by Emma Lea
With no clear idea of where to even start, I walked into the first bar I came to. It took four such forays before I finally found her. I heard her first. Her laugh to be exact. It gripped my gut and clenched hard. Relief and anger coursed through me, tinged with jealousy as I spotted her sitting at the bar and smiling at the bartender who was regaling her with some story.
I stalked across the bar, ignoring the hostess.
“Meredith,” I said, my voice a low, growly warning.
She swung around to face me and her eyes narrowed. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and then turned back to the bar.
“What do you want?” she asked without looking at me.
“You left.”
“I did.”
“Nobody knew where you were.”
“By design. I wanted to be alone.”
I gripped her arm and she swung back around to face me, her blue eyes flashing dangerously. “Get your hands off me.”
I dropped my hand and dropped my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and huffed out a breath. When I looked back up at her, I was calmer.
“Meredith,” I said softly. “Please. We need to talk.”
“I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it.”
I quirked an eyebrow at her. “I don’t understand.”
“I get it, okay? You needed a way to break things off with me. I just thought you would be a bit more of a man and speak to me rather than just hooking up with her.”
“No. Meredith, no—”
“I saw you! I saw the two—”
I pulled her to me and slammed my mouth down on hers. It was an effective way to shut her up and it went a long way to calming the storm inside me. She tasted of something sweet and heady and I lost myself in her kiss as she melted against me. This is what I needed. Just her. Just this. It made everything else seem insignificant and all my insurmountable problems suddenly felt not so impossible any more.
Meredith
I couldn’t breathe. Everything inside me felt like it was going to explode. I should be pushing him away and demanding he never touch me again but…Oh god. His kiss. He stole all the air from my body when he pressed his lips to mine and now I was more confused than ever. Why was he there kissing me instead of wherever she was?
I found the strength I needed to push him away. He looked down at me with those stormy eyes and it was like looking into the very essence of him. There were no walls. No shuttering. He left himself open to me, not shying away from whatever it was we were both feeling. It was everything I wanted and too much at the same time. I turned my head away and slid back onto the bar stool. He climbed up onto the one beside me.
I’d had enough to drink that the edges of my hurt and anger had become fuzzy but I lifted my hand and called the bartender over anyway. There was no way I could get through this conversation without more alcohol.
“Gin and tonic,” I said.
“Boilermaker,” Jamie said, and I turned to him, surprised.
He shrugged his shoulders. When the bartender placed the beer and the shot in front of him, he slammed back the shot before lifting the beer to his lips. I sipped my gin, watching as he swallowed large mouthfuls of his beer.
“What?” he asked when he lowered his glass. He lifted his hand to the bartender for another one.
“What is going on?’ I asked. “You wanted to talk. You tracked me down, so talk.”
He waited until another shot was placed in front of him and then he swallowed it without looking at me.
“What you saw,” he began, still not looking at me, “in the suite with Danika? It wasn’t what you thought.”
“You had her in your arms,” I said, trying to keep the hurt and anger out of my voice. “What was I supposed to think?”
“I didn’t have her in my arms,” he said, taking a long swallow of his fresh beer. “I had her in a hold.”
“You expect me to believe that you were showing her some grappling move?”
He turned to look at me then and the abject sadness on his face said more than his words ever could. “Yes,” he said, “because it’s the truth.”
We stared at each other, the rest of the bar fading away. He lifted his hand to tuck a stray curl behind my ear. I closed my eyes at the feel of his fingers as they caressed my cheek. I couldn’t help leaning into his palm and rubbing my cheek against him like a cat.
“Meredith,” he said, his voice a rough whisper. “Don’t you understand how I feel about you?”
My eyes popped open and I knew we had to have ‘the talk.’ I moved my face away from his hand and he let it drop to his lap. I took a fortifying sip of my drink and without looking at him, I said, “My mother sent me a list of potential suitors.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw his hand tighten around his glass until his knuckles turned white and I worried for the integrity of the glass.
“And a whole itinerary of events that I will need to attend when I return to Merveille. All of them require an escort. I’m to be paraded around like a piece of prime beef.”
Jamie drained his glass and then turned to me, twisting my seat so that I faced him too.
“No,” he said, the word choked out with emotion. “I don’t want that. I don’t want you seeing anyone else.”
I searched his eyes. I was completely on board with that plan, but I just didn’t know how to make it a reality.
“I don’t have a choice,” I said softly.
He leaned forward and kissed me slowly, deeply.
“You do have a choice,” he said when he lifted his head. “You have me.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked. “Am I what you want?”
I held my breath as I waited for him to answer. His eyes softened and the corner of his mouth tipped up.
“You are everything I want,” he said, and then kissed me again.
When he lifted his head from mine again, I sighed and rested my forehead against his.
“How?” I whispered.
He threaded his fingers through my hair and ran his nose alongside mine. “Marry me,” he whispered and then kissed me again.
