You took a step back before you could stop yourself, one hand rising to your mouth as you looked at the helpless, fragile old man in front of you.
He did not look like the man who had destroyed your mother.
He did not look like the man who had left behind a pregnant wife and a one-year-old son.
He looked small.
Lost.
Almost pitiful.
And somehow, that hurt worse.
For years, you had imagined anger would be enough to hold you upright if this moment ever came. You had imagined questions.
Accusations. The clean satisfaction of finally saying what a child could not.
But there was no one here to answer you.
Only an old man who looked at you and saw your mother.
Only a mind trapped in the year he had left.
Only the baby he had never stayed to meet, standing in front of him with two babies of her own.
You turned away because you could not look at him anymore.
Behind you, he murmured something soft and broken.
“Scarlet… don’t go.”
Your eyes closed.
Harry understood before you spoke.
“That’s enough,” he said gently.
The woman from the facility said something behind you, but you did not hear it. Harry guided you into the corridor, one arm firm around your waist.
You made it three steps before the sob broke loose.
Harry pulled you into him.
“I thought he would be different,” you choked out. “I know that’s stupid. I know he was never good.
But when I was little, I imagined this so many times.”
“I know.”
“He was supposed to be healthy. Arrogant. Shameless.” Your voice broke harder. “He was supposed to be the man who betrayed my mother and left two children behind. I was supposed to be able to hate him. To ask him why. To make him look at me.”
Harry held you tighter.
“But he can’t even do that,” you sobbed. “He can’t answer me. He can’t apologize. He can’t even know me.”
“Breathe, baby,” Harry murmured. “Please. For me.”
“He was supposed to see me.” Your fingers twisted in his jacket. “He doesn’t even know me, Harry.”
“I know.” His voice was rough now. “I’m sorry.”
You clutched at him, crying too hard to stand without him.
“I’m right here,” he said, his hand moving slowly over your back. “You’re not that baby anymore. You hear me? You’re here. You have me. You have Richard—the father who stayed. You have our girls. He doesn’t get to take that from you.”
You tried to nod.
Harry’s hand moved to your stomach. “Think of them. Just breathe. In and out.”
It took several minutes before you could move again.
The woman from the facility followed you into the corridor, holding a worn black notebook against her chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said carefully. “There is one more thing.”
Harry’s arm tightened around your waist. “Not now.”
But your gaze had already dropped to the notebook. “What is that?”
The woman hesitated. “They found it among his things when he was moved here. He kept it for years.” Her eyes softened with something like pity. “He knew about you, Ms. Queen. About both of you. It’s only in the last year that the illness began taking names from him.”
The words landed too slowly.
He knew.
You should have said no.
Instead, you reached for it.
The cover was cracked at the corners, the pages swollen from age. When you opened it, the first thing you saw was Mikey’s face, cut from a society magazine years ago and pasted crookedly onto yellowing paper.
MICHAEL QUEEN CAUSES SCENE AT CHARITY AUCTION
A laughless breath caught in your throat.
Mikey looked younger in the photograph, grinning at someone outside the frame as if he had absolutely no intention of learning from the incident.
The next page was Scarlet.
SCARLET QUEEN TO STAR OPPOSITE ROBERT DE NIRO
She was impossibly young, impossibly beautiful, her smile bright enough to belong to a woman who had not yet learned how much grief could cost.
Then another.
QUEEN AND CASTILLO FAMILIES UNITE IN HIGH-SOCIETY WEDDING
Your first wedding.
Your face beside Harry’s, both of you caught on the church steps, younger and shining with a kind of happiness you had not known enough to protect.
Your fingers trembled as you turned the page.
MS. QUEEN RETURNS TO NEW YORK
A photograph from one of your first major public appearances after joining Queen Financial.
Then another.
QUEEN FINANCIAL’S HEIRESS STEPS INTO POWER
And another.
MS. QUEEN SHINES AT ANNUAL GALA
Page after page.
Your face, collected in silence.
Not loved properly. Not claimed. Not protected.
Just watched from a distance.
Harry looked over your shoulder and went very still.
Between the clippings, there were folded letters in shaky handwriting.
Scarlet, forgive me.
Scarlet, I made a mistake.
Scarlet, tell me about my kids.
The words blurred.
A sound left you before you could stop it.
“He…” you whispered. “All those years…”
Harry turned toward you at once. “Baby—”
“He knew.”
Your hand moved to your stomach.
For one second, everything inside you went too quiet.
Then a hard tightening pulled low across your abdomen.
You gasped.
Harry’s face changed instantly. “Baby?”
Another wave came before you could answer. Not sharp enough to name, but deep and wrong enough to steal your breath.
The notebook slipped from your fingers and hit the floor.
“H-Harry.”
He caught you before your knees gave way.
“No, no, no.” His voice dropped into panic before he forced it steady. “Baby, look at me.”
Your fingers clutched at his jacket.
“The babies—”
Harry lifted you into his arms before you could finish.
“I’ve got you.” His voice was calm in the way it became only when he was terrified. “Open the doors,” he called down the corridor. “Now.”
The woman from the facility moved quickly, shouting for help as Harry carried you toward the exit.
“Look at me,” he said, holding you carefully against his chest. “Breathe for me.”
Then he felt it.
The warmth soaking through the fabric beneath his arm.
For half a second, his mind went brutally blank.
Then everything the doctor had said came back at once: thirty weeks, twins, stress, warning signs, early labor, rupture, pressure, do not wait.
His hold tightened.
“No,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Not yet.”
Another pressure rolled through you, harder this time.
A broken cry slipped from your mouth.
“Harry.” Your voice cracked with fear. “It’s too early. It’s too early. I can’t—They can’t come now.”
“Yes, you can.” He pressed his mouth briefly to your hair as he moved faster, his heart beating violently against you. “Listen to me. You can. I’m taking you to the hospital. You and the girls are going to be okay.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.” His voice roughened.
“I know, baby. I’ve got you.”
The driver was already out of the car when Harry reached the entrance.
“Mr. Castillo?”
“Call the doctor,” Harry ordered as the doors opened ahead of him. “Now.”
The driver grabbed his phone with shaking hands.
Harry lowered you into the back seat, one arm still braced behind you, the other pressed protectively over your stomach.
Another wave hit.
You clutched his shirt, tears breaking free.
“Harry…”
He looked down at your face, all the color gone from his own.
“Stay with me,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “Please. Stay with me."
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Plot summary: It’s October 1943, the country in the grip of World War II, and your small English village is fast becoming home to an influx of American servicemen sending hearts a-flutter. Yours already belongs to your teenage sweetheart until, that is, you meet Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales.
Chapter summary: Frankie’s not going to stay away from you - and you don’t want him to.
Warnings: 18+only.
A/N: Here we go!
Masterlist
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Frankie comes back through the side door into the small dark passage, stands for a fraction of a second with his hand still on the latch, his back to the door he’s just come through, and closes his eyes.
He closes his eyes because he knows he’s not going to do what you’ve just asked him to do. Not because he doesn’t respect you, not because he doesn’t want to be the kind of man who does what a woman asks without question, but rather because, having touched you like he did, there’s no way he can leave you alone.
You responded – he knows you did. He saw it in your eyes, felt in on your breath, recognised it in the way your body tried to move closer to his.
And your words – I feel something – couldn’t have been clearer if you’d yelled them in his face rather than whispered them on a breath of air.
He keeps his eyes closed and exhales raggedly, the hesitation in immediately returning to the warmth of the hall borne from the undeniable need to touch you again. He can still feel the heat of your cheek against his palm, feel it burn the way his finger burned from the night in the jeep, and he wants other parts of his body to burn the same way.
He knows it’s not gentlemanly to have such thoughts about a woman he barely knows, but he wants to feel you, pressed tightly against him, wants to feel the heat of your mouth, your hands, your thighs…
He said he would do what you asked because in the darkness, with the tears coming down your face there was nothing else he could say. The saying of any other thing would have been cruel and the last thing Frankie ever wants to be towards you is cruel.
So, he said he would do what you asked, but he hadn’t, in the small, honest part of him, meant it, and if he was any lesser a man he would go back through the door again and drag you into his arms.
Instead, he opens his eyes, straightens his shoulders and walks the length of the passage out into the hall, arranging his face into an expression that won’t be questioned by others when he emerges back into the music and the dancing and the socialising.
The first person he sees, when he steps back inside the hall, is Santi, watching the door. He puts his cup of tea down on the shelf at the side near the urn, and crosses the floor to meet him, putting his hand on Frankie's elbow.
“Fish…walk with me."
"I’m not…"
"Walk with me. Smile at Mrs Robertson and come out the front, now."
He lets Santi steer him by the elbow across the front of the hall past the line of coats, and past Mrs Robertson at the door who, of course, asks if everything is alright.
“Everything’s fine, thank you,” Santi replies with a broad smile. “We’re just taking some air.”
Fortunately, she doesn’t ask any further questions or seem in any way intrigued and Santi keeps his hand on his elbow until they’re fully outside in the street in front of the hall, lit only by the small, thin moon from above.
“What the fuck?” Santi says, dropping his hand. “You danced with her, then she went out the back door, and you followed her and…please…please don’t tell me you did anything.”
“Jesus, like what?”
“I don’t know – like, fuck her?”
“Pope!”
“What?” Santi stares at him. “The way you’ve been acting lately, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“I did not fuck her!” Frankie replies, indignant. “I just…we talked, that’s all.”
“About what? What did she say?”
Frankie looks down at his feet for a long moment, watching the moon reflect off the sheen of his boot as he tries to assemble his thoughts.
"She said to stay away from her."
"Okay,” Santi lets out a breath of relief.
"And I told her I would."
"Good."
"But I'm not going to."
Santi doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The moon shifts behind a cloud whilst somewhere in the hall behind them, Mrs Cook starts up another quickstep on the piano, and he folds his arms across his chest, his expression tightening.
"Say that again?"
"I'm not going to do what she said."
"Frankie..."
"What?”
"Look at me."
Frankie lifts his face from his boots and looks at his friend, knowing without needing to see for himself, that the look he’s giving him is quiet and settled – the face of a man who’s made a decision in the dark, and isn’t going to be talked out of it, not even by his closest friend.
"Frankie, no."
“I don’t care what you…”
"Listen to me."
"I'm listening, Pope, because I always listen to you. I listened to you in the hut when you talked about Pilar and I understood, okay? I understood what you were telling me and why and I get it, I do. You did the right thing for you and the right thing for Pilar and good for you. Way to fucking go. But what you did isn’t the right thing for me, or her.”
"I’m just…”
"She feels something, Pope, okay? She told me she feels something and I had one hand on her cheek and the other on her waist and..."
Santi groans.
“…and she told me to stay away from her, and the way she said it…it wasn’t…she wasn’t…she wasn’t actually saying that she wanted me to stay away from her. She was saying she was afraid of what would happen if I didn't."
Santi shakes his head, “That’s the same damn thing.”
"No, it isn’t.”
"Frankie, it’s the same damn thing! A girl who tells you to stay away because she’s afraid of what will happen if you don't, is a girl telling you to stay away. The fear is the reason. You don’t get to decide what she means and what she doesn’t – that’s on her.”
"She said it doesn't matter. She said it can’t matter. She said he’s going to ask me to marry him. She said all of those things whilst she was crying and…and she was saying them to herself, Santi, not to me. She was saying them out loud because saying them out loud was the only way she had to make them be true, and…”
Santi steps closer to him. “Frankie, you’re doing the thing a man does when he wants the thing to be the thing he wants it to be. You’re listening to what she said and hearing what you want to hear and calling what you want to hear the truth of what she said, and that it is only going to make things worse!”
Frankie pauses, holding eye contact with his friend, before nodding. “Maybe.”
"Maybe?"
"Maybe I am doing that, okay? Maybe I am. But the truth is, I don't know, not for sure. I don't know if I'm hearing what I want to hear or if I'm hearing what's there. And I am telling you that not knowing is not a reason to stay away. Not knowing is a reason to find out."
"But it’s not your finding out to do, it’s hers!”
Santi sighs heavily and rubs a hand over his face.
"Frankie, the finding out is hers. She has to decide what she wants, not you, and if you don’t leave her alone, you’re not helping her find out. You’re taking the finding out away from her."
Frankie shakes his head. "Pope, if I stay away, she doesn't find out and she marries her boyfriend and..."
"Then that is her finding out and making a choice.”
"No, that’s her doing the thing she’s already doing. That’s her staying in the place she’s always been because it’s the easy place and the easy place is the place where I’m not, and her staying in the easy place because I’m in it is not her finding out anything. That’s her being left alone.”
He lets out a ragged breath.
“That’s her being left alone in this village in the middle of this fucking war and never knowing what…what she could have.”
Santi says nothing for a long moment, the only sound coming from the whisper of the evening wind and the piano from inside the hall. Somewhere in the distance, a dog begins to bark and then stops, the village settling once more, ignorant of the turmoil.
"Frankie, I told you about Pilar so you wouldn’t do this."
"I know.”
"But apparently you’re going to do it anyway."
"Yes.”
"Jesus…” Santi shakes his head. “You’re a goddamn fool, you know that?”
"Santi, you told me that you’ve asked yourself every day since you last saw Pilar whether saying how you really felt would have made it better or worse, and you told me that the answer every day is worse. And I believe you. But you almost said it, and the almost is the thing you have to carry, because you almost said it and you didn't."
Santi blinks.
"She’s not married yet, not even engaged – not properly. He’s just some boy she’s known all her life and…and if I stay away from her now, if I do what she said and what you’re saying and she marries him, then I’m going to be you. I’m going to be carrying the almost for the rest of whatever piece of life I get after this tour, and I’m not going to be you. Respectfully.”
“Glad you added that, you asshole.”
"I’m saying it because it’s true and because you’re the only man I can say it to, and I would rather say it to you than say it to myself in the dark."
Santi looks at him for a long moment before making a noise that might be a laugh and might be something else.
"Alright, Fish. I’m not going to talk you out of it because I’ve tried and you’ve thrown everything back at me, so – alright. But you need to be smart about this, and you need to be careful. You need to be careful that the thing you do is the thing you can live with.”
"I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I came out from behind the side door of the hall ten minutes ago having decided that I wasn’t going to do what she said, and that’s all the deciding I’ve done.” Frankie pauses. “I might wait. I might wait a long time. I might…I might never do anything."
Santi snorts. “You will. I don't know when or how, but you’ll do something because you’re not the kind of man who decides that he’s not going to do what a girl’s asked him to do and then doesn’t do something. So…you’ll do it. And all I’m saying is, when you do, be careful.”
Frankie nods. “Okay, thanks.”
“Don’t thank me,” Santi sighs. “If this all goes wrong…”
“You’ll be there.”
He huffs another laugh. “Yeah, guess I will be.”
They stand for one more long second in the dark, then Santi inclines his head back to the door. “Come on, let’s go back inside.”
“Pope, you…” Frankie takes hold of his friend’s sleeve. “You won’t…say anything to anyone else, will you? To Will or Benny or Tom…”
“I won’t say a goddamn word,” Santi replies. “But I’m guessing I’m not the only one who saw what happened after you finished dancing with her, so don’t blame me if the others ask you about it.”
“That’s fair. I guess I could’ve been less obvious when I followed her out.”
“Long as she hasn’t come back in crying, you’re fine.”
They cross to the door together and once back amongst the warmth and the music and the dancing, Frankie heads straight to the trestle and takes a cup of tea from Mrs Robertson and doesn’t look across the floor. He doesn’t have to, because he knows that you’re at the other side of the room with Margery, your back angled very slightly to him, drinking your own tea slowly and carefully, not looking across the floor at him either.
Mrs Cook brings the latest dance to a finish with a flourish, and the floor stands and claps and breaks up, bodies moving in different directions, a low murmur filling the air.
Out of the corner of his eye, Frankie can see Will flirting with the girl serving the teas, while Tom and Benny are in conversation with Mr Robertson, the younger airmen’s expression screaming to be saved somehow from the drudgery of small, English village talk.
“Oh Lieutenant Morales,” Mrs Hadley clucks as she approaches from his left side. “I hope you won’t think me presumptuous in hoping you might have a dance free before the end of the evening?”
“I don’t think you presumptuous at all,” he smiles at her, still refraining from looking across the floor. “I’d be honoured.”
****
On the other side of the hall you, meanwhile, are drinking your tea slowly and carefully, trying to stop your hands from shaking whilst attempting to field Margery’s questions as best you can.
When you’d come back inside, she had immediately pounced and subtly redirected you, having seen you leave after your dance with Frankie and him follow you outside almost immediately.
“And then…?” she asks, eyes as big as saucers as you recount him coming upon you in the dark.
“He asked if I felt something and then…then he moved closer and…he put one hand on my cheek and the other on my waist and I thought…. oh Lord Margery, I thought he was going to…to kiss me and I wanted him to but then I…I told him he had to stay away from me.”
A sound leaves Margery’s throat that resembles a half snort, half cry and you realise that, for all intents and purposes, you’ve spoiled what she’s been hoping was going to come next. But she instantly catches it, turns it into a cough and takes another mouthful of tea, smiling at Florrie Bates as she floats past in the arms of one of the other Americans whose name, at this precise moment, you’ve forgotten.
“And what did he say?”
“He said he’d do it. But then he said he’s been thinking about me, and I told him that I had Henry and that I couldn’t do anything about it but…” you inhale raggedly, the teacup shaking in your hand. “But I want to, Margery. I want to, more than anything and that makes me a terrible person and…”
“Hush, old girl, of course it doesn’t!” Margery says fiercely. “It makes you human, that’s all. It makes you a woman who’s attracted to a man who’s attracted to you and that’s the natural order of things. And I told you before that you should be exploring your feelings and not worrying about boring old Henry…”
“Margery!”
“I’m serious, old girl. Things have happened now and you’d be a fool to ignore them.” She looks at you squarely. “You’re not a bad person, I know that. So, you’ll have to end things with Henry before you do anything with Frankie.”
“I didn’t say I was going to do anything with Frankie,” you hiss.
“Yes, you are – you know you are. And doing something whilst Henry sits in the background is a recipe for disaster, I’m telling you that now. I mean, look at Annie Taylor – flighty piece that she is. Talk of the village walking out with that airman whilst Barry’s away with the navy and you don’t want to be talked about like her, do you? You want to be talked about as a woman who was decent enough to let her old boyfriend down gently before taking up with a new one.”
You drain the rest of your cup and turn it around in your hands, shaking your head in the process. “I can’t because…because I told him to stay away and he said he would…”
“That’s why he’s trying his hardest, once again, not to look over here at you,” Margery says, glancing over your shoulder. “That man has no intention of staying away from you, old girl. He doesn’t know how long he might have left in this world and, believe me, he’s not going to waste a chance like this just because you’re too proud to tell Henry you don’t love him.”
Your head flies up and you meet Margery’s gaze again, mouth open and ready to defend your relationship. Only, you can’t. She raises an eyebrow, almost daring you to disagree, and all you can do is duck your gaze away again.
