by Lia Lee
No.
He had always been taught that if he wanted something, he would have to fight for it. He had to find out the truth, and that meant he couldn't simply sit still and wait for what came next.
He reached for his phone and started to dial.
Chapter Ten
Natalie sat on the bench outside the house in Kilderry. She had been in Ireland for almost two weeks now, and it occurred to her to wonder if anyone was ever going to show up and ask her to leave. She knew it would have been far better, far more sensible to return to the States, but heartsick and wild, Kilderry was the only place she could stand to go. She still knew all the codes to enter the property, and so she had simply...
She refused to say “come home,” but that's what it felt like.
Truth be told, she had been in a daze ever since leaving London. If she thought too hard about what she had done or about Nathan himself, she would start to cry again, and right now, she couldn't stand to do that. Instead, she passed her days like a ghost haunting the house. She walked when she was restless, but otherwise she simply stayed indoors.
She had no idea what was going to happen to her.
Well.
She knew one thing, but that was too much to even think about consciously.
After another sleepless night, she sat outdoors to watch the sunrise. The sky lightened from black to indigo, from indigo to pewter, and slowly the pewter turned pearly, letting in the pink and orange and finally the blue.
I can still think that it's beautiful, she thought, slightly surprised at herself. My God, but it is so beautiful.
The drive was set slightly below the house, so it was easy to see when a sleek, dark car made its way up the drive. Natalie wondered calmly if someone had finally come to turn her away. She thought it would be someone she didn't know, a lawyer perhaps to tell her that her contract with Nathan was at an end.
She hadn't known that Nathan would come himself, and her calm deserted her as soon as he stepped out of the car.
Of course, she had thought of what she might say to him, but now she was left utterly without words. She rose from the bench, her only thought in fleeing.
"Don't you dare!"
Nathan's voice cracked across the dawn like a whip, and as she turned, it gave him enough time to vault up the walkway. She thought he meant to grab her by the arm, but instead he dragged her into his arms in a rough embrace. God, but her body was traitorous. It clamored for him, and instead of struggling away, she only clung to him harder, hot tears streaming down her face.
"Why, why the hell would you do this to us, why did you run?" Nathan said, and there was a broken sound in his voice she had never heard before. He pulled back just enough to cup her face in his hands, and to her shock, she saw that the last two weeks had been hard on him. There was at least a few nights’ worth of ungroomed beard on his face, and there were dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept.
"Nathan," she said softly, but he shook his head.
"No, it's not going to be that easy. You got the last word with that letter, and now you're going to listen to me."
She nearly sobbed. She didn't know how much of this she could take.
"You lied to me," she whispered, and he shook his head.
"Believe me, you made me wonder," he said. "I never even knew that Melissa was pregnant. If I would have known, never in a million years would I... Well. Listen to me, Natalie. Listen.
"I chased Melissa all the way to Greece to get the truth. I would have been here a goddamn week ago if I hadn't done that. But you were right, and I had to be sure. Believe me, when I figured it out, I was pissed."
"Figured what out?"
Nathan smiled thinly. "She cheated on me, and then she married the man she cheated on me with. It took a week to get a prenatal paternity test. Melissa isn’t bearing my child."
She stared at him for a moment, her mouth slightly open with surprise. Could it be that she had...
"Oh my God," she whispered, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh my God, Nathan, I am so sorry, oh God, please forgive me..."
She couldn't stop herself from bursting into fresh tears, and he wrapped his arms around her as she cried out what felt like a month's worth of stress and fear.
"I didn't know what to think," she said through sobs. "I heard all of those women talking, and then I didn't know if you meant to keep me around. I mean, I know you cared, but..."
"But you never heard what I thought of you. How I felt. Is that right?"
She nodded miserably, and she uttered a soft sound of sadness as he drew away, seating her on the bench. She couldn't argue with him if he wanted to leave her, if he was ready to be done with her...
She blinked as she realized that he was going down on one knee. "Nathan?"
"I am so sorry I was never clear with you, not even when I knew myself. I kept the knowledge to myself, and perhaps if I had been a little more honest, I wouldn't have had to chase you across the country. By the way, will you promise never to run from me again? If you feel like this again, will you give me the chance to defend myself?"
She flinched. "Oh Nathan, yes, of course."
"Good. Then, Natalie, I love you. Will you marry me?"
