Strips of pink paper were removed. Just small tears here and there to prolong the experience, all the time with Alexander chuckling and teasing the poor girl by hindering her progress. Bastard that he was. Until, eventually, a long satinwood box came into view, a small gold clasp keeping the contents shielded and a plaque embossed on the top. He stretched to see the wording then scrawled his fingers over the letters, feeling their tooled texture beneath them.
VDB
He smiled to himself at the image, absorbing the grandeur of the letters while looking back at Claire and nodding for her to open the clasp.
“What does VDB mean?” her little voice asked, quietly for once, as she prised at the opening and continued fidgeting on Alexanders lap. “Is that you, Van Der Braack?”
“Mmm. It is your name, too, should you wish for it. We will discuss, hmm? You have much family you do not know. A lifetime to find. We shall have many adventures.”
The sight of the three piece cane was not entirely unexpected given the shape of the casket, nor was the silver top perched upon its ebony end. However, what was unforeseen, as he carefully took it from the velvet and screwed it all together, was the emblem cut precisely into its head. There, intricately carved and beautifully designed, was a sunken key shining back at him.
He frowned at its association, wondering what inspired the reasoning. Not that he was excessively concerned with Lilah about his cane. He loved her. It was perfectly acceptable that she should travel everywhere with him, eternally. He smiled more, thinking of the voyages they would take together, and the places he would show her, then gazed up at her, watching the way her eyes danced back to him filled with the same thoughts, no doubt. She was the key, the key that had made all these locks open, flinging doors wide and now announcing her presence with the venom he knew she had. Hmm. Enthralling. Nevertheless, true as all of that may be, he liked his bat, liked its connotation of self. Its definition was most charming on his soul, regardless of this new union between them all.
She reached forward, grazing her finger over the end of the silver too and smirking at whatever she was currently conjuring up in her delectable little mind.
“It’s not her,” Alexander murmured, tapping him on the chin to turn his head and then pulling Claire back into his arms. “It’s you.”
He stared, slightly bewildered at the thought, not understanding what the man meant and feeling unintelligibly foolish for that reason alone. He glanced at Claire, irritated that he couldn’t damn well ask here, not with her innocence so securely laced into the man’s currently careful arms. The broadening of Alexanders smile was enlightening enough without much more thought, flooding him with warmth as he gazed back into those calm oceans of blue and began to comprehend the connotation. A key. Not Lilah—she had simply become the catalyst to helping the man find the lock within himself. The one that had always needed opening. He smiled quietly in response to the image circulating his mind. All those years trying, all those years of training, and it was Lilah that had finally managed to make the man see sense. Lilah that lit the route. Lilah that loved enough to offer them both a freedom only a few would dare deem normal. “It’s always been you, Pascal.”
THE END
Maybe, who knows?
(Keep going. I want to share some things with you.)
Acknowledgements
I’ve got so many people to thank for these six books, and I don’t know where to begin.
I spent the other five books thanking blogs, you guys, my PA Leanne Cook (who I still love, no doubt. She rocks, you should meet her) and my editor at Heather’s Ren Pen Editing, but that doesn’t seem to quite cut it this time round.
So, this time I’m going to thank my main characters, because without them none of this would have been possible. And anyway, I want to let you all into some secret thoughts of mine if you’ve come this far with me.
Alexander White - I love you, entirely, and because of all your flaws. You’ve been a constant fucking irritation in my life for two years. You whisper at me, demand of me, shout at me. You’ve made me scream, beg, stamp my feet and cry. In fact, you’ve near driven me mad on occasion and yet I’ve adored you all the more for it. Be at peace now. Love yourself, and those around you. Be who you are without fear of your past. Let yourself be loved. You deserve it.
Elizabeth Scott – You’re one brave lady. You’ve kept me near sane through all of this and reminded me of love and what it truly means. You handled him, loved him, put up with him and made him happy. You stayed by his side (when you damn well should have left him), and then you became stronger, and wiser because of him. You did it because of your ability to forgive all and hang on, hoping to show him the light at the end of the tunnel even if some would have said he didn’t deserve it.
I hold my hands up to you, and thank you humbly for keeping a lost soul warm in his cold nights.
Lilah James – I didn’t know you. I never saw you coming, but you’re more important to Alexander and Pascal than you could ever imagine, and therefore me. You don’t know it yet, and maybe one day along the line we’ll find out why, but for now just look after my men, along with Elizabeth. I’m leaving them in all your hands. Keep them safe and forge them closer together for me. They need your solidity and strength. Don’t let them get away with any bullshit they might throw at you.
(Which, let’s be honest, both men are going to continue doing.)
Pascal Van Der Braack – Sigh. Did you always know it was you that I’d love? Right from the very beginning? You swooped in, caressing everything that you touched in your own inimitable style, and stole my breath away secretly. You still do. You’re the harmony in all of this, the key to happiness. Glorious bastard you might be, and sadist certainly, but you’ve always managed to make me smile throughout this journey. I laughed many tears out for you, with you, letting you mould yourself into me a little more every time I did, and then finally I began to feel the romance you brought to all of this. It took me a while to find it in you, but you always had it there, didn’t you? You might have buried it, but you loved more deeply than any of them. Keep doing that and settle in the peace in brings, for all of you.
Yours, affectionately, and with loves hope engrained
Charlotte x
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