“If you don’t intend to do anything about your feelings for Frankie, then look at him,” Margery says after a few beats of silence. “Look at him right now.”
“Margery…”
“I’m serious, old girl, look at him.” She puts her cup down on the side and rests her hands gently on your shoulders, appearing for all the world like a simple, friendly gesture. “Just turn and look. He’s over by the trestle – you can’t miss him. He’s not looking at you anyway so there’s no harm done. nothing wrong with looking, is there? It’s not as though you haven’t done it before.”
She exerts gentle pressure on your shoulders and you feel yourself turning incrementally, a half turn at first, your gaze sweeping across the room – to where Florrie’s aunt and Mrs Robertson are chatting in the corner, where Mrs Cook is rifling through her sheet music, her tongue stuck between her teeth – and coming to rest finally at the trestle where Frankie’s standing with Santi, his gaze on Mrs Hadley, whose hand is on his arm.
Almost immediately, you feel your entire body start to shake again at the memory of what transpired. His hand on your cheek, his hand on your waist, his breath ghosting over your face…what you might have been prepared to do if things were different…
Margery’s wrong – there’s something very wrong with looking. Because right at that moment, Frankie’s eyes move from Mrs Hadley, just a fraction of an inch, and meet yours, like they have done before, but this time you find that you have to physically stop yourself from crossing the floor towards him. Your right hand snakes backwards and grasps blindly for Margery’s, squeezing it tightly in yours, pulling her close to you in ungainly fashion.
“Steady on, old girl,” she hisses as she bumps into your back. “You’re making it…”
“I…I need to go,” you mumble faintly, gaze still locked on Frankie who’s looking at you now with a mixture of concern and confusion. “I need to leave, now.”
“But…”
You cross the floor before she’s finished speaking and don’t wait for her, keeping your eyes on the door in front of you, your hand reaching for your coat where it waits for you on the peg without ever glancing in Frankie’s direction.
“You alright my love?” Florrie’s aunt asks as you move past her.
“Yes, I’m fine. I just…need some air.”
You don’t wait to hear her response or consider whether she finds your demeanour and actions strange or concerning. You simply pull your coat on quickly, but carefully, pull open the door and step out into the night air.
You start to walk, quickly, back in the direction of home with your coat unbuttoned and, behind you, you can hear Margery call your name and the sounds of her shoes as she hurries to catch up with you.
“Slow down, old girl…"
"I can't, Margery."
You keep going, with Margery behind you, and suddenly you hear the sound of the hall door opening and closing again, followed by the sound of boots coming down the steps.
You don’t look back because you know whose boots they are.
You hear Margery stop and say in a voice that isn’t particularly loud or particularly quiet but said at a volume that she knows you’ll hear, "Lieutenant."
"Miss Cole."
You keep walking because you know that if you stop and turn now, anyone coming out of the door of the hall behind you or coming down the lane from the direction of the cottages is going to see the two of you.
His boots come up behind you – twenty feet, ten feet, five feet – and you feel his hand take your arm above the elbow through the sleeve of your unbuttoned coat. And whilst it doesn’t stop you walking, it turns you sideways off the lane behind the old hawthorn where the lane turns a small bend before the row of cottages starts.
The hawthorn is thick and wide and tall enough for the two of you to stand behind it without any part of you showing to the lane, and before you can so much as draw breath, or ask him why he’s following you or not doing as you pleaded with him to, your hands go up to the front of his tunic under his coat and close on the wool between the two brass buttons, and his mouth comes down on yours.
series summary: Tommy’s Diner is where dreams go to die and burnouts clock-in for work. Waitressing would be boring without the flirtatious distractions of line cook Frankie Morales.
chapter one: slow shift*
You and Frankie do a small celebration in honor of your manager's birthday. Frankie distracts you while trying to cut the cake.
chapter two: surfing the crimson wave*
You lash out at Frankie, he unexpectedly does you a kindness. You thank him in his truck the best way you know how.
chapter three: playing hooky*
Frankie calls in sick for his shift. You simply must investigate.
chapter four: sunnyside cemetery*
A ghost haunts the kitchen. Or does it? A spooky night at the cemetery forces your feelings for Frankie to come to a head.
chapter five: tequila!*
A night off and some well deserved drinks put you and Frankie in the same spot on a Friday night.
chapter six - mini chapter: when you know, you know
A flashback shows Tommy’s crew enjoying Christmas Eve at the diner. Frankie makes his first move with a New Year’s kiss.
chapter seven: think later*
Frankie asks you out on your first official date. It doesn't go as planned.
chapter eight: uneasy hearts weigh the most*
Benny hosts the party of the year where broken pieces of Frankie's past are unearthed.
chapter nine: ungodly and unprofessional*
Who said anything about falling in love? you're just co-workers.
chapter ten: titanic*
Frankie sees his father for the first time in years over a tense birthday dinner.
chapter eleven: coming soon!
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*
extras:
➢ table for two moodboard by @cavillscurls
➢ table for two commission by @kenobiwanx
➢ table for two moodboard by @almostfoxglove
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You move back to your childhood home in Florida to care for your ailing mother, only to find the past waiting for you in every room. Your always kind older cousin Santiago refuses to let you disappear into the sadness, pulling you into his world without hesitation. But Santi's world involves Frankie Morales; your cousin's best friend and the boy who broke your heart decades earlier. Thrust into each other’s orbit again old memories make their way to the surface, blurring the line between hatred and desire.Because the boy you learned to despise is the man you can't seem to forget.
THIS STORY IS ON A03
tags: Friends to Enemies, First Love, Childhood Friends, Brother's Best Friend trope kinda, Angst, Smut, Flashbacks, First person POV, Protective Frankie, First kiss, parent with terminal illness, HEA.
notes: Its over and something in me feels a bit healed. Hard to describe, but this has been a special work to me. I hope you feel I have honored those with terminal illness, the love story and above all, I hope you feel the gratitude I have for all of you who have left comments, shared your own tough stories and have been overall, incredibly supportive.
You've never ridden in a helicopter before.
It's much louder than you anticipated and it smells of oil and old coffee. Frankie says if it was his own helicopter it would be spotless. But as this is a work one he borrowed for the day, beggars can't be choosers.
You can't stop sneaking looks at him as he flies. There's so much that goes into flying - one hand rests on the controls while the other makes precise adjustments. And as he always was in his youth, he does everything with a calm focus. He isn't showing off for you, he just knows exactly what he he's doing. Every motion is like second nature, and you muse that some people are just meant for certain things.
Frankie was meant for flying.
Your stomach is still a little jumpy from the start of the flight, your heart still pattering a bit quicker than normal, even though you trust Frankie with your life. It was still strange to see the world grow smaller and smaller beneath you, to hear the swop wop wop of the blades cutting through the sky.
Your headset sits comfortably over your ears and you hear a crackle and then Frankie's raspy voice coming through.
"You doing okay, Pip?"
You look his way, nodding. You're doing okay; you just wish that Hilary was with you today.
The entire idea of flying out here was Frankie's idea, a suggestion brought to you and Hilary the day before the official funeral.
The three of you sat around the kitchen table sharing the brownies Frankie brought. They sat on plates, untouched in front of all of you.
“I can’t wait until all of this is over,” Hilary sighed, taking a drag of her cigarette.
“Tell me about it,” you mumbled, your eyes red from crying all night.
Frankie’s shoulder touched yours, a silent reminder that he was there for you if you should need him.
“Well, we can take your mom's ashes to Blue Heron like she wanted when you’re ready,” Frankie told you both quietly, fingers absently playing with his fork. “No rush.”
“No we can’t,” Hilary frowned. “It’s condemned plus all that road deterioration means we’d never manage to get up there.”
Your heart sank as you thought of failing in the one thing your mother requested. You found yourself surprised that Frankie didn’t seem deterred.
"I know, Pip told me. But we can get there by helicopter. I talked to my boss and I can rent one for the day. You just tell me when.”
You burst into grateful tears as Hilary just sat there at the table, eyes wide in disbelief.
It wasn’t until later that night when you and Hilary were alone that she gave you a solemn look.
"Will you do it? I just ... Can't. I don't like heights.”
Hillary had never had issues with heights. But did have issues with drawn out farewells. You knew it was too emotional for her. Too hard to do that final step and say goodbye and for once, you came to her aid.
"Of course."
So it's just Frankie and you touching down into Blue Heron with your mother's ashes in a metal urn held securely in your lap.
Frankie sneaks a glance your way, can see the nerves in you and you knowi this was the truck he'd be reaching over to squeeze your knee, to quickly press a kiss to your cheek at a stop sign. However, behind this beast of a helicopter, his focus needs to remain on the task at hand.
But that doesn't stop him from shooting you a soft smile before turning his attention back to the console.
"There it is, baby."
Through the curved windshield the abandoned camp appears below as a dark patch of collapsed docks and overgrown trails swallowed by green. Isolated and forgotten, many areas patchy from lack of growth. But there is a large section big enough for his chopper.
You glance Frankie's way, eyes meeting briefly before he's focused back on guiding you both down. As the helicopter descends, the lake's surface ripples outward beneath the downdraft. Tall grass begins to bend flat, leaves and pine needles spiraling into the air like mini tornados.
Even as the winds nudge the helicopter on your descent, Frankie remains completely composed, dark eyes scanning the instruments and horizon with steady focus. The helicopter finally touches down with a soft bump on the earth below you hold your breath. The rotors gradually slow and the blades thundering chops stutter to a stop.
You remove your headphones and all that's left is the quiet sound of the birdsong and a gentle lapping of the lake against a weathered and collapsed dock.
You don't move right away, the weight of the urn heavy on your lap. You just stare out the windshield, looking at the still campground. You’re scared of this next step.
“No rush, Pip. We can go when you’re ready.”
You look over to see your boyfriend gazing at you with concern. Of course Frankie knows without you saying a word.
"I'm ready."
You climb out, Frankie's hands at your waist, boots sinking briefly into damp moss. It's hard to imagine this place once overrun by happy tourists. He takes the urn from you, carrying it in one arm, the other snaking around your middle.
"You got this, Pip," he tells you. His lips brush yours. "I'm here every step of the way."
The two of you move through the trails, the green canopies of shivering treetops. The sun is warm on your shoulders but the breeze fragrant from the flowers that grow in wild directions.
When you come to the lake you suddenly understand your mother's love for it. The sun makes the surface of the water glitter and you can imagine her here, her youthful face tipped to the sun, her shoulders bare.
The dock is rotted away, unable to be tred on. But the shoreline is pristine, welcoming as you move towards it. You wonder if your mother ever jumped off the deck in a cannon ball formation or a sleek dive.
"I'm gonna give you some space," Frankie murmurs as you take the urn from him. "Unless you need me."
The afternoon light streams through the trees, catching the strong lines of his face and brim of his cap. You fall a little bit more in love with him in that moment.
Yes, you do need Frankie. You need him in your life, in your bed, in your thoughts. But for now, you want time with your mom.
"I've got it."
Turning from him you make your way to the water, eyes stuck on the beautiful serenity. The lake is so beautiful, the day so perfect. The wind is soft it's a caress against your cheek.
You stare down at the urn you hold and find it strange to think of how a person with all their huge experiences and big feelings can somehow fit into such a small totem.
You remember the way your mother smiled when you got into college, how her hugs felt when you were sick. You remember the way she rubbed your back and told you she loved you.
You unscrew the lid of the urn as you think of her. How she too was doing life for the first time.
Thank you for bringing me into the world.
Thank you for always having open arms.
Thank you for trying your best.
"Goodbye, mom," you whisper, gingerly tipping the urn over. You watch as the ashes pour slowly from the lip, carried on the wind and out onto the lake.
Thank you for being my mom.
The ashes scatter into the water and wind, a swirl of memory and life and body committed to the earth and water. And there's something so poetic in that, to be returned to the world in this form.
"I'll take care of Hilary," you promise her. "And she'll take care of me."
You take a few minutes of quiet, head bowed, hands holding the empty urn at your waist.
Finally, with tears dried you raise your head. You look over at the trees to where Frankie balances his shoulder against a tree, thick arms crossed, just watching you. When he sees you look his way, his brows twitch up. You motion for him to join you and he does so quickly, arms outstretched to gather you against him when he approaches.
"Thank you," you say, breathing in the warmth of the sun on his clothes. "For the flight and for being here and just.... Thank you, Frankie."
The two of you walk hand in hand back to the helicopter, a strange feeling of bliss found in the quiet of this moment, a comedown. It's a good sensation, you observe.
Like the end of one book and the start of another.
“Are you insane?”
You sit with Hilary at the kitchen table with bleary eyes swollen from the tears you two can't seem to stop. Fragrant coffee steam wafts from chipped mugs, but both remain untouched.
The dividing of your mother's assets was quick and adroit. She didn't have much, a few pieces of jewelry from her own grandparents (A necklace of which was given to Rosalita, despite her initial refusal), your mother's meager savings and a few odds and ends.
The house however, is mortgage free. A true asset having been bought long before the increasing surge in real estate prices. The manila folder holding the deed to the house, and your ownership stake signed over to your sister.
"Seriously, have you lost it? I can't accept an entire fucking house," Hilary says with a shake of her head, pushing the folder towards you across the kitchen table.
"Why not?"
"Because it's not fair to you."
Your folded hands remain unchanged, your temperament serene. You knew the second the deed was in your hand that it would be passed to your sister.
"It's not fair that you stayed home and took care of Mom for most of your life," you correct.
Your voices are hushed in the early morning, faces painted amber from the gaps between windows curtains. A stripe of it cuts your sister's concerned expression in half.
"I didn't do it for that. She was our mom."
"Of course you didn't," you say. "Hilary, for all you did, please take this with my gratitude and my love. No strings."
She balks, mouth opening, brows pointing before something stops her. It makes her body relax back into the chair. "You don't want me to buy you out or something?"
You both know she has no money to do that. But having lived here these months you realize the emotional and physical Burtons you placed upon your older sister, assuming she could hold the weight of it all. A house still doesn't seem enough for all she did.
"No. I just want you to have it."
Her eyes sweep up along the corners of the kitchen, to the faded linoleum and the sink that never quite stopped dripping. It's nowhere near a perfect home, but there's safety in the familiarity for her.
You can see it in Hilary's face, the sudden realization she will no longer be un-moored. The freedom in this ownership.
"This whole house just for me?" She says, and when she looks at you for a moment, you see a flicker of the headstrong teenage girl she was. You're taken back to the times when that bravado would fall, like a mask slipping down.
She gives you a raw, naked look of concern. A girl worried she's going to do the wrong thing because she has always done the wrong thing.
"Yeah," you nod before reaching across the table. You squeeze her limp palm tightly before retracting. "And Justin, if that's what you want."
Justin is still sleeping in Hilary's old room, and at the mention of him your sister lets a smile twist one side of her mouth.
"Yeah. I want that if he does."
Ever since Justin flew in, the two of you have become fast friends. You love the way he looks at your sister, with this constant adoration that Hilary pretends to hate. Maybe she did hate it at one time, considering that kindness was a weakness. You think she sees this differently now.
You hope she does.
Because in the quiet moments when they think they're being unobserved, you watch as your sister rests her head upon his shoulder, the way he brushes the hair from her eyes and kisses her slowly.
And you know then that Justin will love your sister with all he has, that he will continue to doggedly pursue her until she understands that love can come quietly, that it can be constant.
That it's never too late.
At home the following evening you sit on Frankie's porch swing, the night dark and the stars twinkling. You feel a chill to your upper arm as Frankie presses a chilled glass of lemonade to it.
You take it with thanks, shifting to get closer to him when he joins you on the porch swing. He puts an arm around you, pulling you close. Every day it seems the two of you want to melt more and more into one another.
You feel that Frankie's eyes are trained on you and you look up to see he's got those big, brown, puppy dog eyes; the ones that give away every emotion he possesses the second he feels them.
And right now they look anxious.
"So, guess you'll be heading back to Seattle soon."
It's a topic the two of you have been dancing around recently. Between the late nights talking, meeting Justin, the reminiscing of good times, your mom's passing, any thoughts of the future seem to have been put on hold.
But now as you think of your mother's ashes dancing in the wind, you're affronted with one singular realization.
Home is wherever Frankie is.
"I dunno about that," you shrug, snuggling up closer to him. "I can work remote so I don't necessarily have to go back."
His body is tensed and, you feel his heavy arm band tighter against your middle.
"But you love Seattle," Frankie says, his chest rumbling as he speaks. "You keep reminding me how crappy our coffee is here. How gators outnumber the humans."
You giggle softly, cheeks swollen, eyes squinting. "Well, it's true."
He pulls you closer as he chuckles, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. He's contemplative, you can feel it in how he holds you a little tighter.
"But, it's not so bad here," you offer, reveling in the light night breeze against your skin.
"Pip, you hate Florida," Frankie says as he pulls back, eyes casting your way. You stare up at him, eyes limpid.
"But a lot of people I love are here," you say softly. "One in particular I have no intention of saying goodbye to."
This pleases him, cheeks pink and mouth hitching into a grin. Despite the shield of his hat, you don't miss the dimple in his cheek as he nods.
"Then you shouldn't have to say goodbye."
You nod at him before snuggling closer. You inhale the scent of his cologne and fresh sweat, of old spice and the wind. Of Frankie.
No, you shouldn't have to say goodbye.
And you won't.
"About time!" Santi calls over the heads of the bar patrons. Some look your way as you, Hilary and Justin enter.
Santi is already at the table with Benny and Will, a jug of beer and several glasses waiting for the three of you. Justin and Hilary slide into the booth, Santi giving a good-natured shake of his head.
"What the hell took you so long? And where's Fish?"
You can't tell him the real reason. That it was because Frankie had his mouth between your legs all afternoon, coaxing pleasure from you for so long that the two of you lost track of time.
"Had to run some errands and Frankie said he was giving Tom a ride," you shrug. "I'm just gonna grab a drink.”
You weave through the bodies of people until you get to the bar. The man working is distracted by several other patrons so you wait, glancing over at the table.
Justin is fitting in already. His arm around Hilary as he clicks bottles with the group. He says something and the group laughs uproariously. You smile when you see the way Hilary gazes up at him, a pleased smile on her face. She's so gone for this guy, the sight warms you.
"No way! Hey babe!"
Fuck.
Christy is there at your side, drink in hand. She moves with a shuffle, her long legs slightly wobbly. You force a polite smile.
"Hi Christy."
She smiles widely when she comes to stand opposite of you. She smells like cigarettes covered by perfume. She's still gorgeous, but her makeup is smudged, hair dishevelled
"You've been back all this time and we still haven't had a catch up!"
“Yeah, been busy.”
She starts to talk about the drinks here, how they’re overpriced and how she misses going to the beach with a six-pack and having a great time.
How are you going to avoid this interaction in the future? You forgot that when you move back here you're moving back into a world of characters you don't particularly enjoy. Into a history you tried to forget.
"There you are."
Your eyes go over your shoulder to see Frankie approaching with Tom who gives a wave your way before going to join the rest of the table.