“What?” I managed to mumble, pulling away from the intoxication of his lips.
“Marry me,” he repeated.
“Jamie,” I said, “we can’t.”
“Why not?” he asked. “We are on Le Beau. We can get a marriage license within the hour and can be married as soon as we find someone to officiate. It would solve both our problems.”
“I’m not going to marry you to solve a problem,” I said. The idea was crazy, ridiculous, insane, but… But what if…
“Then marry me because you love me,” he whispered in my ear. “Marry me because I love you.”
I sucked in a breath at his words as he continued to nuzzle my neck. He loved me? I closed my eyes and rolled the words around in my head. Jamie was in love with me? Could it be true?
“Come on agapoúla mou. Say yes.”
I opened my eyes and stared into his. They were dark swirls of charcoal and silver. I didn't think I had ever seen him so intense or so serious. Jamie always managed to have a spark of mischief about him, even during a mission. But not now. Not in this moment as he stared back at me.
“Yes,” I said.
Chapter 10
Meredith
The sun was setting and the sky had turned fiery red. I stood in the outdoor chapel on top of the tallest hill on Le Beau, the cool breeze dancing around me. It was surreal and beautiful and I felt like I was in a dream.
There had been other chapels down amongst the hotels and casinos of the strip, but Jamie had brought me here. We were met by a little man in a black cassock. He smiled and greeted Jamie as if he had known him forever and then they disappeared into the man’s small cottage, leaving me to stand and marvel at the view. The alcohol still hummed in my veins, but my head was clear. I was going to marry Jamie. We already had the license and the rings - simple gold bands with no embellishment - and now all we need
ed was an officiant.
I turned as the door to the cottage opened and Jamie came out, smiling shyly at me, his cheeks an adorable pink from whatever he and the priest had discussed. They had spoken a language I didn’t know, Greek maybe. I knew French, Italian and German, along with English, but I hadn’t ever learned Greek. I hadn’t ever needed to.
“Father Felipe says he can marry us,” he said, taking my hand and keeping his gaze on mine. “He would just like a few words with you first.”
I felt my eyes widen as I looked from Jamie to Father Felipe. I leaned forward and whispered to Jamie. “I don’t speak Greek.”
Jamie laughed and pulled me into a hug. “It’s okay,” he said into my hair, “he speaks English.”
I followed Father Felipe into his cottage, feeling like I was going to see the principal. His cottage was small and only consisted of one room. A small bed was pushed into one corner and a wood stove took up another corner. He had a single armchair beside a side table with a lamp and a wooden dining table with four wooden chairs. The room was clean and sparse but looked comfortable and well-lived in.
“Sit,” Father Felipe said, indicating one of the chairs around the table.
I took a seat while he bustled over to the stove in the corner and filled a kettle with some water from the tap that I hadn’t noticed.
“Tea?” he asked and I shook my head no.
He shrugged and placed the kettle on the stove anyway before coming over to sit opposite me.
“You wish to marry the… ah, Jamie?”
I nodded. “I do,” I replied, feeling nervous.
“You love him?”
Did I? I looked over the priest’s shoulder to the small window that looked out over the chapel. Jamie stood there, his body in silhouette against the setting sun. My chest filled with an unidentifiable emotion as I watched him. He stood so strong and sure. He had always been that way. There was something just so dependable about him. To other people that might seem like a rather boring trait, but it was that quiet inner strength that drew me to him. I hadn’t lived a life of chaos; my life and formative years had been steady and sure. If anything I was the wild one. Freddie may play the part of the carefree jet-setter - well, before he married Alex - but it was, and had always been, an act he perpetuated for the press. He once told me that people underestimated him because of his reputation and that made negotiations more fun. I was the one who didn’t really fit the mould of the Bingham family. I was the one who kicked against the goad. Even now, instead of doing what my mother wanted me to do and marry a man with a title and who could be deemed a suitable match for my newly elevated status, I was choosing to marry a man who was a body guard. And where it should have felt wrong or rebellious, it just felt right.
“I do,” I said, breathing out the words in a rush of revelation. I was in love with Jamie and it didn’t matter where either of us had come from, only that we had managed find one another.
Father Felipe smiled at me and in his eyes I could see understanding. No doubt my whole thought process had been displayed across my face as I puzzled out the answer to his question.
“He loves you too,” he said, “very much.”
I dragged in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Had I doubted Jamie’s declaration of love? Perhaps. I wasn’t used to being the object of a man’s affections. I was the tomboy. I was the girl who could beat up most of the boys who ever even tried to get close to me. But now here was a man who was willing to get past all my prickles so he could know me better. I knew I wasn’t the easiest person to get along with and according to my mother, I was impossible to love. But here was a man who loved me, warts and all.
“The road ahead won’t be easy,” Father Felipe said.
I nodded, my eyes finding Jamie again as he waited for me. The road ahead would be anything but easy. My mother was likely to have an apoplexy when she found out.