He opened a velvet box with a ring displayed prominently within. At the center was a glimmering diamond surrounded by what she knew were tsavorite garnets. She only had a moment to look at them, however, before she knocked his hand aside and threw herself into his arms. Even as she laughed with joy, she was crying again.
"I love you, I love you, I want you, I love you, Nathan, I do, I will!"
He laughed hoarsely, dragging her into his arms and holding her so tight she thought he might never let go.
"Don't cry, my love," he whispered. "I'll spend the rest of our lives making you laugh..."
"I'm afraid you might be getting more tears in the future," she said, smiling through her sobs. "I seem to be one of those pregnant women who cries a lot."
He stared at her for a moment, and she nodded. Then he laughed even louder before dropping his head down into a kiss that was filled with promises, with love, with tomorrow...and with children.
Epilogue
"But Papa, how do you know for sure?" Amelia asked. Beside her, her sisters Rose and Carly nodded. All three faces were turned up to Nathan as if he held all the secrets in the world. They were nearly identical, but Nathan could see the little freckle on Amelia's cheek, the way Carly kept her head tilted curiously to one side, the way Rose's green eyes were a little paler than her sisters'. They all looked so much like Natalie that it made his heart ache.
"In your heart," he said firmly. "Your heart will always know, and it will listen if you know how. Love looks like so many things, but your heart will recognize it when it comes."
All three girls wanted more surety than that, but Nathan knew enough to know that he couldn't give it to them. Love would come, and when it did, there would be no stopping it.
"Telling them about our fairytale all over again?" Natalie asked, poking her head in the room.
"I am," he said with a grin. "Did you get the boys down for the night?"
"Sort of, but I'll not be surprised if they're up and bouncing again as soon as they think they can get away with it. Andrew kept asking about us again too, and even if Danny and Lyle were quieter, they wanted to hear it again as well."
"We have curious, wise and curiously wise children," Nathan said. "And now it's time for you girls to scoot to bed."
Amidst the normal groans, Nathan and Natalie exchanged a fond look over their heads.
She had been carrying triplets, the girls that day in Kilderry. Two years later had come the three boys. There was love to spare spilling out of the old mansion they had purchased close to Glasgow, and every day, Natalie wondered at her luck and all the love that had been granted to their family.
"I love you," Nathan said, coming up to give her a soft kiss on the forehead.
"My perfect fairytale," Natalie wh
ispered, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was her happily ever after.
THE END
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All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2016 Sophia Lynn.
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Prologue
As Emrys pulled Caitlyn to his side with one strong arm, and Caitlyn felt her heart pounding, the colors of the skyline bled together in a twilight smear of pink and blue. She warmed, and not just from the heat of his body against hers. The Seine was to their left as they walked toward the Arc de Triomphe. By the time they reached it, the daylight would be gone and the electric glow of the city would rise around them, casting shadows that danced seemingly in delight at their love.
Emrys leaned over to whisper in Caitlyn’s ear: “Don’t go.”
“I have to,” she protested half-heartedly. “My parents will expect me back—”
“You can call them.”
“And the new semester starts in a week!” Caitlyn protested, pushing her glasses up a little. She was tempted to take them off to clean them, but that would take two hands, and he’d already called her on cleaning them when she didn’t want to face him.
“How can you possibly choose Ohio over Paris? Over me?” Emrys teased in his lilting accent. His R’s just disappeared in every word, and it gave Caitlyn a chill to hear him speak. His dark eyes shone with amusement, but there was an unfamiliar tenor to his voice. Part of him meant the hurt he feigned. It wasn’t something she was used to hearing, not with his strapping build and confident swagger, the man who had swept into Caitlyn’s life this summer and pried her out of her tiny dorm room and made every day an experience.
Their hands swung between them, she in her loose skirt and peasant blouse, and he in ratty jeans, snug shirt, vest, and a beanie over his blond curls. Caitlyn looked up at his sharp jawline, the way his hair fell into his clear blue eyes. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen in person, though he sometimes had the fashion sense of a turnip. It was still hard to believe that Emrys was real, and even harder to believe that he was interested in a short, shy girl from the Midwest who had barely dared to venture out of state for a study abroad program in France.
“Tell your father how educational it would be,” Emrys suggested. “That always works with my father. Tell yours what an apt teacher I’ve been.”