"Hey," you smile, feeling yourself melt when Frankie comes to stand next to you.
He's wearing that cologne that you love his dark grey t-shirt straining over his shoulders and biceps. His hair curls under his hat and when he smiles that dimple on one side deepens. Basically sex on legs.
"Hi Frankie," Christy offers with a slur, eyes raking over his body. "S'good to see you."
"Hey Christy," Frankie says politely, but his gaze never leaves yours.
Christy watches over her glass as his hand slips around your waist to draw you closer.
"Sorry I'm late."
"No problem."
He gets a heated look on his face before his warm breath on your ear, raspy voice dipped so only you can hear.
"You look so good right now," he says, hand sliding along the hips of your jeans. "Forget hanging out with the guys. I wanna take you back to bed and ma-"
You smirk, mouth meeting his in a short peck to stop his dirty thoughts from finishing before you whisper back.
"Waiting is half the fun, Morales."
"Not for me it isn't," he growls gently, his beard rasping against your cheek.
You give him a playful shove before he can start saying more things that turn your insides to jelly.
"I'll be patient," he promises.
He gives you a wink, patting your ass gently before moving towards the booth where everyone is chatting and drinking. He's halfway there before he turns around, brows raised.
"Coke with a lime," you say before he can speak. "I know."
He grins from under his cap, teeth a slab of white against the bronze of his skin.
"Thanks, baby."
You watch him move to join the group, smiling when they cheer his arrival. You remember that Christy is there when you hear her sharp little gasp.
"Holy shit! No way! When did that happen?"
Now you feel your cheeks warming. "The first time?"
Christy's eyes are blown wide, a grin slicing her face in half. "First time?! Girl, tell me everything!"
With any other topic you'd skillfully avoid answering. But Frankie is a topic you never tire of.
"We were pretty quiet about it," you admit with a shy look at the floor. "Back before I left for college."
Christy gives a squeak of delight, fingers finding yours on the bar top. She squeezes gently, her hands warm. "No fucking way!"
She surprises you, going from looking elated to sobering, her already flushed cheeks pinking further. The man behind the bar takes your order and when he leaves, Christy is looking at you with an anguished expression.
“What’s wrong?”
"I just remembered how I used to throw myself at him." She surprises you by crooking her slender arms around your neck, pulling you tightly against her for a hug. "I'm so sorry. You must've thought I was such a bitch!"
For a minute you stay still, confused at the action before slowly banding your arms around her narrow middle.
"We were teenagers, Christy," you say with a sincere shrug as she pulls back, eyes wet.
She places an order for another beer, her empty glass slid onto the bar top.
"I swear if I'd known I never would have been so... Aggressive. I just thought he was just shy you know?"
"He was," you say, taking your drink from the bartender with a nod. Christy is still staring at you when you turn back.
"Francisco was one of the few guys that was nice to me," she admits. "And like, not just so he could get in my pants."
Your heart clenches at her vulnerability.
"Unlike Travis," she adds with a grimace before wincing. "I'm sorry, I know he was your friend-"
"Barely," you say with a disgusted curl of your lip. "Do you ever talk to him?"
Christy gives a humorless chuckle
"I saw him on Tindr last week. He's bald and his entire bio is just Taylor Swift lyrics."
"I thought he was married?"
"Divorce was finalized a while ago," she says before thanking the bartender for her beer. She turns her attention back to you. "According to my Facebook stalking."
You give a sharp, unexpected laugh at this, flashing a look at Frankie and the rest of the group. You can't wait to tell him this piece of gossip later.
"I think he cheated on his wife," Christy continues in a stage whisper. "I mean, I'm not shocked...Anyway, I should let you get back to your group," Christy says, observing your attention on the table. "It was nice seeing you."
You look at Christy with her smudged lipstick and glassy eyes. At the outfit far too tight and her hair disheveled. It would be so easy to hate her. To blame her for everything that happened, but how can you? She was a teenage girl desperate for connection. And it seems she's a grown woman looking for the same.
You smile warmly, motioning over to the table of your laughing friends.
"Hey Christy, why don't you join us?"
You look around at your childhood bedroom, a cardboard box in your arms. There isn't much you're taking with you. A box of mementos, pictures, movie stubs...a keychain with a shell attached to it.
"Hey, Pip."
Santi strides into your bedroom, his smile muted. He misses your mom, even if it's harder for him to admit out loud. He was the son she never had.
"How you holding up?"
You shrug, exhausted and sad and emotional. You lower the box to your dresser, walking over to give your cousin a tight hug.
"Thank you for everything you did for her," you say into his shoulder. "And for me."
The two of you remain like this for a moment, transported into your childhood bodies. The way he would comfort you when your mom was too drunk. The way you would welcome him into your room after his dad started to beat him regularly.
"Sometimes I wish we could go back to when it was simple," Santi whispers in a thick voice. "Before we knew our parents weren't perfect. Back when summers were forever and the world was just waiting to be discovered."
"I know."
"But I'm happy now too," he amends. "I love my job and my friends and ... Plus now you and Frankie are finally together. Finally."
You smile against the collar of his jacket, so wide your cheeks hurt.
"Yeah."
You squeeze one another before stepping back. For a change, your cousin doesn't look like the confident man you normally see. He looks big-eyed and anxious.
"Frankie says you're staying in Florida?"
"Yeah."
He gives you a hard look, one you've seen before. A look that challenges your answer. It makes you feel nervous, exposed and unsure. The room seems warmer, smaller, tighter.
"Well, Hilary is here," you say when he remains silent.
"So?"
"She's my sister, Santi, and we're getting along."
He crosses his arms over his chest, a move of bravado. He's getting irritated.
"She never wanted you to end up here, Pip. You know that."
"Things change," you say as your mind drifts to Frankie. "People change."
But you think about that conversation with Hilary that night.
I knew your future wasn't here in the same town we grew up in.
But then as if by magic, the image of your boyfriend's face comes to mind. And with it, a flood of adoration then nearly takes your breath away.
"And Frankie is here, his house is here," you say, eyes bright. "And that's enough for me. More than enough, actually."
"Yeah?"
You nod, eyes limpid. "Yeah."
He's quiet for a lingering moment, eyes tracing your face as if trying to read your mind before he finally gives a tight smile.
"I better go. My flight's coming in early tomorrow."
He kisses your forehead, murmuring that he wants to keep in touch better. Knowing Santi you don't think it'll happen, but it sounds very nice in theory.
You enter the kitchen, passing Hilary and Justin chatting quietly over the table. They glance up, smiling your way.
"Boxes are all packed," you announce, giving a dramatic wipe of your brow. “Just need to do the suitcase.”
You move to pour a glass of water, Hilary tracking your moves.
"You didn't have to rush through that," Hilary insists, mouth thinned. "I hope you didn't feel pressured."
"What? Not at all. I'm just excited to be moving into Frankie's place."
Hilary doesn't reply, but you think you see a bit of concern there before she turns back to Justin.
"What're you guys up to?"
"Justin got his managerial job back at the bar," Hilary says proudly nudging him. "The place was falling apart without him."
Justin gives a shy laugh, face pink. He's impossibly humble, and he'd never admit that the place is a dump ever since he left.
"How do your parents feel about you moving back to the US?"
"They don't love the political situation," Justin admits.
"That's fair," Hilary says exchanging a knowing look with you. You clink glasses before Justin continues.
"But they love Hilary and they know I love her so they're happy for us. We might go visit them next summer."
"That's fantastic," you say, grinning. You take a seat at the table with them, looking at the notes and sketches they've been scribbling.
"What's all this?"
"We're talking about some renovations we might be able to do this year," Hilary says carefully scanning your face. "Maybe starting in here. What do you think about that?"
"I think that's awesome," you say before taking a sip of your water.
"Really?"
"Yeah," you nod, motioning to the far wall. "If that isn't load-bearing, you could knock it out and have a totally open concept main space."
Hilary still looks troubled. "You're sure about that?"
You turn her way, brows rising. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because we both grew up here," she reasons, blinking quickly. "And because I don't want you to think that this isn't your home anymore-"
"Hilary," you say softly placing a hand over hers. "I don't want it to be my home anymore."
She looks confused, as does Justin. You feel your heart clenching as you gaze around the kitchen and remember some of the past. The good times, the bad.
"It hasn’t been my home for a long time," you finally explain to them. "It’s just a house I used to live in. You have memories here I never will. Good ones. You lived here so long; it's a part of you. That's why I want you to have it and that's why I want you to do anything you want to it."
Her eyes are watery. "But-"
"I mean it, Hil. All I ask is that you make good memories in this place from now on." You stand and extend a hand. "Deal?"
You see the way she rubs at her eye before she stands as well, shaking your hand briefly as she grins.
"Deal."
You're packing your suitcase later that day when the bedroom door creaks open behind you. You don't even hear Frankie approach; you just smile when he embraces you from behind, gentle kiss planted behind your ear.
"Hey baby."
"You're early," you say as he releases you and takes a seat on the edge of your old bed. "I just have a few more things to pop into my suitcase and then we can go."
"Yeah, it's about that. I wanted to talk you before we head to mine."
"Why?" You smirk. "Changed your mind about me moving in, Morales?"
You stop folding a pair of jeans halfway when he doesn't reply. You look up and your stomach plummets when you see the strange look he's wearing.
"Wait…Are you?"
"It's just, my place isn't very big," he says.
"I don't need a lot of space."
"Well, you'll need an office and everything for work."
No no no.
Didn't you already talk about this? Wasn't Frankie the one so eager for you to move in as soon as you felt ready? What made him change his mind?
He gives a soft exhale before patting the space on the mattress next to him. You move slowly, lowering yourself without looking away from him.
"I remember you telling me your apartment in Seattle is pretty nice. Two bedrooms and an office, right?"
You nod dumbly. "Yeah."
"You haven't put it on the market yet, have you?"
You shake your head, not trusting your voice to remain even as the truth makes itself apparent.
He wants you to move back to Seattle. He wants you gone.
"I don't understand... We agreed on me moving in today."
"I just don't think it's a good idea moving all your stuff into my place."
Your stomach bottoms out, limbs trembling. He's leaving you. Dumping you. Forgetting you. It's like being thrown back through time into the body of that hurt and confused girl at the party.
"What made you change your mind?" You force your voice to stay steady.
Frankie looks at his hands. You feel your temper rising when he won't make eye contact.
"I've been doing a lot of thinking," he says quietly, eyes narrowed on the ground. "Realized it wasn't the best plan."
You feel your insides quivering as you take in the nervous smoothing of his hair under his baseball cap.
"I thought about it," Frankie says, breath shaky as his eyes finally sail to your face. "And I talked to Tom last week and he thinks he can get me a good price for my place."
A beat.
"Huh?"
"Apparently it's a seller's market, whatever that means," Frankie shrugs. "But I need to get it stage ready by next week. So we might have to leave your big stuff here for a bit so I can get the place looking presentable. You think Hilary would mind?"
A beat passes as you try to make sense of what Frankie is saying.
“But…Frankie why?”
"Because when I sell it I’ll have the money to start over somewhere else..." Frankie's cheeks flush as he gives you a crooked grin. "Like, with my girlfriend in Seattle."
Confusion floods your body as he talks.
"... Seattle?"
"Yeah, they have a lot of opportunities for a pilot out there," he says as if he hasn't just dropped a huge bomb on you. "The helicopter academy, places like that. I already talked to them and they want me for an interview in two weeks."
"You want to move to Seattle with me?" You say, needing it spelled out for you. "Like, to live. Permanently?"
"Unless we decide we want to move somewhere else," he shrugs. "Who knows where we'll be staying in five years. Maybe we'll pick up and fuck off to Italy."
He chuckles warmly at this, his hand finding your knee and squeezing.
You can only stare at him.
"Is Hilary making you do this?"
"Huh?"
"She never wanted me to stay here in Florida," you say, voice rising. “Did she make you do this?”
Frankie almost looks amused. "Pip, you know I think your sister is great, but there's no chance I'd let her tell me what to do."
"So you just came up with this yourself? Uprooting your life to Seattle?"
"Yeah."
His eyes are gentle and soft at the edges and you realize you've read this entire situation wrong.
And suddenly there's this great big adventure in front of you, this world that you never thought possible. A city you love a man you love.
You think of walking hand in hand with him through Pike Place Market, stopping to look at produce, Frankie buying you flowers when you're not looking. You think of fresh coffee sipped on your apartment balcony with Frankie behind you, one arm around your waist, chin propped over your shoulder, murmuring about how happy he is. You imagine the light patter of rain on the rooftop as you and Frankie make slow and tender love under the sheets, blanketed in the serene gray blue of an overcast sky.
Bliss.
But then this excitement gives way to guilt, something that you can't shake off when you look at him. Because for a minute there's that shy boy with oversized T-shirts, who lost his parents that you remember so well.
You think of that house he grew up in, how the echoes of his past are in every nook and cranny. The bedroom where he took your virginity, the kitchen where he gave you your first kiss.
It's asking too much of him.
He draws closer to you on the mattress, urging you under his arm so you can burrow tightly against his side, but your mind is going everywhere.
"If that's what you want," he rasps. "I don't want to pressure you."
You jerk your chin up, eyes wide.
"Of course I want you and that life, Frankie. But y-you can't give your house up for me," you stammer, guilt and excitement all building within your belly. "You can't- You grew up there. It's the only constant home you've ever known. You're saying you want to give that up? Plus the job you just got back?"
His dimple deepens, a serene look crossing his face
"You're acting like I'll get nothing in return by doing it," Frankie murmurs. "Baby, I get a future with you. Who gives a shit about an old house?"
Sometimes Frankie says the most amazing things, things that take your breath away, and this is no exception.
"And I can work anywhere with an airport," he assures you. "Might be nice to go work somewhere that doesn't have staff gossiping about my suspension."
You're stunned into silence, any response, any refusal completely wiped from your mind. Frankie seems to know this, his dark eyes scanning yours.
"It's time, Pip," he says gently, warm hand squeezing yours. He lifts it to his mouth and you feel the soft plush of his lips kissing the center of your palm sweetly. "I'm done living in the past. I want a future with you full of the good memories we'll make together. A new start."
"A new start," you echo.
He shoots you a crooked grin, a bundle of nervous excitement. "So? What do you say?"
Your heart squeezes with love for him. Love for the boy he was and love for the man he is now. Love for the future he's offering and the sacrifices he makes without question.
Your glossy gaze is caught in Frankie's, smile mirroring his as you lean in for a kiss. And just as his lips are about to press against yours, your answer is given.
summary: it's the last day on the island... and the big party to celebrate harry's parent's 50th anniversary.
pairing: harry castillo x fem!reader
content warning(s): EXPLICIT CONTENT (18+ MDNI), love confession, angst in between tho 👀, lucy mention, friends to lovers (finally), smut - missionary, unprotected piv, creampie, no use of y/n.
word count: 11.2k (oops)
a/n: OK WOULD IT EVEN BE MY STORY IF THERE WASN'T RAIN INVOLVED??? i loved loved loved writing this chapter and the songs that included in each scene just put me in the right mood, so i encourage listening to the songs while reading <3. that said, ty to everyone who's read this story. it was messy but oh so worth it! love y'all 💛
pt. 7 || series masterlist. || read on AO3.
songs (lyrics in italics and blockquoted):
・i was born to love you by ray lamontagne ft. sierra ferrell
・you are the reason by calum scott
・cherish you by mikky ekko
After dinner—which was cut short after what happened—Harry remained out on the deck of his parents’ villa. He was seated at the edge of it, staring down at the clear blue water. His eyes were red, tears continuing to trickle down his cheeks as he thought about you and the fact that he hurt you.
Not only emotionally, but physically too.
He just couldn’t do anything right.
Maybe you had a point. Maybe this trip was clouding both your sense of reality. Maybe you two weren’t meant for each other and this trip—being so close to him like this—just made you both feel things that you wouldn’t have felt otherwise.
But he had to believe that wasn’t true.
Because if it was, it wouldn’t have hurt this much.
Harry heard the sliding door open. It was already late.
He should be asleep now.
He should be with you.
Harry didn’t have to look over to know that it was his mother who sat down next to him. She had ended the dinner after he confessed, after he admitted that everything with you was fake… until it wasn’t.
“You should get some sleep,” she said softly, quietly.
“I’m not tired,” he muttered.
“Harry, honey…”
Harry looked at her. He was completely wrecked. Tears pooled at his eyes. His eyes were bloodshot, voice raspy, and shoulders slumped forward. “I don’t want to go to sleep… because tomorrow is the last day and I don’t—I don’t want this to end.”
She sighed. “Why did you lie? About her? About your relationship?”
Harry laughed bitterly.
He looked away from her and out into the dark sky. “Because you guys wouldn’t stop bothering me. After Lucy, it was just nonstop. I’d hear about it at work. Or during our lunches. Or whenever I’d come over… and I was just tired, ma,” he admitted. “I couldn’t breathe. You, dad, and Peter tried to fix me up almost every week—do you know how exhausting that is?”
“Honey—”
“And maybe I should’ve been honest,” Harry interrupted quietly. “But if I had been, would you guys have stopped?”
She sighed quietly and shook her head. “I’m sorry. We didn’t know.”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it? None of you do. My breakup with Lucy hurt,” Harry confessed. “Because I had envisioned a future with her… but I knew she wasn’t—we weren’t meant for each other in that way.”
His mother’s eyes softened. She reached out and gently rubbed his back.
“So, to get you guys to stop, I asked—” Harry sighed, then said your name quietly. “I asked her to pretend to be my girlfriend. I figured… why not? You guys know her. She and I are friends. It would be easy.”
His mother listened. She didn’t interrupt. She turned her body to face Harry, lower lip pulled between her teeth. She knew Harry had always been the serious and sensitive one out of him and Peter, but she had never seen him this heartbroken over a woman before. Sure, he had been hurt in the past, but never did it cause him to spiral like this.
“But that’s the thing… It was too easy, ma,” he whispered. “It was like—it was like something I had been missing. Something I had been searching for in other women. It had always been her… so why did it take this trip for me to see that?” Harry finally turned to look at his mother. His brows cinched together, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“I don’t know, honey,” she finally said. “Life’s funny that way, you know? Maybe—Maybe you both weren’t ready for each other before.”
Harry shook his head.
Then, he continued. “Our relationship—it was always just sex. We never really did catch any feelings for each other. If she was seeing someone exclusively or if I was, we’d end it.”
“Maybe you should ask yourself why you both kept going back to each other, then.”
“What do you mean?”
“How long was this physical relationship?” She asked.
“Years.”
“Right… and you had been with other women during these last few years.”
Harry nodded.
“And when you were single and she was single, would you both then continue that relationship?”
He nodded once more. “Yes.”
“Then, you’re asking the wrong question, honey,” she said, reaching up to cup his cheek gently. “You both kept going back to each other for a reason. Sure, you both can say that you didn’t want each other in that way, but your hearts—they yearn for each other.”
Harry felt his breath catch in his throat. He was trying to hold back the tears, tried to keep it together, but he couldn’t. Because this pain in his chest wasn’t something he had ever felt before. It was like the walls were closing in on him and the only one who could save him was you.