“You will need to cling to one another through the storms to come.”
I nodded again. I had no doubt that Jamie would stick by me. He would be my rock as we faced the tempest that would be my mother. All her plans were going to be ruined tonight and it was the first time since she had informed me that I would be leaving the guard that I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. It didn’t matter what she threw at me, I knew Jamie would not leave my side and in fact, he would be my champion.
“You will need to be prepared to forgive when necessary and fight for one another and for what you have found together.”
I hoped that Jamie could forgive me for what I was about to put him through. I knew my mother and I knew that she would do whatever she could to try and break us up. My marrying a body guard was not in her plan and there would be a lot of fighting in our future. I just hoped that Jamie was prepared. He knew both my parents, had had dealings with them, especially when Freddie had asked Jamie to be in his wedding party. I had seen the distaste in my mother’s face when Freddie had announced that little tidbit. That would be the tip of the iceberg once she found out that we had married.
“You still want to marry him?”
I turned my gaze back to Father Felipe and smiled. “Yes,” I said. I had never been more sure of anything in my life.
Jamie
Nothing felt as surreal and yet so completely right than standing in the open chapel waiting for Meredith and Father Felipe. For the last ten years I’d had to keep my true self locked down for fear of being discovered. As I stood on the precipice that served as the chapel and looked down over the island of Le Beau, for the first time in so long I felt truly like myself. My life had been the epitome of the struggle portrayed by Plato’s chariot allegory. Training the dark horse and the white horse to work together had been a daily fight within me. Trying to keep my chariot from falling as I battled with the two sides of who I was and who I was meant to be. Until that moment. For the first time it felt like my chariot was soaring, my horses in accord, their wings fully formed and beating in unison.
I heard the door to the cottage open and I turned from the view to see Meredith walking toward me. Nothing in my life had ever felt so fortuitous. It was as if everything that had come before was to bring me to this particular place and time. Destiny and serendipity converged to create the perfect moment. Nothing would ever be the same from this point on.
She smiled shyly at me and I felt my heart fill to bursting. It may have taken alcohol to lower our inhibitions enough to even consider such a spontaneous action, but there was no denying the truth of what I felt for this woman and that I wanted her to be my wife, whatever the future held for us.
I took her hands in mine and we stood facing one another. Le Beau was at our feet and the sunset turned the sky into a blazing light show as if the gods themselves were celebrating our wedding. Father Felipe spoke words in English and Greek, praying a blessing over us as he joined us in holy matrimony.
Father Felipe knew me, knew who I really was. He had known me from a child and had helped me escape the castle after General Anastas had taken it by force. He had travelled with me to Merveille and then come here to Le Beau - his own form of exile. He knew the struggles that we would face and he had questioned my desire to do this thing here and now. But I had convinced him of the depth and strength of my feelings toward Meredith and she must have similarly convinced him of hers for me. He was a good man and I knew that if he agreed to marry us, then he believed that the two of us were meant to be together.
Most of the wedding traditions of Kalopsia were absent from our ceremony but Father Felipe did include the crowning. He pulled two beautifully worked silver crowns from his robes - more circlets than what most people would consider a crown. They were joined by a thick white ribbon and he placed one on each of our heads. He swapped the crowns three times before instructing us to walk around the altar three times. Then he blessed us and our union.
I turned to Meredith and cupped her face with my hands. I knew there were things about me she didn’t know. I knew that our life so far ha
d been built on a lie. But when I looked into her eyes, I knew that none of that mattered. What I felt for her was not a lie. What I felt for her was bigger than whatever we were each facing at home. I lowered my head to hers and kissed her, sealing our marriage, binding our future. There would be recriminations ahead for this stolen moment, but I had no doubt that we would not only face them together as a united force but that we would also emerge victorious. How could we not?
I lifted my head and her eyes were wide and open. She stared at me as if she could see into my very soul. I let her look. I revealed myself to her. My wife. My partner. She smiled tentatively and the rest of the world dropped away. There was no one but the two of us on that mountain top. There was no General Anastas or Duchess Caroline. There were no queens or princes or prime ministers. No earls or dukes or security chiefs who were going to try and tear us apart. It was just Meredith and Jamie. Two people who were in love. It was the eye of the storm and it didn’t matter that our worlds swirled around us in a tempest. The place where we were was calm. If only I could keep it that way for the rest of our lives.
I felt the pull of the horses. My metaphorical chariot stumbled as the world rushed back in. There were obstacles in our path that Meredith didn’t even know about. I had a moment of panic as I thought about what she would say when she found out, but I pushed it aside. Those things were for the future Jamie and Meredith to deal with. The present Meredith and Jamie needed to celebrate. I kissed her again. Because I could. My wife.
“Agapiméni gynaíka mou,” I whispered against her lips. “S’agapo. Se latrevo.” My darling wife. I love you. I adore you.