“You weren’t ready for her back then… and she wasn’t ready for you either.”
“And now? Now, we are?” Harry asked.
“I’d like to think so,” she answered. “If you love her, Harry, don’t give up.”
“She doesn’t want me,” he muttered.
“You don’t believe that’s true, do you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Harry answered. “It’s what she said.”
“Oh, Harry,” she sighed and moved her other hand to cup his cheek. She stared into his deep brown eyes, glistening with tears. “If you let her go… it’s going to be the biggest regret of your life.”
He pressed his lips together. The corners of it trembled. “I don’t—I don’t know how to fix this…”
“You don’t have to fix anything,” she said. “You just need to tell her how you feel.”
“I tried.”
“Clearly not hard enough,” his mother teased. “Harry, she’s a strong and stubborn woman. I believe you know her better than I do, but she needs to hear you say those words that you feel deep in your chest. That pain you feel right now? That won’t go away if you let her go.”
“P—Peter said I would have to just move on. I tried—I tried to get her to listen earlier and it didn’t work.”
She sighed. “Well, you shouldn’t have listened to Peter. That was your first mistake,” she laughed quietly.
Harry let out a quiet chuckle. It was a much needed relief after the tightness in his chest. It went away briefly, but it came back full force. Like it was reminding him of the person he was losing.
“You don’t move on from this type of love, honey.”
“How do you know?”
“This type of love only happens once,” she said. “You let her go… and you’ll be chasing that feeling for the rest of your life.”
Harry pulled back and away from her grasp. He turned to look back at the water. It didn’t feel right—trying to get you to understand and change your mind when you already told him what you wanted.
“Harry,” his mother said. “You’re not forcing her to stay,” she reassured. “But she at least needs to hear how you feel about her.”
He didn’t reply. Harry just kept his gaze back onto the water.
“Thank you, ma,” he finally said.
She sighed. “Get up.”
“What?”
“Get up,” she stood from the deck and extended her hand out for him. “I know she said for you to stay the night, but I think she’s gonna be glad to see you at your villa.”
“Mom,” he sighed.
“Get up, Harry.” She repeated. “And don’t make me ask you again. I know you’re hurting, but you have a choice here, honey… And I’m not going to let you choose to sulk here when you have a woman who loves you just as much as you love her.”
Harry looked up at her. He sighed and stood from the deck, taking her hand in his and standing up. He towered over—especially since getting leg lengthening surgery—but he still had such a soft spot for his mother. Whatever she said goes.
“I love you,” she said, moving a hand to his chest. “But you need to be stubborn right back.”
“I can’t make her stay.”
“You’re not trying to make her stay.”
“Then, what am I trying to do?” Harry asked.
She sighed. “Harry, you’re going to be completely and wholeheartedly honest with her. You’re going to put everything on the table… You were ready to do it with Lucy.”
“That was because it was the most logical choice.”
“Do you hear yourself?” His mother asked. “Love isn’t supposed to be a logical choice.”
He sighed. “I know that.”
“Good. So, go back to your villa. Be there when she wakes up,” she said with a soft smile. His mother leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Tomorrow is the last day. It’s now or never, honey.”
Harry had gone back to the villa like his mother advised. When he stepped inside, it was eerily quiet. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, especially when everything just felt unresolved. He tried to keep in mind what his mother told him—there had to be a reason why you both kept going back to each other, and it wasn’t just the sex. It had become more than that, even before this trip.
He found comfort in you. After his failed relationships, you were the first person he wanted to see. Not because he needed you physically, but because you grounded him in ways that no one else could.
He told himself it was only because of the sex, that you were just someone he could use as convenience, but this trip opened his eyes to so many things that he hadn’t seen before.
Because Harry did love you.
He figured he always did.
And maybe his mother was right. Maybe you both weren’t ready for each other then, but you both were now. He had to be sure of that.
Because he couldn’t let you go.
At least not without telling you how he truly felt about you.
So, Harry walked down the hallway quietly, just to check in on you. The door had remained opened, which he found surprising, given that you had wanted your space.
But when he stepped inside, Harry felt his breath catch in his throat.
You were curled on your side, back facing him, but he could see the shirt you were wearing. It was one of his own. He glanced at his luggage and a small smile pulled at his lips to see that it was open—you had gone through his luggage just so that you could have something of his to sleep with.
It made him hopeful.
Gave him a bit of confidence.
Maybe you did love him too.
He stepped further into the room and carefully grabbed one end of the blanket to cover you. Harry draped it gently over your midsection, biting his lower lip at the sight of you. He leaned down and gently kissed your forehead.
“I love you, baby,” he whispered. “I’m going to make things right. I promise.”
You moved just a bit, but otherwise remained asleep. Harry gazed at you for a few seconds longer before he stood upright and left the bedroom quietly.
He was going to fix this.
Harry wasn’t going to leave this trip without putting everything on the table.
Because he wanted you.
Now, and for the rest of his life.
The following morning, you had woken up feeling a bit restless. You looked around the bedroom and sighed. Harry wasn’t here, which you knew already, but part of you hoped that he’d at least come back. You reached for your phone and looked at the time, biting your lower lip when you realized that today was the last day of this trip.
Watching that video last night opened your eyes to things that you failed to see before. Harry loved you; he admitted it on the video, and maybe that was what he was trying to tell you along.
You knew that you had to talk to him at some point today, but that you also still needed to play the part as his girlfriend. With everything that happened, especially last night, you weren’t sure how either of you could continue this charade.
Determined to speak to Harry before the party, you stood from bed, pulled on your sleep pants and walked to the bathroom to brush your teeth. You were determined—you were going to go to his parents’ villa where you told him to stay last night and ask to talk with him.
Harry had woken up early that morning before the sun even came up. He hadn’t slept much, but for the first time since everything that happened, he was feeling positive. Seeing you in his shirt last night in bed, the conversation with his mother, it felt like things were much more clear to him now.
He didn’t have to hide the fact that everything about this relationship was fake to begin with because at some point during this trip, he stopped being pretending. It also felt like a relief that he didn’t have to hide anymore from his family.
So, before you had woken up, Harry decided to leave the villa only to surprise you with some breakfast and flowers. He didn’t know what he would say or how he would say it, but Harry knew that he was going to tell you just how much he loved you.
The walk to his parents’ villa didn’t take that long. You were nervous, each step you took bringing you that closer to the man that you had been in love with. It terrified you—the thought of being in love. It had always been difficult for you, which was something both you and Harry had in common.
Knocking on the door, you fidgeted with your hands. You were expecting Harry to open the door, but felt a bit of relief when it was his mother instead. She looked at you and smiled warmly—it managed to calm down the nerves that settled in the pit of your stomach.
“Morning,” she smiled.
“Morning,” you replied. “Is—Is, uh, is he here?”
His mother furrowed a brow in confusion. “No, I told him to go back to the villa last night. Is he not there?”
You shook your head. “I didn’t see him…” you looked down at your feet and sighed. “Then again, I wasn’t really looking either. I just—I wanted to come straight here before I talked myself out of it.”
She nodded and opened the door even further. “Come in, let’s talk, yeah?”
“Are you sure? I know you have to get ready and—”
“A cup of coffee won’t delay the party,” she laughed quietly. “Besides, the party can wait. Come in.”
You sighed and nodded, stepping across the threshold and into the villa. You felt severely underdressed compared to her—it was still quite early and she looked so put together.
“I’m an early riser,” she said, leading you away from the front door and towards the kitchen. “His father, on the other hand, still asleep.”
You laughed quietly and followed her quietly. “Harry’s also an early riser,” you pointed out. “At least from what I’ve noticed.”
She nodded in agreement. “Yes, he says that he can get a lot done in the morning.”
“Always so efficient,” you smiled. Sitting down on the stool, you watched her pour your a cup of coffee before setting it down in front of you.
“How are you?” She finally asked. “Were you able to get some sleep?”
You shook your head and looked down at your mug. “Not really, no. Last night was… intense. I’m sorry that happened.”
She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “We all have our disagreements,” she reasoned. “There’s nothing you need to apologize for.”
“He didn’t mean to push me either,” you added. “It was just—wrong timing.”
“I know,” she said softly. “Because if it had been on purpose, I would’ve made a bigger scene, believe me.”
You glanced at her and smiled.
Then, you shifted your gaze back down to your mug after taking a careful sip.
“Are you excited for your party?”
She nodded with a smile. “I’m excited to celebrate with my husband and family, yes.”
“Fifty years,” you said quietly. “That’s… that’s amazing.” Then, you thought back to the first day of this trip. The words Harry said when you went out to lunch with his family since arriving.
“Imagine where you’ll be in fifty years, Harry,” you said.
“Hopefully with you,” he blurted out.
“It’s nice to have someone go through life with,” she said softly. “We’ve had many ups and downs the last fifty years,” she continued. “But I can’t imagine my life without him. That’s a bit cheesy, no?”
You shook your head and allowed a smile to curl your lips. “I think it’s beautiful. I think you’re lucky… you found someone to spend all those years with.”
“You have too,” she said. “And I think you know it.”
You bit your lower lip. “I think I love your son,” you whispered. “But I’m terrified. I don’t know what that looks like or how that changes.”
“I think being scared is a good thing,” she replied. “It means your feelings are real.”
You sighed. “I really messed up,” you whispered. “I broke him and I didn’t—I just—” You felt tears sting your eyes. “Last night, I was going through my camera roll and noticed a video he recorded. He said he loved me, said he always did.”
His mother smiled.
Then, you straightened up.
Because to you, his mother still wasn’t aware that any of this was fake. “What I mean is that—we just haven’t said those words yet in our relationship.”
She reached out for you and placed a hand over yours. “I know.”
“What?”
“I know “ she repeated. “Harry told me everything last night.”
“He did?”
“Said everything at first was pretend… until it wasn’t,” she said. “And I’m sorry that he dragged you in this, that you both felt the need to lie.”
You shrugged. “I’d do anything for him,” you said. “He knows that… just like I know he’d do anything for me.”
She smiled. “You know, I told him last night, that both your hearts yearn for each other. Why else do you think you both kept going back to each other?”
You chewed at your lower lip anxiously. “He told you everything…”
She laughed quietly and nodded. “Listen, I’m not here to judge. What my son does on his own time is his own business, and I’ll only step in if I absolutely need to.”
“It really was just a physical relationship,” you said.
“Honey,” she smiled, squeezing your hand. “It stopped being just a physical relationship when you said you’d do anything for him.”
You sighed and looked up at her. “I’m sorry… that we lied. I didn’t expect that it would turn out like this,” you said honestly.
She shook her head and moved to sit next to you. “You’re family now. I hope you know that.”
You bit your lower lip. “Can I stay here just until I’m done with my coffee?” You asked.
She smiled. “Of course.”
“I’m just nervous,” you admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about anyone.”
“Good,” she said, reaching up to gently rub your back soothingly—reassuringly. “Hold onto that.”
Harry was mumbling under his breath, practicing what he was going to tell you, when he stepped into the villa. He let out a nervous breath and walked into the kitchen, setting the tray of food down with the two cups of coffee. He looked around and furrowed a brow. You would’ve been awake by now.
So, he called out your name.
Quietly.
Hesitantly.
You didn’t answer.
He walked down the hallway and into the bedroom. You weren’t there. You weren’t in the bathroom. Harry sighed and sat at the edge of the bed. He glanced at the nightstand and noticed your phone—it wasn’t like he could give you a call to ask where you were either.
The hope and confident he felt last night slowly diminished.
He was ready. This morning, Harry was ready to tell you everything.
He had it planned, all the way down to what he wanted to say, what he wanted to tell you.
Thinking that you wanted your space, Harry stood from the bed and grabbed his suit that hung in the closet, gently placing it down onto the bed and grabbing other necessary items to get ready.
He reached for his phone, sent a text to Peter, and then grabbed the small notepad that rested on the nightstand. Harry wrote a brief note for you—simple and straight to the point.
I’m sorry about last night. You probably still need your space, so I’ll be getting ready at Peter’s villa.
I’ll see you at the party, baby.
Harry ripped the piece of paper from the notepad and set it on the nightstand, right near your phone. He sighed quietly and grabbed his things before leaving the bedroom and then the villa. He glanced at the breakfast he had gotten, suddenly not hungry, but decided to bring it over to Peter and Charlotte in case they hadn’t eaten yet.
Peter opened the door to his villa when Harry knocked just a few minutes later. He sighed at his older brother and opened the door further, allowing Harry to step through the threshold.
“Thank you,” Harry said. “You didn’t have to agree to letting me get ready here.”
Peter shook his head. “I overstepped,” he replied. “I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry.”
Harry nodded. “I’m sorry, too. I was just—just upset.”
“I know. Come on, let’s put the food down and I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.”
“And Charlotte?” Harry asked.
“She doesn’t know,” Peter answered. “I didn’t tell her. It’s not—it’s not something that she needs to know.”
“Thank you,” Harry sighed. He followed Peter further into the villa, carefully setting the food onto the kitchen counter before walking into the living area where he set down his suit and shoes.
“You talk to mom or dad today?” Peter asked, walking into the living area with two mugs of coffee.
“Not yet,” he answered, taking the mug from him and following his younger brother out onto the deck outside. “Talked to mom last night though.”
“Yeah?”
“Told her the truth.”
“You did? How—how was that?” Peter asked.
“Freeing,” Harry answered.
Peter sighed. “I am sorry, you know. I just wanted you happy.”
He nodded and glanced over at him. “I know.”
“And getting into… whatever you have going on right now, I shouldn’t have made it bigger than it was.”
“What’s done is done,” Harry said. “I don’t know if I would’ve had the courage to admit how I felt about her if you or Charlotte didn’t get involved.”
“So, you love her,” Peter smiled.
“I do,” he nodded. “But I don’t know if me telling her how I feel will even change anything. It might just make her run further away from me.”
Peter shrugged. “But at least you could say you tried, right? I think that’s better than just letting her go.”
Harry looked down at his mug, biting his lower lip as his mind drifted to you. “What do I do… if she doesn’t want this? Doesn’t want me?” He asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Peter answered honestly. “I think we just have to hope that she does.”
Harry sighed. “Last night, when I came back to the villa, she was—she was asleep in my shirt, Peter. Curled up, snuggled to the pillow, and I just—it was like I was looking at my future, you know? My heart just raced faster at the sight of her.”
Peter nodded.
“I’ve always loved her,” he continued. “And I think it’ll break me if—if she doesn’t want this.” Harry glanced over at his brother, tears filling his eyes before he looked away. “I don’t know if I can take it, honestly.”
“This trip—it showed you what was right in front of you all this time,” Peter said softly. “And maybe it did the same for her. I would have a hard time believing if she said she doesn’t feel the same way, Harry.”
Harry nodded and then took another careful sip of his coffee. “When did you decide that Charlotte was it for you?” He asked honestly.
Peter smiled. “I don’t think there was just one single moment,” he answered. “It was many small moments… then I started imagining my future and what that looked like. And I knew that I wanted it with her.”
“I just—I don’t know why it took me this long,” Harry said.
“Maybe some part of you always knew,” Peter reasoned.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Do you know when you’ll try and talk to her?”
Harry shook his head. “I was going to talk to her this morning, but she wasn’t at our villa when I got back. So, I think maybe she just needs more space.”
“Today’s the last day, Harry,” Peter said. “You don’t have to wait for the perfect moment.”
“I know that,” he sighed. “I’ll—I’ll talk to her after the party.”
“Good,” Peter said, reaching over and squeezing his brother’s shoulder reassuringly. “She loves you, Harry. Maybe she’s just thinking about her way of telling you.”
“I hope so,” he whispered, looking up the sky and noticing the clouds coming in. “Guess we should get ready, huh?”
Peter nodded with a smile. “If we’re late, you know we won’t hear the end of it.”
By the time you made it back to the villa, you were expecting to find Harry there. You could feel your heart beating out of your chest when you got closer, but when you finally stepped inside, disappointment filled your chest.
He wasn’t there.
You walked to the bedroom to retrieve your phone when you noticed the note he left you on the nightstand. You sighed to yourself and glanced at the time. You knew you had to get ready, so talking to him would have to wait.
Instead, you pulled up his contact name and sent him a text message. It was a short message. You didn’t want anything to get lost in translation.
YOU: I’ll see you at the party, Harry.
You watched the message go from delivered to read. Harry hadn’t replied, so you set your phone down back onto the nightstand to grab the olive green dress from the closet. You had bought this dress in this color specifically because you knew it was Harry’s favorite.
Now that you were holding it up, it all made sense.
It was always Harry.
It had always been him.
You looked at yourself in the mirror, biting your lower lip. The dress fit perfectly along your curves—an ankle length dress, sleek satin that hugged every inch of your figure. It was also a sleeveless cowl neckline with a ruched front bodice and another deep cowl back with a dainty strap across the shoulders.
Your makeup was light—like it always was—but your hair was pulled up in a high bun with strands of curled hair falling in front of your face.
You looked at your phone briefly. Harry hadn’t replied. You sighed and took a deep breath before leaving the villa and into the main ballroom where the party would be at. You looked up at the sky once you stepped outside—the clouds were coming in fast.
Harry hadn’t been able to send a text back to you. After he had gotten ready, he and Peter had to go to the ballroom to make sure everything was set and ready for his parents. It also didn’t help that it looked like it was about to rain outside too.
“Everything good?” Peter asked.
Harry nodded. “Yeah,” he answered. “Got the DJ set up. Bar is open. Food along that table there. We’re good.”
“And you? You good?”
Harry shrugged. “Nervous,” he said. “But ready to see her too.”
Peter smiled. “She texted you first. That’s a good sign.”
“I haven’t been able to reply.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “Better to say the things you want to say in person.”
Harry nodded. He turned his head to the doors when people started coming in. He took a deep breath and felt Peter’s hand on his shoulder.
“You got this, Harry. Let’s just get through the next few hours. Then… she’s all yours.”
By the time you stepped foot into the ballroom, you could hear the loud chatter mix in with the music. Suddenly, you felt so out of place. Harry was supposed to be by your side, grounding you. Comforting you. Making you feel like this was where you belonged.
You took a deep breath and stepped further into the ballroom. The nerves slowly disappeared when some of his family members greeted you like you had always been part of the family. You smiled, gave them a hug and kiss on the cheek, as you looked around the room.
Searching for him.
“She’s not here yet?” His mother asked, holding a glass of wine as she and his father stood next to Harry.
“No,” he answered. “I should probably give her a call.”
“Give her a few minutes,” she said. “Maybe she’s still getting ready.”
Harry nodded. “Right, maybe.” He reached for his own drink and sipped on it quietly. He was only limiting himself to one glass, especially after what happened last night. It still horrified him that he had put his hands on you, even if it was unintentional.
Then, the DJ transitioned into a song that caught his parents’ by surprise. They looked at each other with a large grin and set down their own drinks.
“Will you excuse us, honey?” His mother asked.
Harry nodded and looked over at his parents with a smile. “Yeah, go. Dance. Have fun.”
His father reached up and gently patted Harry’s cheek. “She’ll be here, Harry.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
His parents moved onto the dance floor, as well as other couples in the family, while the song slowly played in the background.
Times were tough, we made it through
We wasted the rough, so let’s savor the smooth
All the time I was hurting you
Got to believe that I was hurting, too
Harry looked around the room, biting his lower lip as he tried to search for you.
I was born to love
I was born to
I was born to love
I was born to
You watched some more people move to the dance floor when the song continued. You felt your heart beat out of your chest as you scanned the room.
You're the only one I can talk to
The only one I can really read
I know you give because you want to
Don't you think it's time you learn to let yourself receive?
Harry turned his gaze towards the entrance and then he spotted an olive-green colored dress in the midst of mainly black and white.
There you were.
You were looking around the room, almost like you were looking for him too.
I was born to love
I was born to
I was born to love
I was born to
Then, you saw him. His eyes were already on you.
You felt your breath catch in your throat.
Harry met your gaze.
Everyone around him disappeared.
I was born to love you
I was born to love you
You walked closer to him. You didn’t break the eye contact either. It felt like you were holding your breath, navigating through the crowd of people as the song continued to play.
Harry straightened up. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. The dress, the color of it, the way it clung to your figure—you were breathtaking.
Now that you finally stood in front of him near the bar, Harry cleared his throat nervously.
“Hi,” you whispered.
“You look great,” he said quietly. “I love the color.”
You let a small smile line your lips. “Knew you would,” you replied. “It’s why I got it.”
“Because of me?”
You nodded. “I know it’s your favorite color… and it matches that ring you always wear,” you pointed out, nodding towards the emerald green ring that sat on his pinky.
Harry looked down at his hand. He finally allowed himself to relax. “You notice that.”
“Hard not to,” you teased. “You wear that thing everywhere.”
Harry chuckled. “Do you want a drink?”
You nodded and turned your body away from him to face the bar instead. Just as you were about to open you mouth to ask the bartender for a drink of your choice, Harry chimed in on your behalf.
“A glass of moscato, please,” he said, not taking his eyes off of you.
Slowly, you turned back to face him.
The air between you thickened with tension.
You both knew there were things that needed to be said, things that have been lingering for days now.
“You look great too,” you complimented. “I always did enjoy seeing you in a tux like this.”
Harry felt his cheeks warm. “Yeah?”
You nodded and stepped closer to him. You heard him inhale sharply. Then, you reached up and straightened his bow tie. “You look handsome… you always do.”
Harry bit his lower lip as his eyes softened down at you. “Baby,” he whispered.
You looked up at him.
“I know,” you said, moving your hands back down to your sides.
He sighed.
The bartender quietly interrupted to set your glass of moscato down on the counter.
You turned to face him and offered a polite smile. “Thank you.”
“Baby,” Harry repeated.
You looked at him. “We’ll talk before this trip ends,” you promised. “There are things I want to say too.”
Harry let out a relieved breath. “Okay,” he said quietly. He didn’t want to push it either, so despite the need to want to ask when you both would talk, he just nodded.
“I’m going to say hi to your parents now that they’re done dancing,” you replied.
“Oh, right, yeah,” Harry said. “We’re seated at that table together and if you’re hungry, I’ll get you a plate.”
“That’d be great, thank you,” you smiled, leaning up to kiss his cheek lightly.
When you pulled away, Harry’s hand darted out to rest on your hip. His touch—like always—grounded you and you hadn’t realized how much you missed it, how much you missed him.
“Will you dance with me later?” You asked.
Harry nodded. “Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “Whatever you want, baby.”
“Okay, good. I’ll remember that.” You smiled and then slowly stepped back and away from him.
Harry watched you walk away from him, his eyes never leaving you. He sighed to himself, the flutter in his stomach becoming much more noticeable now.
You walked to where his parents were, seeing the delighted expression on their faces when they saw you. His mother pulled you into a tight hug before his father did the same. You couldn’t help but feel Harry’s eyes still on you, so when you pulled away from them both, you turned to look over your shoulder.
And sure enough, he was still looking at you.
His mother smiled to herself.
“You look amazing, honey,” she said, pulling your gaze away from him to look at her instead.
“Me?” You scoffed playfully. “Look at you,” you smiled. You glanced at her husband. “Lucky man.”
“Don’t I know it,” he chuckled, wrapping an arm around her waist.
She smiled and leaned against him. “Have you talked to him?” His mother asked.
“About everything? No,” you answered. “But we did have a brief conversation earlier. Nothing serious.”
She nodded. “He wasn’t back at the villa when you left ours earlier?”
You shook your head. “He thought I still needed space, left me a note saying he was going to get ready at Peter’s, so… just a few minutes ago was the first time I saw him today.”
Her eyes softened. So did her husband’s.
“How are you feeling?”
You shrugged. “I’m okay. Right now, I’m okay. I’m having fun, celebrating the both of you.”
They smiled.
“Well, make sure you leave enough time to talk with him,” she said. “If not now, then maybe when you two are back in New York.”
Harry was holding two plates of food when he finally sat down at the table. You were still mingling with his other family members, greeting them politely, laughing genuinely. It made his heart beat even faster. You always fit in with his family—that should’ve been another sign that it had always been you from the beginning.
When you managed to excuse yourself, you walked over to Harry and sat down next to him, your glass now empty but your stomach quietly growling at the sight of food before you.
“Want me to get you another glass?” Harry asked.
You shook your head. “I think I’m good for now,” you answered. “Don’t want to drink too much,” you said.
Harry bit his lower lip and nodded. “I didn’t know what you wanted, so I just got a bit of everything.”
“This is great. I’m starving.”
“Didn’t eat breakfast?”
You shook your head. “Wasn’t all that hungry this morning.”
Harry chewed the inside of his cheek. “Where—where were you this morning, by the way?”
“I went to go see you,” you answered.
“Me?”
“I thought you were at your parents’ villa… considering what happened last night and what I said.”
“Right,” Harry nodded with a sigh. He wanted to forget last night, wanted to forget that he ever put his hands on you.
You could tell that Harry was still beating himself up for what happened, so you reached out and rested a hand over his. “It was an accident, Harry.”
“Still. I should’ve been more careful.” Harry look down at your hand. He didn’t want to move, afraid that if he did, you’d pull away.
“I don’t blame you… and I know you’d never hurt me like that.”
Harry looked at you, eyes soft and broken. “I came back to the villa last night. Slept on the couch.”
“I didn’t see you when I woke up…”
“I—I left to get us some breakfast and coffee. When I came back, you weren’t there.”
You sighed.
Harry continued.
“So, I thought you were out for a walk or something, that maybe you still needed your space.”
“Which is why you got ready at Peter’s,” you finished for him.
Harry nodded. “Yeah.”
“We just kept missing each other this morning,” you said quietly.
“Guess so.”
“We still have time,” you reassured him. “I promise. We still have time.”
Harry looked at you again. You could see the uncertainty in his eyes, could see how he was so close to the brink of tears.
You cupped his cheek, watched him lean against your touch. To anyone else aside from his parents and Peter would see this as normal, but there was so much more. So much pain and heartache that lingered between the both of you.
As you were about to lean in to peck his lips, the music suddenly stopped and you heard both his parents’ voices come through the microphone.
Harry stared at you.
You did the same.
They started talking, so you pulled away.
Harry sighed and turned his attention to his parents now.
“We just want to thank you all for coming this week and celebrating with us,” his father said first with a smile. “It’s been nice to spend time with family like this.”
Harry’s mother smiled and leaned into him.
You looked at Harry for a moment—he was beaming with pride.
“It’s been fifty years with this man,” his mother chimed in. “Fifty amazing years.” Tears filled her eyes. “We’ve been through… everything together. We built all of this… together.”
His father pulled her closer and leaned over to kiss her temple. “I’m ready for fifty more,” he said into the microphone.
His mother laughed quietly and reached up to wipe her tears. Then, she glanced at you and Harry and smiled. “When you find that special someone, hold onto them… that kind of love doesn’t come around very often.”
You bit your lower lip and subconsciously reached for Harry’s hand, gripping it tightly as you kept your eyes locked with his mother’s.
Harry looked down at your hand for a moment and squeezed it in return.
“Love can be scary,” she continued. “But when you find the right person—your person—everything else just falls into place.”
Harry turned to look at you now. He released your hand only to reach for the end of your chair, pulling it close to his. You gasped quietly, looking over at him and biting your lower lip.
“Life works in mysterious ways,” his mother said, a small smile curling her lips. “Sometimes, the person we needed was right in front of us all along.”
The microphones turned off and the music started playing again.
Harry looked into your eyes and moved his hand from the chair to rest gently on your knee.
“Would you like to dance with me?” He asked.
“Yes,” you answered with a quiet breath.
Harry stood up slowly and took your hand in his, gently leading you towards the dance floor once everyone started to join as well. He didn’t pay attention to anyone else around the both of you—all he could see was you.
He pulled you to his chest, one hand keeping your own close to his chest and the other resting on your lower back.
There goes my heart beating
'Cause you are the reason
I'm losing my sleep
Please come back now
You moved your free hand to his shoulder, eyes staring up at his. Everything that neither of you said lingered—you both didn’t need to say it out loud, at least not right now.
I'd climb every mountain
And swim every ocean
Just to be with you
And fix what I've broken
Oh, 'cause I need you to see
That you are the reason
Harry was the first one to speak. It was quiet, just enough for you to hear. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget this trip.”
You bit your lower lip and nodded. “Me too, Harry.”
“I—I don’t know what this means for us,” he continued. “But I don’t want to let you go. I don’t want to go back to New York and go our separate ways,” Harry admitted.
“Neither do I,” you said quietly.
Harry felt his heart race even faster.
He pulled you closer until you were flush against his chest.
There goes my hands shaking
And you are the reason
My heart keeps bleeding
I need you now
“It’s always been you,” Harry finally said.
You felt tears trickle down your cheeks. You knew what he meant.
“I watched the video.”
His brows furrowed. “What?”
“You took a video… on my camera.”
His brows relaxed.
His eyes softened.
Harry’s lips parted.
“When did you watch it?”
“Last night,” you answered.
And I'd climb every mountain
And swim every ocean
Just to be with you
And fix what I've broken
Oh, 'cause I need you to see
That you are the reason
Harry released your hand only to wipe your tears away gently.
You leaned into his touch. No one else mattered. He had always been the one you wanted. The one your soul and heart yearned for.
I don't wanna fight no more
I don't wanna hide no more
I don't wanna cry no more
Come back I need you to hold me (you are the reason)
Be a little closer now
Just a little closer now
Come a little closer
I need you to hold me tonight
“I meant every word,” he whispered. “And I’m sorry. For everything that’s happened… for it taking me this long to see it.”
You moved your hand now to his the back of his neck, gently playing with the curl at his nape. It didn’t feel real. This didn’t feel real.
He leaned forward and rested his forehead against yours.
“How do we do this?” You whispered.
“We do it together,” Harry answered.
I'd climb every mountain
And swim every ocean
Just to be with you
And fix what I've broken
'Cause I need you to see
That you are the reason
Everything finally felt like it had fallen in place after that. You felt relief, felt free, now that it seemed like both you and Harry were on the same page. Still, you both hadn’t exactly said those words, but you both knew what it meant.
What that dance meant.
It was a step in the right direction.
And after this party, once you were both alone, you’d tell him how you truly felt—how it had always been him too, and how much you loved him… like you never loved anyone else before.
Harry had kissed your temple before excusing himself to share a dance with his mother. You smiled to yourself, watching them briefly with loving eyes before you turned your gaze to Charlotte and Peter who sat at your table.
“We want to apologize,” Charlotte said. “We shouldn’t have ever gotten between the both of you.”
You looked at her and then glanced at Peter. “It’s okay,” you whispered. “We both know it came from a place of love.”
“Still,” Peter said. “We shouldn’t have meddled.”
You nodded. “What’s done is done, right?”
“Right.”
Then, Charlotte smiled. “You both look… happier,” she pointed out.
“I think we are,” you said, turning to glance at him. He was holding his mother close, laughing quietly with her and you felt like your entire world just stopped. “I think I always have been… happier with him.”
Charlotte grinned. “You two are just so perfect for each other,” she said.
Peter smiled. He noticed a shift in Harry’s demeanor throughout the party. He wasn’t as tense or nervous as that morning. Whatever you two talked about, Peter was hopeful that it was something good and enough for his older brother to be less stressed.
“I hope we’ll be seeing more of you,” Peter said. “Outside of working our events.”
“I hope so too,” you replied.
The song shifted.
Charlotte looked at Peter expectantly.
He chuckled and then stood up, extending his hand out for her.
“Excuse us,” he said. “I promised her a dance.”
You nodded in understanding and smiled, watching them both walk away from the table.
You had gone to the bathroom after your conversation with Charlotte and Peter. Anticipation simmered in the pit of your stomach when you thought back to the brief conversation you had with Harry. You both would still have to go back to the villa and the thought of being alone not only excited you, but brought relief too.
Because you just wanted him all to yourself now.
Wanted to tell him how much he meant to you.
How much he always meant to you.
The fear of putting yourself out there lingered, of course it did. You wanted so badly for this to work out because you wanted what his parents had—fifty years of being by the side of the person you love the most.
And you knew you wanted that with Harry.
So, you were determined to find him after you were done in the bathroom. You were going to ask him if it would be okay to leave—to go back to the villa and talk. Alone.
After washing your hands, you looked at yourself in the mirror and took a deep breath.
You opened the door to step outside and heard his voice immediately.
A large smile lined your lips.
Then, you heard her name.
Your heart dropped.
The smile disappeared.
“Lucy, I can’t talk right now,” Harry sighed.
Tears immediately stung your eyes. You stepped out and saw him. His back was turned until he moved to face in your direction.
When he noticed you, his eyes widened. Then, he noticed the look in your eyes, the look on your face. Harry hung up the phone immediately. He knew how that looked, how it sounded like.
So, he pocketed his phone and tried to take a step closer.
“Baby, it’s not—”
“God, I’m fucking stupid,” you whispered, shaking your head. “I’m really fucking stupid.”
“No,” he shook his head. “No no, just—”
“I’m… I’m tired, Harry,” you said, tears now trickling down your cheeks as you took a step back and away from you. “I should’ve—I should’ve listened to what my head was saying all this time.”
“Let me explain—”
You shook your head and then turned on your heel immediately. You didn’t bother saying bye to his parents or the rest of his family. Instead, you stepped outside. The walls felt like they were closing in on you. The weight on your chest felt like it was crushing you.
And of course, it was raining. The clouds that had come in that morning were now thick and dark grey in the sky, strong droplets of water coming down hard. You were soaked immediately after standing outside for a few minutes.
You heard the door open behind you, followed by his voice.
Harry looked at you and when you glanced over your shoulder at him, he felt a sinking feeling in his gut. You looked at him like you were utterly broken.
He called your name.
You shook your head and removed your heels.
Then, you ran.
Harry yelled out for you.
Then, he followed—he was now completely soaked too.
You were dripping wet by the time you made it back to the villa. Your dress clung to your body and your hair was a complete mess, so you pulled it from its bun as you dropped your heels at the doorway. Tears streaked down your cheeks as you felt your throat tightening. It felt like you couldn’t breathe.
You left a trail of water as you walked down the hallway and into the bedroom. You grabbed your luggage and set it on the bed. You wouldn’t wait to leave until tomorrow.
You would leave tonight.
Separately from him.
Harry stormed inside instantly. He was breathing heavily and he called for you again. He looked around the villa, immediately noticing the trail of water leading down the hallway into the bedroom.
He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his wet curls, slicking it back and away from his face.
The dread he felt in the pit of his stomach became more noticeable now. He had been feeling hopeful before you heard him on the phone and he knew how wrong it looked.
“Baby,” he said breathlessly, standing in the doorway.
Your back was turned, but he could see your shoulders trembling.
You were crying.
You heard his voice. Your hands shook. You didn’t turn around.
Then, you heard him take a step closer.
You took a deep breath.
“What you heard—I was about to tell her that she no longer could call me,” Harry reasoned. “I’m sorry… so fucking sorry that I keep messing this up.”
You didn’t say anything.
Then: “I love you,” Harry finally said out loud.
Believe it, I need you by my side
Yes, I know you know, know you know, know I've been a sinner, baby
I've seen it, I've seen you high and dry
Yes, I know you don't, know you don't, know you don't need me to say it
But if anything happens between us
Does everything change?
I know you feel it too, I can see it in your face
So tell me now not to get too close
'Cause it always happens
You stopped moving, but you didn’t turn around. Tears continued to move down your cheeks.
“I don’t want anyone else,” he continued. “It has always been you,” Harry repeated. “I love you and it fucking terrifies me.”
One, two, three, four
How much longer can this go
Oh, babe? Don't break
Every single breath you take
Kills me softly, chills my body
But, when we reach the limit
We're really giving 'cause
He took a step closer. Harry could hear his heart thumping in his chest, the beat of it filling his ears.
“I always loved you,” Harry said quietly. “I was searching for something that had always been right in front of me.”
You inhaled sharply—shakily. You brought a hand up to your face to wipe your tears. You hadn’t turned around yet.
“I’m done pretending. Every moment I spend with you—I yearn for it, fucking crave it. And it’s not only the sex. I think it stopped being about the sex a long time ago,” Harry confessed.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
I wanna cherish you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
I wanna cherish you
“You’re the first person I want to talk to when I get good news, or when I have a bad day, you’re the one I want to run to,” Harry felt his own tears move down his cheeks slowly. “Baby, please…”
You turned around slowly, but you didn’t look up at him yet.
Then, he reached out for you. Harry gently cupped your cheek.
“Look at me,” he whispered. “Please.”
Slowly, you gazed up at him. You still had tears pooling around your eyes.
“I’m tired too,” he said softly. “I’m tired of making myself believe that I don’t want this. We blurred the lines long before this trip,” Harry sighed.
Harry took a step closer.
It's so clear we're right on the edge
Both in, we're over our heads
But I'm ready to take this fall
You say, "Baby, I want it all"
I want it all
“I want fifty years with you,” Harry admitted. “I want you on your good days, on your bad days. I want every moment in between.” His voice trembled, almost like saying this out loud was giving you permission to take his heart and break it. “You make me laugh like no one else can. You frustrate me like no one else has before either,” he whispered, lips curling upwards just slightly.
“But I love you… everything about you. The way you always bite your lower lip when you’re in deep thought or when you’re working hard on editing your pictures.” Harry’s thumb moved to brush across your lower lip. “Or the way you hog all the blankets at night and then complain that it’s too hot when you wake up,” he chuckled quietly.
You were breathing heavily now. You didn’t realize that you had finally let out a breath you had been holding in since he said those three words.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
I wanna cherish you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
I wanna cherish you
“You think about everyone else before you think about yourself,” he continued. “You have the kindest heart, the most comforting smile, and—and when I’m with you, nothing else matters in the world.”
You nodded slowly. A silent response. Then, you moved closer until your hands moved to his chest, feeling the drenched weight of his suit jacket against your fingertips.
Harry inhaled.
“I love you too,” you finally confessed. “And it scares me too because—because I think I always have loved you, Harry.”
He couldn’t hold back his tears anymore. He moved his other hand to your hip and pulled you closer.
“It’s always been you,” you repeated. “I thought—I thought running away would be better. Would make me believe that this wasn’t what I wanted… because why would you want someone like me?”
He shook his head in protest.
But it was your turn to talk now.
“Then, I started noticing the way I felt whenever I was around you. Started understanding what everyone was saying because you look at me like no other man ever has. You make me feel safe, protected... no one’s ever made me feel like that before.”
Harry bit his lower lip. His heart felt like it was beating out of his chest.
And now we finally reach the limit, babe
But you know you can trust, don't be afraid
'Cause all you need is just a little faith
A little faith
“I want fifty years with you too,” you continued. “You stopped being someone I wanted to use to just pass the time with, and started becoming the person I wanted to spend every minute with instead.”
Harry smiled. His hand on your cheek moved to the side of your neck, thumb running along your jawline as he tilted your head up to look up at him.
“You were right in front of me all along,” you whispered, stepping closer to him now until your bodies were pressed against each other.
Despite both your clothes being wet and cold against your bodies, it felt anything but that. Your bodies were hot—two hearts and souls yearning for each other and mere centimeters from one another.
One, two, three, four
How much longer can this go
Oh, babe? Don't break
Every single breath you take
Kills me softly, chills my body
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too,” you replied.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
I wanna cherish you
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
I wanna cherish you
Then, Harry leaned in.
He cradled your head and pressed his lips firmly against yours.
You melted into him, gripping the lapel of his jacket as you stood on your toes to return the kiss.
It felt different this time.
It wasn’t a kiss out of convenience or a kiss out of habit.
It meant so much more.
It meant a new beginning.
The kiss continued. It went from slow and tentative and eased into something familiar. Harry moved his hands to your hips now and your hands wrapped around his shoulders. Neither of you cared that you were both still soaking wet and dripping on the hardwood floor.
It wasn’t until your hands started to push his jacket away and off his shoulders that you both pulled away to look at each other.
You were both looking at each other more freely now—like you both no longer needed to hide how you felt about each other.
He shrugged his jacket off, a quiet wet splat hitting the floor. Harry then reached for his bow tie to loosen it around his neck, watching you carefully when you turned around. You pulled the zipper down carefully, allowing your dress now to pool around your ankles before turning back around to face him.
You both had countless sex with each other, but this time—this time it meant something entirely different.
Harry let out a breath at the sight of you. You hadn’t worn a bra with your dress, so you were just clad in a seamless thong and your nipples had hardened at the cold air.
His pants were becoming increasingly uncomfortable and the fact that it was drenched didn’t help either. He let his bow tie hang loose around his neck before he reached down to undo his belt, followed by lowering his zipper and unbuttoning his pants.
Neither of you said anything.
You both just stared at each other.
Anticipation lingering between the both of you.
Harry stepped out of his pants and boxers with ease, letting out a sigh of relief before he felt you begin unbuttoning his white dress shirt until you pushed it off and away from his body.
He felt his hardened manhood brush against your body. He licked his lower lip and then watched you slide your thong down your legs.
Now that you both were bare and completely naked before each other, Harry reached for your luggage and shoved it to the floor.
“Hey,” you protested playfully.
“We’ll stay another week,” he reasoned.
Your eyes widened. “What?”
Harry nodded. “We both can afford another week,” he answered. “Besides,” he said quietly, lifting you onto the mattress carefully before he settled himself between your legs. “I want to spend some more alone time with you here… is that okay?”
“Yes,” you answered, legs wrapping loosely around his waist as your hands moved from his damp chest and up to his cheeks. Slowly, you pulled him down on top of you as you felt the tip of his length brush against your inner thigh. “I don’t think I’m ready to leave yet either.”
“Good,” Harry smiled, leaning in to press his lips once more against yours.
You smiled into the kiss, warmth spreading between your legs. His lips moved with yours more aggressively now—fueled by the sudden urge to be inside of you, the woman that he loves.
You moaned against his lips, feeling his hand move lower. Harry grasped himself, running the head of manhood across the length of your sex now, gathering your slickness along his tip. He’d brush over your clit teasingly, feeling your body react immediately. He pulled away from the kiss to gaze down at you, moving his free hand to prop himself up.
You kept your eyes locked with his. You could feel the throbbing between your legs, whimpering impatiently at the feel of his hardened length running along you teasingly.
As much as Harry wanted to look down between your legs, he just couldn’t look away from you. He leaned down and rested his forehead against yours, slowly sliding his tip inside of you before pulling out.
“Harry,” you whimpered.
“Yeah, baby?” He asked innocently, sliding back into you before he pulled again. Harry continued that movement a few more times, applying more pressure to your clit with the head of his length once he pulled out.
“Need you, please,” you pleaded.
Harry smiled.
Then, he slowly slid further into you. Harry groaned loudly at the feel of your warmth surrounding him immediately. He forced himself to slowly ease himself inside of you, despite just wanting to slam further into you.
Your hands abruptly moved to his shoulders, gripping it tightly as your legs remained locked at his lower back. You always felt so full of him—his girth filling you. Without the added protection of the condom, you felt every inch and ridge of him slide along your tight walls.
There was no way either of you would be able to go back to using condoms and you knew it wasn’t safe to not use them, but maybe that was a different conversation for a different day.
Right now, you’d cherish the way he felt inside of you.
As Harry filled you to the hilt, he released his hold from himself and instead kept himself propped up with both hands on the mattress now. He didn’t move for a few seconds, wanting to just feel your warmth and wetness around him.
“Always so wet for me,” he whispered. “Aren’t you?”
You nodded, arms wrapping around him to pull him down flush against you instead. “And only for you,” you moaned quietly, feeling his hips pull back just a couple of inches before pushing back into you. “Fuck,” you muttered.
Harry smiled and pecked your lips lightly, slowly beginning to pick up his pace. He kept his eyes locked with yours and his body pressed against your front. Sex had never felt like this and he just kept hearing your words echo in the back of his mind, timing it with his thrusts.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
You couldn’t hold his gaze any longer, so you shut your eyes and let out a loud moan. Harry kissed your cheek before burying himself to the side of your neck, panting heavily into it as his hips repeatedly slammed against yours.
The sounds of skin slapping against one another echoed throughout the villa, followed by the sounds of just how wet you were too. He could feel a rush of wetness against his lower abdomen as he continued to thrust forward into you.
He moaned your name into your neck, teeth and tongue brushing along your pulse point. His hands moved to your ass, gripping onto it as if it could give him more leverage to thrust into you.
You held onto him, arms tightening around his shoulders as you felt the pressure in your stomach build. Your moans mixed in with his and it felt like neither of you were holding back now.
Your lips were near his ear, panting heavily as you felt every ridge and inch of him slide into you. You whispered, breathlessly, as you felt your orgasm loom closer and closer. “I love you… I fucking love you.”
Harry delivered a hard thrust as a response, pulling back just enough to look down at you. “Say it again,” he pleaded, feeling the pit of his stomach tighten as well. “Tell me again.”
“I love you!” You moaned aloud, legs tightening around his waist as you felt your walls tremble around him. Your body shook slightly as the dam finally broke.
“Fuck,” Harry groaned, feeling your walls tighten even further around him. He sat upright, moved his hands to your hips, and delivered quick and sharp thrusts. He was close, so fucking close.
“Baby, fuck, I’m gonna—”
“Come inside,” you interrupted, lips parting as you felt him move in and out of you. “Come inside me, Harry.”
He gasped loudly. Harry’s grip around your hips tightened. He looked down at you and nodded, watching your breasts bounce with each thrust he delivered.
“I love you, baby,” he said quickly. “Iloveyouiloveyou,” Harry blurted out in a rush, his hips slowing down but his thrusts becoming more pointed as he felt himself get closer and closer to the edge. He delivered a couple of more thrusts until he slammed into you, his come painting your walls and filling you up.
His own body shook and even as he pulled his hips back, Harry couldn’t help but slide back in further. Knowing that you’d be full of his come only excited him further because he slid out of you only to gather some of his come on the head of his member to push back into you.
You gasped.
Harry smirked.
He stayed inside of you, despite his manhood softening.
You tightened your legs around him, kept him close too.
“So, another week?” You asked, panting quietly.
Harry nodded. “Another week.”
“What do you have planned?”
“Everything we didn’t get to do. I plan to do it right this time,” he answered, finally pulling out of you with a quiet whimper.
“And when we get home? Back to New York?”
Harry smiled, reached up to cup your cheek gently and kissed your forehead. “When we get back to New York, we’re not going back to what we were. No… everything’s going to change.”
“I think I like the sound of that,” you smiled, leaning into his touch.
“I love you, baby,” Harry said once more.
You felt your stomach flip. Your smile grew. “I love you too, Harry.”
He was right. The lines were blurred long before this trip and it took this long for you both to realize that the person you both had been searching for was right in front of you both all along.
Libby Green leaves the damp gray skies of England in early 1849 for the golden promise of California. Not to pan for gold, but for something far more simple — for to teach.
The trail West is more dangerous than she could ever have imagined. Fraught with danger and the unknown.
But what she finds is far more deadly than disease, storms, or hunger, when she is kidnapped by a band of outlaws — a group of men who will change her fate forever. Among them is Catfish: a quiet man, with blood on his hands and something she can’t quite name in his eyes.
summary: the empire begins to fall and emotions are high.
contents/warnings: Mature (18+ MDNI!) - canon violence and raids, cartel and DEA talk that's probably inaccurate, family problems, angst, original characters + some from Narcos, funeral, me and my homies hate Jerónimo, sneaking around, forbidden love, feelings, daddy issues, talk of implied murder, arguments, no uses of y/n. Apologies if I missed anything.
wc: 4400+
song: daddy issues by the neighbourhood - "go ahead and cry, little girl"
a/n: the self-titled chapter curse... i apologize in advance ngl. we're nearing the end of this story and im actually so upset (i don't want it to end) but thank you to everyone that's been reading and thank you to kat for proofreading and translating as always! took inspo from s1ep6 of Narcos and also an episode of scandal that i don't remember. gif credit
♱ part 5 | series masterlist | soundtrack | read on ao3
The scent coming from the cartel gets stronger and stronger every day. Javier can feel it. You haven’t told him where your family has moved yet and he doesn’t think you will. Honestly, he doesn’t blame you because it’s for your safety as well; but he also doesn’t know where to find you and that worries him more.
It’s been radio silence from you since your uncle was killed and he’s getting antsy. Work keeps him occupied during the day, but at night when he’s alone in his apartment and the chaos settles, anxiety gets the best of him. He can’t sit still, sending you messages from his pager constantly, only to get no response.
He shouldn’t think about the worst case scenario, but knowing your father, who knows what he could’ve done to you by now.
Raids have become routine at this point, hitting every lab location you gave him and the ones Search Bloc found. The ambassador had the bright idea of setting up a tip hotline to gain more information as well. Sometimes they get lucky, but most of the time, people call in just to fuck with them. Specifically kids that have been given a handgun by your father.
Since the death of Jerónimo’s brother, he’s retaliated by paying more people in the city… and setting off bombs. He can’t get close to anyone of authority, so he hurts innocent citizens instead.
It makes Javier sick to his stomach.
He keeps a cool facade at work but his thoughts are constantly whirring; causing him to act out of emotion rather than rationality. And tonight, he’s had enough.
The tip they got was useless yet again, leading them to a big empty house on a hill in Cartagena. Javier can feel his anger and frustration beginning to burn in his gut, the wild goose chase getting old and relentless. His gun weighs as heavy as his heart in his hands, searching the house high and low. The only thing they find is a maid with a bullet in her head.
Botero is another drug lord in Colombia. He works out of Cartagena but does a lot of business with your father in Medellín. They’ve been “partners” for the longest time. He isn’t as loud and violent as Jerónimo, making him less of a threat to the government.
To Javier, they’re all the same.
Steve believes that someone in Sombras de la Cruz is trying to rat him out and get him caught. Truthfully, Javier wouldn’t put it behind them. It would get them out of the spotlight for a little so they can slip away yet again. But apparently Sebastián is smarter than them, seeming to have escaped capture by a hair.
Javier stares at the maid’s lifeless body, his mind briefly picturing it as you instead. The thought shakes him, spreading goosebumps across his skin. It could easily be you if neither of you are careful enough. He might be unsure of where you are but he doesn’t believe that you’re dead.
At least that’s what he keeps telling himself.
“Colonel!”
Javier’s eyes snap up at the sound of Trujillo’s voice, momentarily taking his focus off of the lifeless body.
“Llamaron de un retén (They called from the road block),” he announces to Carrillo. “Al parecer, detuvieron el coche de un senador. (Apparently, they stopped a senator’s car.)”
“¿Tiene identificación? (Does he have identification?)” Carrillo asks, wondering why this is being brought up in the first place.
When Trujillo says yes, he asks what the problem is.
“Tiene una ametralladora en el maletero. (He has a machine gun in the trunk.)”
The tone shifts immediately. It’s not abnormal for a politician to carry a weapon, but a machine gun? That is unusual. It’s usually just a handgun, not an automatic weapon.
Javier watches the two men go, eyes landing on the maid once again. He can’t understand the pit in his stomach at the sight, turning around before his emotions get the best of him. Over the balcony’s railing, he can see the man they stopped in front of the house. He’s clad in a dark suit, looking the part of a senator.
Involuntarily, his mind flashes with you again: your voice, your soft hair, your curves, your touch. Being down here in South America, Javier’s learned to turn off his feelings the best he can… until you came along. There’s an invisible string keeping him attached to you and it’s making him avoid using his usual coping mechanisms.
It may not have been said yet, but now that your feelings are out in the open, he’ll be loyal to you. It’s killing him inside to not have that physical release with the shit month he’s had, but he also understands the life you’re stuck living and the need to be alone sometimes.
To say he misses you is an understatement. And to Javier, that is absolutely terrifying. The last time he gave his heart to somebody, it was chewed up and spat at his feet. He doesn’t talk about Lorraine much. Honestly, there’s not a lot to say.
He thought it was love. She wanted to trap him in a marriage by faking her pregnancy. The night before their wedding is when he found out. He hasn’t seen her since.
Of course, you’re nothing like her and he’s grateful for that. But he’d be lying to himself if he ignored his worries of tainting your heart. The life he lives isn’t something he wants to drag you into and possibly put you in life-threatening danger. You’ve already been put in that position one too many times in your life.
He meets everyone outside, being informed that the man’s identification checks out.
“No conozco a ese tal Botero del que hablas (I don’t know this Botero person that you’re talking about),” he claims, not convincing either Javier or Carrillo.
Horacio’s voice is calm as he asks his next question, though Javier can see right through the facade. “¿Por qué tienes un arma en el maletero? (Why do you have a gun in the trunk?)”
The man chuckles briefly, stunned and perplexed by the inquiry. “¿De verdad estás preguntando por qué un político lleva un arma en este país? (Are you seriously asking why a politician carries a weapon in this country?)” he pauses for a moment, looking back and forth between the two of them, “Es de mi guardaespaldas– (It’s my bodyguard’s–)”
“¿Dónde está tu guardaespaldas? (Where’s your bodyguard?)” Javier cuts him off promptly, feeling his nerves begin to get the best of him.
His patience is wearing thinner as the situation goes on, everything that has (or hasn’t) been happening lately weighing down on him in full tonight. “Estas solo en el carro verdad? (You’re alone in the car, right?)”
The man steps closer. He has at least two inches on Javier, trying to seem intimidating by looking down at him. Javier doesn’t flinch under his gaze, his jaw set so tight his teeth ache.
“Escúchenme (Listen to me),” he starts, pointing at Javier.
Right there, he nearly snaps his finger like a carrot when he looks down at it. But he holds back for now.
“Te vas a arrepentir si no me dejas ir ahora mismo (You’re going to regret it if you don’t let me go right now.)”
Javier nods slightly, humming in acknowledgement and not scared of the empty threat in the slightest. The man looks him up and down before Carrillo hands him his ID back.
“Danos un momento. (Give us a moment.)”
He shoos the two of them away, giving them space to talk. Javier keeps him in his peripheral vision, biting the inside of his cheek. “No le creo. (I don’t believe him.)”
“Yo tampoco (Neither do I),” Carrillo states, noticing Javier’s fingers twitching. It’s a tick he’s recognized within his time of knowing him, only coming out when he’s anxious or fighting the urge to pull his gun. Horacio assumes the latter option.
“No puedo correr el riesgo si realmente es quien dice ser. (I can’t take the risk if he actually is who he says he is.)”
Javier shakes his head, “No, you can’t.”
Instead of listening, he pulls his gun out of his waistband, cocking the chamber and firing a shot at the man’s thigh. He doubles over, screaming out in pain as he falls to the ground. Javier’s footsteps are heavy, the built up rage and frustration boiling over.
He wraps his hand around the back of his neck, squatting and pulling him up. He speaks through clenched teeth, his voice seething with anger. “El próximo… lo meto en la cabeza! (The next one… goes in your head!)”
The guy’s “intimidating” persona drops immediately, stuttering and scrambling to give him what he wants. “¡Está bien, está bien! (All right, all right!)”
“¡Habla, malparido! (Talk, bastard!)” Javier spits in his face, shaking him by the neck like a dog.
“¡Hablaré, hablaré! (I’ll talk, I’ll talk!)”
Right now, Javier doesn’t care about the possible repercussions from shooting somebody. Because now, the fool’s admitted to lying about who he is.
The mid-December breeze passes through, rustling the trees. It’s the coldest day this year and it’s also the day of Andrés’ funeral.
None of your family have spoken to you since his death, making you feel more alone than you already felt in your own home. The whispers about you have gotten louder, they don’t hide their disgusted expressions anymore, and one of your younger cousins even went as far as to spit at your feet.
You don’t necessarily blame them, but since then, you’ve realized that his death was not your fault. You didn’t rat him out to Javier or the cops. You didn’t reveal the location of that lab because you didn’t know about it until that day.
They can believe what they want to believe. Soon enough, you’ll be rid of them for good.
Jerónimo stands next to you in the front, his head hanging low as the officiant rambles on about a man he didn’t even know. The dewy grass makes your heels unbearable to be in, poking at your feet and making you feel gross. A big pair of sunglasses sits on the bridge of your nose, hiding half of your face.
A single tear slips – but it’s not from the service, it’s from your Tío Luca and Tía Luciana whispering about you right behind you. You turn your head slightly to the left, making it obvious to them that you can hear them. Immediately, they shut up, focusing on the speech instead.
This is how it’s been since your uncle was buried six feet under.
You’re a stranger in your own home; being shut out by absolutely everybody and not trusted with anything. Sure, you put yourself in this situation but it doesn’t make it any less painful.
You lay in bed at night, trapped inside your mind: thinking of Javier, missing the love from your father that was supposed to be unconditional. The more you think about it, the more you realize that you’ve had to beg him to love you your entire life. Now it means nothing to you.
The trauma you went through with Andrés still lingers, waking you up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. You know Jerónimo can hear you hyperventilating at night. But does he check up on you? No.
That’s all you want. It’s all you’ve ever wanted – to be seen by your father instead of looked at like a liability.
The pager Javier gave you has been buzzing nonstop, and today, you finally build up the courage to go see him. You sit quietly in the back of the SUV as Francisco drives, wearing a black sweat set. Comfortable and expensive.
Every now and then, you can feel his eyes on you in the rearview mirror, checking up on you without saying anything. Also making sure that no one is following the two of you. Your dad isn’t too worried about where you’ve been going anymore since you’ve only left the house on occasion and you’re always with Frankie.
He’s the only one who hasn’t shut you out, and you think it’s about time that he meets the man you’ve risked your life for.
The gravel of the driveway crunches under the tires as he pulls up, putting the car in park and assessing the surrounding area. “¿Estás segura de que esto es? (Are you sure this is it?)”
You’re not. And you’re sure he’s only asking because it doesn’t look like a government-funded house.
“Es una casa franca (It’s a safehouse),” you explain, “No se supone que deba parecer costoso. (It’s not supposed to be expensive looking.)”
“Right,” he murmurs.
You move forward, slipping between the front seats to sit in the passenger’s seat. “Don’t you watch any crime shows?”
Frankie shakes his head, glancing at you sideways. “No, ma’am.”
“That is sad,” you tease lightly, your lips curving slightly for the first time in a while.
He doesn’t respond, senses on high alert. “There’s no one here.”
It’s only then that you take in your surroundings, not seeing Javier’s Jeep anywhere. You hum faintly, pulling out the pager he gave you from your pocket.
“Did you let him know you were coming?” Frankie asks, eyeing the rearview mirror as dirt picks up in the distance.
“I did,” you murmur, checking the last messages that were sent and received.
The screen stares back at you, the only thing Javier sent you being the letter ‘K’. “Maybe he doesn’t want to see me–”
“Is that him?” he cuts you off, nodding at the car pulling up behind the SUV.
Without being subtle at all, you turn half of your body around to look out the back window, trying to make out the driver. The tinted windows are a blessing and a curse, but you’d recognize Javier anywhere.
The relief you should’ve felt when you saw him last finally washes over you, your hands moving faster than your mind to open the car door. Frankie yells after you, easily moving quicker than you and blocking your way just in case it isn’t Javier.
He turns around when the car’s brakes screech to a stop, protecting you with his body, his hand hovering over his gun. You know better than to say anything when he gets like this, considering the many failed attempts you’ve had before when it came to getting him to move. For now, you keep your place, standing behind him like a little girl.
You tilt your head to see past his brawny frame, watching Javier and Steve get out of the car. Javier’s aviators sit perfectly on his aquiline nose, his lips pursed underneath his mustache. When he sees you, the corner of his mouth twitches, extending out his hand to shake Francisco’s.
Introductions have you yawning before you launch yourself into Javier’s arms, not budging when he almost loses his footing. He wraps an arm around your waist, cradling the back of your head tenderly.
“I missed you, too, cariño,” he whispers, intended for your ears only.
You run the tip of your nose along his neck, inhaling his scent after what’s felt like forever. Eventually, you pull back, looking up at him. Your reflection in his sunglasses stares back at you, subconsciously fixing your hair.
“They know,” you murmur, watching him nod slowly.
He removes his glasses, hooking them in the front of his button down. “I figured that when I didn’t hear from you.”
The crease between his brows deepens, brown eyes roaming across your face like he’s memorizing your features for the last time. You know his mind is running a million miles a minute, trying to figure out a way to get you out of this.
You cup his cheeks, feeling the rough stubble beneath your palms. “No intentes ser un héroe (Don’t try to be a hero),” you murmur softly.
Your love for Javier hasn’t been the thing ruining you.
It was hope.
It’s not what you want – you want to be with Javier. But it’s not worth it if he tries to sacrifice himself for you and both of you end up dead. The two of you were never going to end up together and it was foolish of you to believe so.
You wish things were simpler, you do. But it was never meant to work out. He had one mission coming here to Colombia: to get Jerónimo and move on. That was before you came along and made things ten times more difficult.
“What?” he whispers, his hands tightening on your waist, keeping you from moving. “What are you talking about?”
Silence washes over the two of you, your eyes discreetly falling on Steve and your bodyguard. Javier understands easily, taking you by the hand and dragging you inside the house. The feeling of your hand in his feels perfect: gun-calloused but always so soft with you.
His boots are heavy on the hardwood floor, leading you towards the back of the house. He pushes you inside the bedroom, closing the door behind himself. It takes him a minute to turn around and face you, eyes red-rimmed and exhausted.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Mimi?”
You have to make it hurt. Make him hate you so he doesn’t get himself killed over you.
“My dad wants you dead, Javier,” you admit, already feeling your tears prick your eyes. “I cannot be the reason that you die.”
He shakes his head, averting your gaze and putting his hands on his hips. “You should’ve thought of that before you made me fall for you.”
You’re taken aback by that, “I didn’t make you do anything.”
“All those things you told me,” he starts, taking a slow step closer to you but stopping when you take one back. “Your dreams, the life you’d rather live–”
“Yeah, and you were lying to me the entire time,” you bite back, starting an argument that neither of you want to have right now. “You have all the information you could ever need about my father. Why do you still need me?”
“You know why,” his voice rises, patience finally snapping. “I know what I did wrong, you don’t have to keep throwing it back in my face!”
“How can I not when our whole relationship is built on a lie?” you match his tone.
“I’ve already apologized for that shit,” he spits, “I’m not doing it again just because you’re afraid of how this will end.”
A scoff leaves you at his words, running your hands through your hair. “You said it yourself, it’s too dangerous for us to be together. I didn’t want to believe it but now I have to.”
“Why?” he asks, clenching his jaw twice.
“They’re blaming me for my uncle’s death–”
“That wasn’t your fault,” he cuts you off, telling you what you’ve already concluded.
You take a quiet deep breath, “It doesn’t matter. To them, I’m a rat that got her own flesh and blood killed. It’s only a matter of time before they…”
“Before they what?” he asks when you trail off, though he knows exactly what you mean.
It means that you’ll be killed by your family. “An eye for an eye,” is what they call it. In this world, it’s normal for people like them to ‘take care’ of the threats that come their way. Unfortunately, you’re now viewed as one and Javier refuses to let anything happen to you. Regardless of if he can lose his life in the process.
You’re too precious for this world. You’re too precious to him.
You clasp your hands together, holding them in front of your mouth. “We can’t be together, Javier.”
“You don’t think I know that?” he queries, taking a cautious step forward. It’s more obvious than it should be to him that your resolve is crumbling the longer you stand in front of him. “I’ve been fighting with myself for months. I know I’m no good for you, I know this can end badly. But I can’t stay away from you.”
The tear finally falls and Javier wraps his arms around you, pulling you in close. He rests his forehead against yours, breath mingling with yours.
You can deny it all you want, but you know he means more than he should to you. A shuddering exhale escapes through your lips, your hands gripping his biceps. “We should’ve never gotten involved with each other,” you whisper, closing your eyes. “That would make this a whole lot easier.”
He doesn’t answer, pressing his lips to your temple instead and letting you fall apart in the safety of his arms.
For the third time this week, you’re out on the balcony smoking. The city twinkles, mocking you and your lack of freedom. Seeing Javier was nice but you couldn’t stay long.
The sliding door behind you opens slowly, not even needing to turn around to know who it is. This will be the first time he’s even acknowledged you since that night, and you almost consider walking right past him and into the house.
Almost.
Jerónimo plants his forearms on the railing, leaning against it and watching a shooting star in the sky. “Sé que no he sido un padre perfecto (I know I haven’t been a perfect father),” he starts, clearing his throat, “Tu madre se sentiría decepcionada por cómo te he tratado toda la vida. (Your mother would be disappointed at how I’ve treated you your whole life.)”
You shake your head slowly, taking a drag of your cancer stick until your lungs burn. “Dejaste que todos creyeran que su muerte fue culpa mía (You let everyone believe that his death was my fault),” you meet his gaze head on, keeping your cool, “Andrés was an idiot that got himself caught, but all of you have been too airheaded to realize that. I didn’t even know about the lab.”
He doesn’t entertain that with a response, looking out at the view. “Hice todo lo que pude (I did my best),” he claims, “Lo hice. Lo intenté. (I did. I tried.)”
You stay quiet, unsure of where he could possibly be going with this. To you, he’s lying through his teeth. He never tried to be a father to you. He threw money at you and expected you to obey his every command like a well trained puppy. The one time that you don’t, he drops you like you’ve never meant anything to him at all.
Jerónimo sighs, almost dramatically, before he continues. “Puedes salir por tu cuenta, tal como quieres. (You can go out on your own like you want to.)”
That gets your attention but you don’t look at him, realizing that he’s trying to get a reaction out of you to see if you’ll admit to playing both sides.
“¿Crees que el mundo es tan terrible conmigo en él? (You think the world is so terrible with me in it?)” he asks, taunting you, shifting closer to you. “Wait until you see what it is like without me.”
He almost walks away to leave it at that but you open your mouth to say something. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
When he doesn’t say anything, you stand up straight, deciding to speak about everything that’s been bothering you. “You’ve trapped me here. You were never a fucking father to me and it baffles me that you even think that you gave any effort at all.”
“I did–”
“I’m not done,” you cut him off, stubbing out your cigarette. “I have always been a disappointment to you. It doesn’t matter what I do.”
“You didn’t want me in the first place and it’s been obvious my entire life,” your voice wavers, making you take a deep breath to keep your emotions from spilling over. You refuse to cry in front of him because he doesn’t deserve your tears. He’s not worth the emotional toll to cry over.
“I have had to beg you to love me constantly, and for a long time, I thought that was okay. I took whatever you gave me because I thought that was your way of showing that you care. But I’ve been wrong. Again and again, you’ve proved me wrong.”
The lack of emotion on his face makes you want to slap him, but you keep your calm. “A parent’s love is supposed to be unconditional. I shouldn’t have to beg to even get you to look at me. I didn’t want all the expensive things your blood money could buy, I wanted my father to see me and appreciate me and love me.”
You shrug, shaking your head. “You never did any of that because you never saw me as yours.”
“¿Y crees que esos estadounidenses pueden? (And you think those Americans can?)” he opens his big mouth again, making your anger boil over.
You scoff, shaking your head. “God, you really can’t see the issue here, can you?”
“What I can see is that you’re willing to destroy everything that I’ve built for you over an American,” disappointment drips from his words, trying to make you feel bad. “I am building an empire for you.”
You shrug faintly, pressing your lips into a thin line. “It’s not for me. It’s always been about your legacy.”
Jerónimo clenches his jaw, towering over your frame. “Eres una mocosa malcriada y desagradecida (You are an ungrateful, spoiled little brat),” he spits, voice seething with fury. “Y quiero que te vayas de esta casa. (And I want you out of this house.)”
You don’t flinch under his gaze, looking up at him with a defiant glint in your eyes. “No.”
“No?” he raises his brows, a disbelieving chuckle leaving him. “Puede que tu madre haya aguantado tus pendejadas hasta que murió, pero yo no lo haré. (Your mother may have put up with your bullshit until she died, but I’m not.)”
He steps closer, leaning down to be eye level with you. His lips twitch underneath his thick mustache, “You are no longer my daughter, and I will not protect you.”
“All because you believe them and not the person you had a hand in reproducing?” your voice is low, tired of the circles all of you keep running around. “You can believe what you want but I’m not going anywhere.”
I'm back with my silly game, and a special thank you to @simpingforjoel for reminding me about it!
Some of these will be very easy, but hopefully some will make you scratch your head and test your Pedro boy knowledge! I hope I'm not hit with another content warning lable (I'm looking at you 🍆🍆🍆) but hands are innocent enough I think?
This is how you play: check the photos below the cut, make your guesses and put them in a reblog, making sure to hide your answers below a "Read More" cut. I'll see your reblog and give you your score
Plot summary: In 1870s Texas, Joel Miller loses his wife and son in childbirth, leaving him to raise his five year old daughter Sarah alone. Faced with losing her to his wife's grieving parents, or being forced into marrying her younger sister, he turns to you - the town's thirty-something spinster - and asks for your hand in a marriage of convenience.
Chapter summary: Joel’s worried about you falling pregnant - until he isn’t.
Warnings: 18+only 😛
A/N: I’m off on holiday next week so the next chapter will realistically not be posted until Friday 17th July.
Masterlist
➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰❤️➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰
For some reason, you thought that would be it. You thought that your virginity having been handed over and Doc Cooper having told you of the decision of the town council, you would spend the remainder of Joel’s time back at the ranch playing at normality – undertaking your chores and mothering Sarah whilst he worked, all of you pretending that Monday evening doesn’t have to come.
You thought wrong.
You haven’t realised how hungry a taste of something can make a person. All morning, you’ve watched Joel move around the house like you always do and yet, you see him now in a completely different way. You see the sweat beading on his brow, the parting of his lips, the sounds coming from his throat and every single image undoes you every time. You have to step out of the room to fan your face or wipe your brow because it cannot be proper for a woman – married or otherwise – to be in such a constant state of arousal.
You can feel it between your thighs – the wetness that makes you press them together and breathe out heavily through your nose to try and calm yourself. And Joel seems oblivious to the effect he’s having on you, his hand resting briefly at your back as he passes you in the kitchen, or his boot nudging yours under the table, or his gaze slipping down from your eyes to your mouth and back again like he’s memorising the route.
By mid-afternoon, you can’t take it any longer.
Sarah goes down for a nap, worn out by the long bright morning and the heat of the noon dinner, and she sleeps slow and deep behind the closed door of her room down the hall with the curtains drawn and the little oscillating breath of her sleep the only sound in there.
Tomás and the other hands are taking shelter from the fierce heat, the world around the house quiet and still.
But you’re not still. There’s no way you can be, not sat astride your husband in the bedroom chair, all items of clothing long since lost to the floorboards, the heavy length of him deep inside you, your hips rising and falling slowly against his, your head tossed back, breasts thrust towards his waiting mouth.
“Yes…” you gasp, “yes, yes, yes…”
His lips close over one stiff peak and suckle greedily, the warmth of his mouth against your soft flesh only adding to the heat surging through your entire body.
“Yes Joel…yes…”
He pulls back, breath ragged, hands sliding upwards from your hips across the span of your back, holding you steady, encouraging you as your rise and fall grows more urgent.
“You look beautiful darlin’,” he murmurs. “You like that? Tell me you like it.”
“I like it…Joel…it’s…”
“Can’t get enough, can you?” A warm chuckle escapes his throat. “Well, I ain’t complainin’ darlin’. I got the best seat in the house right here – literally – and goddamn if I don’t love watchin’ you like this.”
A small high helpless sound tears out of your throat as you move harder against him.
“Lord Christ…” he says softly and you open your sweat filled eyes to see him looking at the place where you meet. Following his gaze, you watch transfixed as your body takes him. “See that?” he looks up at you. “See how good you take me, darlin’, how good we fit together?”
You don’t have words. You can only moan as he slowly licks the pad of one thumb across his tongue then presses it gently, but firmly, against your clitoris, making your entire body jerk.
“That’s it darlin’,” you hear him murmur as you close your eyes again. “Lemme make you feel good. You just keep doin’ what you’re doin’ – just like that.”
“Joel…” You grip onto his shoulders, bowing your head forwards to rest against his. “Joel, it’s…it’s….”
“I know, just you keep goin’. Do what feels good, darlin’.”
“You feel good,” you breathe. “You feel good…oh God…” You throw your head back again as his thumb circles your clitoris faster. “I never knew…never knew…”
“Well, you know now.”
"I can’t…can’t think of anything…there’s nothing else, Joel. There’s nothing in the world but you inside me. I can’t…oh…"
Before you realise what’s happening, you feel him rise with you still wrapped around him, the hot hard length of him still buried deep inside, and your legs wind tight around the curve of his hips, your arms going around his neck.
He turns and carries you three steps to the wall, your back hitting it gently, causing you to gasp. His hands slide slowly down to the curve of your backside, gripping, lifting and pinning you with his chest against yours as he drives in.
He fucks you slow and hard and deep – there are no other words to describe it – and, once more, you can’t think.
There is nothing but the hot hard length of him driving slow and deep and full into you and the high helpless desperate sounds tearing slow out of your throat that you don’t bother to keep quiet at all.
"Harder, Joel…please, harder…"
You don’t even know where such a request has come from. All you know is that you need more.
The slow rocking of hips breaks into something harder and faster as beads of sweat roll down his throat. The heavy salt smell of you both hangs thick as your heels catch at the curve of his backside and draw him harder against you with every stroke. Your nails score against his back and he groans into your mouth as his pace quickens.
You feel the heat building in your body, unshakable and unstoppable. “Joel, I’m…”
You don’t have time to form any other words as release crashes over you, and you wail against his throat as your body clenches around him. Seconds later – mere seconds – you feel it build again and you moan helplessly, grateful that he’s bearing your weight, for you know you couldn’t bear it yourself.
His hips begin to lose their careful rhythm at last, the hammering coming slow and rough and desperate now, his control fraying, and you understand through the fog of your own pleasure that he’s close.
"I have to…” he gasps. “I…”
He begins to draw back, his hands at the curve of your backside loosening to lower you, the hot hard length of him beginning to slip from within you, and a sound of displeasure tears out of your throat.
"No!"
He stills. “Darlin’…”
"Please Joel…please don’t pull out, please. I want to feel you. I need to feel you. Stay inside me. Finish inside me, please.”
You expect an argument. You expect words of fear and trepidation and the ghost of Tess. You expect the careful man who initially lost his head and then rediscovered it when you reminded him of the consequences of a man finishing inside his wife.
But you don’t get the argument, or the words. Instead, he simply groans your name, grips your backside harder and drives you back down onto him, sheathing himself to the hilt again and causing you to cry out.
“Like this?" he growls softly, hips snapping against yours.
"Yes… "
"You want me to finish inside you darlin’?"
"Yes, please,” you moan, gripping him tighter. “Please Joel…”
"You want me to fill you up, darlin’? You want me to put it deep inside you? You want it so deep it takes?"
For a brief moment, your brain can’t compute what he’s just said, but your body and mouth react as though it’s the only language they understand. "Yes…yes…!"
“The thought of it,” he gasps as he drives harder. “The thought of you round with my child, the thought of you carryin’…"
He trails off to groan loudly.
"You want my baby?”
“Yes…” you gasp helplessly.
“I’m gonna fill you up, darlin’. I’m gonna put it so deep inside you…"
"Yes Joel, please…fill me…I’m close again…"
There’s no time for you to feel scandalised by your own words, because the third release is coming hard.
"That's it, darlin’,” he pants, reaching between you once more and circling you firmly. “Finish for me. Finish around me and let me fill you up. Lemme put it deep inside you.”
You groan as you clench around him, milking him slow and hard and desperate the way he’s begged and a low broken, wrecked sound tears from his throat as he falters and stills deep, driving one last full stroke to the hilt and holding there.
“I'm…I'm fillin’ you…"
He gasps as he spills hot and wet deep inside you and your legs wind tight around the curve of his hips and hold him through every pulse.
"That's it, darlin’," he breathes against your throat. "That's it. So deep. So deep inside you.”
He holds you against him, tilting you so the hot warmth of him pools inside you, his beard scraping against your throat, breath slowing with every shuddering pulse.
“Maybe’s I…I shouldn’t have said it like that,” he says finally.
“Said what?” you ask, your heart still thundering in your chest.
“Bout fillin’ you.” He lets out a soft laugh, almost embarrassed. “Ain’t the most lovin’ words in the world. Guess there’s a hundred better ways to say it.”
You nuzzle his neck with your nose and smile against his skin. “I don’t mind. I liked it.”
Gently, he pulls back and looks at you, brows drawn together. “You liked it?” You nod. “You liked it when I talked ‘bout fillin’ you up?”
“Yes.”
A smile breaks across his face, and he gently slides himself from inside you, both of you hissing at the sensation, before cupping your face with his hands and looking at you squarely.
“Are you tellin’ me, Mrs Miller, that you like…dirty talk?”
You feel a flush creep up your neck. “I don’t know. Is…is that sort of thing considered…dirty talk?”
“S’pose it is, in a way.”
“Then I suppose, in a way, the answer is yes.”
He laughs and shakes his head, eyes wandering over your face as though he’s marvelling at every bit of you. “I bet a year ago you never imagined yourself ever standin’ naked in front of a man who’s been givin’ you dirty talk ‘bout fillin’ you with his child.”
You smile softly, feeling tears prick at the corners of your eyes. “A year ago, I never thought I’d be this happy. I suppose the dirty talk is simply an added bonus.”
He watches you carefully for a moment, then nods. “Well, I’m gonna keep makin’ you happy, darlin’ – dirty talk and all.”
****
The evening’s cooled by the time Maria comes to the house bearing an apple pie and something that smells suspiciously like roasted chicken.
The white heat of the long afternoon has broken into the long slow gold of the early evening, and a soft breeze has thankfully come up at last from the south. Sarah wakes from her nap rosy and rumpled and starving, and Joel takes her out to Tess’s garden to water the flowers before supper. You want to give them that time together, so you stood at the kitchen table in a fresh print dress with your hair pinned up neat, shelling the last of the early peas into a bowl.
Maria lets herself in through the open kitchen door.
"Evening, Señora."
"Come in,” you greet her warmly. “There's coffee on, or buttermilk if you'd rather – it's still cool from the well."
"Buttermilk would be lovely, thank you."
She places her wares down and pours herself a glass of the cool buttermilk from the crock, then leans against the sideboard, and watches you work for a long moment without speaking.
You feel it, but you keep your eyes on the peas, as a warm flush begins to climb your throat.
"What is it, Maria?"
"Nothing."
She sips at the buttermilk, her eyes not moving from your face.
"Maria."
"It is nothing,” she insists, the corner of her mouth pulling. "Only…you look well.”
The flush climbs slow higher, but you keep your eyes on the peas and split another pod into the bowl.
"It's the breeze," you reply. "It's a mercy after the heat of the day."
"Mm. You look happy. Happier than I have seen you in a long time, even with the legal problems facing Don Joel."
The words come out quiet and plain and you still with a pea pod half-split in your fingers above the bowl, the flush blooming now across your entire face.
You don't trust your voice for a long moment, so you split the last of the pea pods, gather the empty hulls into your apron, and carry the bowl to the sink. Only then do you turn and look at her.
"I am happy, Maria," you reply. “As you say, there are still challenges ahead. But with Doc Cooper and the town council on Joel’s side and Mr Oliver in our corner, I’m feeling hopeful about all this business with the Reverend and…”
You break off at the look at her face and know, with certainty, that those things are not what she’s referring to.
"I'm glad of it," she says.
"We…Joel and I…we’ve talked a lot since he came home, about a great many things and…well, things are different now. Better.”
“Mm,” she says again, putting her glass down slowly. “He is touching you.”
“I…” you feel the flush deepen, your gaze drawn away from hers and down to the folds of your apron. “I…yes.”
“I am glad of it. It was a great concern to you when we spoke before and I told you – give him time. I have seen how Don Joel has used that time. Tomás and I have both seen how he looks at you and how he speaks of you. We have both seen the change.”
You look up and meet her gaze, watching as she nods slowly. She knows the look of a woman who has finally, after a long, starved period, been thoroughly and gladly loved.
“Yes,” you say softly. “There has been a change for the better and I’m…I’m glad of it.”
Stepping towards you, Maria rests her hands gently on your upper arms and squeezes. “You do not have to worry. His love for you is as great as it was for her – I can tell. And the fact that you have made space for her, makes all the difference.”
She glances outside to where, from the far window, you can see Joel and Sarah kneeling in front of the larkspur.
"I'll leave you to your supper. That little girl will eat the legs off the table when she gets in.”
"Maria…thank you. For your counsel and for being kind to me.”
"You would have managed without it,” she nods. “You're stronger than you know. You came here to marry a grieving man with a motherless child and a wall of grief around him a mile high, and you stayed, and you waited him out, and you won him. But you're welcome, all the same. Get some food in that man tonight and…whatever you’re doing, keep on doing it. It suits you."
She steps back out into the golden evening and crosses the yard, raising her hand to Joel and Sarah as she goes. Minutes later, Sarah comes tumbling into the house chattering brightly, her braids bouncing. Joel comes in behind her with the lazy crooked smile easy on his face, his shirtsleeves rolled and his eyes finding yours at once. The look that passes between you in the evening light is the look of two people who share a great many things now that no one else in the world knows.
Well, except perhaps Maria.
The flush blooms across your face again and you turn back to the peas to hide it, busying yourself with ensuring that the table is properly set and that everyone has what they need. When you set Joel’s plate in front of him, he thanks you, his hand coming up from behind and resting on your backside through your dress, only succeeding in making the flush worse.
Sarah’s chatter continues through the meal, leaving you dizzy at how quickly and ably she can leap from one topic to another with no apparent connection. You’ve almost finished eating when she puts her fork down and nods solemnly.
"I think I’d like a baby sister."
The kitchen goes quiet. You don’t dare look at Joel, instead keeping your eyes on your plate. The whole evening somehow holds its breath around the kitchen table, and across from you Joel goes very still with his fork halfway to his mouth.
"Or a brother. I don't mind which.”
She looks up, gaze shifting between the two of you.
"So, I think we should get one. A baby. I could help.”
She returns to her meat, seemingly satisfied, as though she’s settled the whole matter with her words,
Across the table, Joel sets his fork down against his plate and you make yourself look up at him. His eyes are already on you, his smile quiet and warm, the look passing between you across the table holding a great many things.
Sarah scrapes the last of her gravy off her plate.
"Can we?" she asks, not looking up. "Can we get a baby?"
"Babies aren't quite something you get just like that, my love,” you say quietly. “They come…they come when the time is right, and when a Ma and Pa are ready for them. They can't be hurried."
Sarah considers this.
"When will the time be right?"
You don’t look at Joel because you can feel the flush blooming again across your face and hear his words from when he was buried deep inside you in your ear.
"I don't rightly know. Someday, maybe, if we're lucky and God’s willing.”
"I'll pray for it," Sarah announces slow, with a child’s easy, total confidence. "I'll pray real hard and I know God’ll listen."
She slides down off her chair and carries her plate to the sink.
"May I be excused?”
“Of course, babygirl,” Joel says, his voice coming out rough and thick. “Put your boots on if you’re goin’ back outside.”
She tears off to find her boots, chattering to herself about babies, the screen door banging behind her as she leaves, and you and Joel finally look at one another again.
For a moment neither of you speak, then he laughs, soft and gentle and reaches across the table for your hand.
“Did you say anythin’ to her ‘bout babies?”
“No, of course not,” you reply. “I wouldn’t. Did you?”
"No, but she’s clearly been thinkin’ on it. Our almost six-year-old daughter, plannin’ our family for us.” He shakes his head. "Out of the mouths of babes."
"Out of the mouths of babes," you agree, squeezing his hand.
"Someday," he says quietly.
"Someday," you nod, holding his gaze, watching as his eyes shift from yours to your mouth and back again. “Joel Miller…”
“What?” he grins. “Can’t a man look at his wife and admire her of an evenin’?”
“I feel as though you may be admiring me with nefarious purpose.”
“Well, if you call thinkin’ bout bendin’ you over this table and losin’ myself inside you again nefarious then I’m guilty as charged, darlin’. Of that, if not of anythin’ else.”
You can’t help but laugh, and out across the yard, in the gold of the evening, Sarah kneels in front of her mother’s garden, telling her all about the baby sister or brother she’s going to pray for. And the breeze carries it in through the open kitchen windows, Joel's fingers tightening warm around yours across the table, and neither of you let go.
alright, i'll be the one to say it. ao3 and tumblr becoming "mainstream" did so much damage to the community and the writers. i have seen loads of videos and posts about:
1. people hating on writers and fics. writing is something we do for free and for fun. if you stumble upon a fanfic that isn't necessarily your cup of tea or you just don't like, scroll. dont read it. literally leave their page. you don't know if this could be the author's first work that they're so excited about, you dont know if the language they're writing in isn't their first language, you dont know that the writer could be a literal teen and loads of other reasons. fanfictions don't HAVE to be perfect. you write what you want to write because we do it for fun and enjoyment and we want to share that to the world. seriously, what is the wrong with that?..
2. x reader consumers getting WAY too entitled. the number of tiktoks i've seen that say "i run a strict program when it comes to reading fanfics." girl you aint running shit. this is FAN FICTION you're reading. F A N F I C T I O N. there is no denying that most fanfiction writes are beyond talented but just because you read one fanfic that exceeds your expectations doesn't give you the right to talk down on others that don't. people have their own personal writing style, their way of doing things and you talking shit on that isn't right.
at the end of the day, we are all humans, reading and writing is what we do and what we're meant to do. and for you to talk shit about a person WRITING is so insane. we are humans. not some robots that you can tell what to do so you can consume it.
i've seen so so many authors take down their fanfics and losing all motivation to write because of a hate comment. DONT LIKE DONT READ‼️
and to every author reading this, this community values your work and your contribution. we love u and, please, never let anyone's negative words have an effect on you.
Summary: You and Max needed a new start for your life in eternity.
Warnings: just the right amount of fluff, smut and happiness those two and you deserve in the end
Previous Chapter
Story Masterlist | my Pedro-Character-Masterlist
Your back hit the wall with enough force to rattle the framed print hanging beside your head, the impact punching a startled gasp from your lungs. The sound barely had time to leave you before Max drove into you again, hard enough to make your nails dig into his shoulders.
He had lifted you effortlessly moments earlier, your legs wrapped tight around his hips while he pinned you between his body and the freshly painted wall of your new apartment, and now the only thing keeping either of you steady was the relentless way he held you there.
“Fuck,” Max breathed against your mouth, sounding almost disbelieving himself as he thrust deeper.
You could barely answer him. Your forehead dropped briefly against his shoulder while another sharp wave of pleasure rolled through your body, stealing any coherent thought straight from your mind. You tightened your legs around his waist to keep yourself anchored while your arms hooked around his neck, fingers tangling in the curls at the nape of it.
Every movement drove him deeper and the rough drag of it sent another helpless sound from your lips.
The picture frame beside you shook again with the next impact.
Max laughed softly against your skin, breath warm where his lips brushed your jaw. “Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Trying to traumatize the new neighbors already?”
You tried to retort something smart, but his next thrust ruined the attempt entirely. The only thing you managed was a broken moan that he swallowed immediately with a grin against your mouth. His own composure looked dangerously close to snapping too, dark eyes blown wide and fixed on you like he still couldn’t fully believe this was real.
The apartment around you still looked half-lived in. Open moving boxes lined one wall of the spacious New Orleans loft while stacks of records and books covered most available surfaces.
A warm lamp glowed in the corner beside the old record player Max had insisted on bringing across state lines himself, and somewhere beneath the sound of your breathing and the creak of furniture, Deftones played low and hazy through the room.
You had fully intended to spend the evening unpacking.
That plan had lasted maybe twenty minutes.
You had been kneeling on the rug sorting through records when Max walked into the living room and caught sight of you cross-legged on the floor in one of his oversized shirts, muttering to yourself while organizing vinyl sleeves into messy piles.
He had watched you for all of five seconds before abandoning any pretense of self-control. One moment you had been holding a Bowie record, the next he was behind you, kissing the back of your neck while pushing the shirt up your body.
That had become a pattern lately.
Ever since leaving New York behind and starting over down south, you had slipped into each other with terrifying ease.
The decision to leave the city had hurt more than you expected, but staying there had eventually begun to feel impossible. Too many ghosts lived in Brooklyn now. Too many memories stained every corner of it.
Before leaving, you had made sure enough evidence against Torres found its way into the right hands. Anonymous tips, hidden reports, overlooked details suddenly resurfacing. It would never bring Samantha, Keira, Lara or Abigail back, but at least their cases would find closure. At least their killer would no longer vanish into unsolved files.
For you and Max, though, closure meant distance.
So you had traded New York winters for humid Louisiana nights, moved into a sprawling apartment above a quiet side street in the French Quarter, and attempted to figure out what eternity together was supposed to look like.
Apparently it looked a lot like this.
Max finally pulled you away from the wall only to carry you a few steps across the room and set you onto the dining table. The wood was cold beneath your back as you laughed breathlessly and shoved aside two open boxes of cookies that had somehow become dinner decoration over the past week - Oreos and Thin Mints sitting absurdly beside unpacked cutlery and half-burned candles.
“Real romantic setup we got going here,” you muttered between breaths.
“I’m a man of sophistication,” Max shot back immediately, gripping your thighs to pull you closer to the edge of the table before thrusting into you again without warning.
Your head tipped back at the sensation. Your legs lifted instinctively around his hips while his hands held you open for him. The music playing nearby no longer covered the sounds you made together. Not that either of you seemed particularly interested in being quiet anymore.
From somewhere near the kitchen came an offended meow.
Oreo leapt off the counter with visible irritation, tail flicking sharply as he abandoned the room altogether.
Max laughed weakly at the sight only for you to lean up and catch his lower lip between your teeth the second he looked back at you. The bite drew another sound from him and your grin widened immediately.
“You hungry, my love?” he teased knowingly.
You rolled your eyes despite the way your body instantly reacted to the question. Feeding had become easier with time, though not necessarily simpler emotionally. Max had guided you through it carefully, showing you how to choose predators over innocents, how to control yourself, how to survive without losing whatever humanity still remained in you. You had adapted frighteningly fast compared to his own turning decades earlier.
You had told him, that it was because you had him at your side.
He came close to believing you.
Now his hand slid between your bodies, fingers finding the sensitive spot that made you jerk beneath him immediately. He circled it slowly while his other hand came up to cover your mouth, muffling the sharp sound that escaped you as pleasure crashed through you again.
“That’s it,” he murmured against your ear. “You’re doing so good for me.”
The praise alone nearly destroyed you.
You clung tighter to him as the climax hit hard and sudden, your entire body tightening around him while the table creaked beneath you. Max groaned at the feeling, grip on your hips turning bruising as he chased his own release seconds later, burying his face briefly against your throat while his movements finally lost rhythm completely.
You rested limply against his chest, laughing softly as you both tried to recover some semblance of composure. “Think the neighbors officially hate us.”
“They’ll get used to it,” Max said easily, helping you off the table when your shaky legs nearly failed you.
“I didn’t,” you muttered.
His grin turned unbearably smug at that. “Could’ve fooled me.”
You shoved weakly at his chest while pulling his abandoned shirt back over your head. Max only laughed and wrapped his arms around your waist from behind the second you finished dressing, pressing a kiss to the top of your shoulder.
“Come on,” you said eventually, leaning back into him. “Let’s go outside for a bit. I wanna see the Christmas lights before this city turns into tourist hell.”
“We should probably find you dinner first,” Max remarked while digging through an abandoned pile of clothes near the couch in search of something marginally presentable. The record player crackled softly as the song ended and he finally crossed the room to switch it off, pausing only to scratch Oreo behind the ears where the cat had claimed the armchair with dramatic exhaustion after being repeatedly subjected to your lack of restraint.
You snorted quietly while opening the wide drawer beside the front door, revealing an almost absurd amount of sunglasses lined up. It had been one of the very first things you unpacked after moving in, mostly because Max had declared them “survival essentials,” though you suspected vanity played an equally important role.
“Well,” you mused, running your fingers over the neatly arranged frames, “good thing New Orleans seems to have an endless supply of creeps wandering around after midnight.” You glanced back over your shoulder toward him. “Dior or Versace?”
Max tucked his shirt into the wide pants he had found and wandered over, sliding up behind you until his chest rested warm against your back. His arms folded loosely around your waist while he peered into the drawer over your shoulder like the choice required serious contemplation.
“You choose, sweetheart,” he murmured easily. “I trust your impeccable taste.”
You rolled your eyes but couldn’t stop smiling as you picked out a dramatic pair of black Miu Miu sunglasses for yourself before selecting his favorite Chanel frames. You turned toward him and carefully slid them onto his face, adjusting them with exaggerated precision while studying him critically.
“You know,” you said thoughtfully, “the first time I saw you wearing these, I genuinely thought you were the most pretentious asshole I’d ever met.”
Max gasped softly in mock offense. “And here I thought we had chemistry from the start.”
“Oh, we absolutely had chemistry,” you corrected while slipping into your coat. “The explosive kind.”
His grin widened instantly. “Turns out I’m just a simple style over substance guy.”
“Whatever helps you sleep during the day, 90s boy.”
He laughed under his breath and opened the apartment door for you with a dramatic flourish. Together you stepped out into the dim hallway and descended toward the street below, where cool December air curled around you the second you emerged outside. Compared to New York winters it was almost gentle, the night carrying traces of rain, old stone and distant music drifting through the French Quarter.
Max slipped an arm around your shoulders automatically, drawing you into his side as you started down the glowing street. You leaned against him without thinking, breathing in his familiar scent. It always flooded your system like an overpowering drug.
“How long exactly are you planning to call me that?” he asked, amusement threading through his voice as he pressed a kiss into your hairline.
You tilted your head up just enough to grin at him beneath the oversized sunglasses. “At least another century.”
Your laughter blended quietly into the hum of the city as the New Orleans night swallowed you both wholly, the endless promise of eternity ahead of you.
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This fic will forever have a special place in my heart. It was a joyride to create and I am gonna miss Ashley's and Max's banter immensely. I have to thank all of you readers, commenters and supporters. I always hoped the twists and turns in the story would keep you on edge, all while the romance did not cut short.
So honestly thanks to all of you! I hope we will read each other somewhere else again 🤍🤍🤍