A deep blush spread across Caitlyn’s cheeks and ears. There was never any hiding it, but she brought a hand up to cover anyway, causing Emrys to laugh that deep, throaty chuckle of his and pull her flush to him. Her head bowed in embarrassment.
“Y-you’ve been an amazing teacher,” she murmured, her voice jumping up higher in emphasis. “You’re a real pro!”
Emrys laughed again and kissed the top of her wispy, strawberry blonde hair. It hung on either side of her head now, but the night before, it had been spread over his pillow. He twirled a finger around one of her long braids and leaned downward to kiss her forehead.
“Hey. Come here.” Emrys lifted her chin with two fingers. “I miss you already. No other woman has ever made me feel this way.”
Caitlyn shook her head. If her father could hear a guy six years her senior calling her a woman…But he couldn’t, and Caitlyn had hardly mentioned Emrys to her parents. She didn’t know what to say to them about him. She’d restricted their conversations’ topics to the academic and cultural parts of her trip. There was something about keeping Emrys to herself that made their affair even more exciting.
Little Caity Durst with an older lover in Paris. No one back home would have believed it! He wasn’t from Paris, or France, of course, but he knew the city like the back of his hand. If anything, she’d felt safer walking the streets with him by her side. He had encouraged her to try her French and find her voice here. He’d shown her places the students’ guide hadn’t even known existed. And then he’d taken her by the hand and shown her everything she’d been missing when she’d stayed home on Friday nights to study.
Now his hands moved again over her broad hips, and he kissed her. His lips were demanding, as always, and she shuddered a little at his intensity. The other people passing by took no notice, just as Caitlyn couldn’t notice them. When she was in his arms, feeling his hands moving over her waist, her hips, nothing else existed but the two of them.
“Stay, Cait,” Emrys insisted again.
“I can’t.”
“I’m proud of you for being able to say no.” His hand rested on the small of her back, just a hair shy of touching her ass. “I respect that, of course. But I still…I want you here.”
Caitlyn pressed her lips together and frowned. “Maybe we shouldn’t have started this…”
“I wouldn’t give up a moment of you.” Emrys heaved a sigh. “I’ll visit you, though. As soon as I can get away, I swear.”
Caitlyn twisted her fingers. “I just dunno how I’m gonna get through my day without talking to you. I’ve never had a guy who I could talk to like you.”
“Well, I’ll have to call you. And email.” He took her fidgeting hands into his and squeezed her fingers. “You’ll hear so much of my voice that you’ll be sick of me!”
“We can use Skype!” Her voice rose into an inappropriately cheerful squeak, and he chuckled. “And I’ll get my Emrys-fix from the WiFi! Until we can see each other in person again, anyway.”
Emrys flashed her a wide grin. It was the one that had initially disarmed her during her class trip to Nice. She loved his smile, especially the way it transformed his sullen face and made him almost seem like a different person.
“It’ll have to do.” Emrys shrugged. “Unless I kidnap you and take you back to my lair.”
“You could…” Caitlyn took his hands and swung him from side to side. “But then I’d have to mount a daring escape plan. It could get messy.” She wrinkled her nose when he pulled her close for another kiss. “I don’t wanna leave you, but I can’t abandon my life right now.”
“I get it.”
They didn’t make it to the Arc that night. Instead they stayed by the water, holding hands and kissing and talking until it was dark. Then Emrys walked her back to her dorm room. Caitlyn hopped onto his lap, determined to enjoy him until the moment the car came to pick her up. She would remember that night for the rest of her life.
At the Charles de Gaulle airport, they repeated their promises and goodbye kisses until Caitlyn had to go through security. Even then, she kept looking back at him as she went through the line, and each time, he gave her a wave, or blew a kiss. Finally, Emrys placed both of his hands over his heart, gazing back at her wistfully, and turned to leave.
Caitlyn watched as Emrys walked away, her heart full of sadness to see him go, as well as excitement for the moment they’d meet again.
Chapter One
Five Years Later
The chug of boats on the Hudson River filled Caitlyn’s ears, along with the sound of her own rhythmic breathing and the morning traffic on the other side. She smiled, picking up the pace of her run and feeling beads of sweat trickling down the back of her neck. She was glad she’d remembered the sweatband that now held back her strawberry blonde hair. The autumn air was cool against her skin. There was nothing like that first rush of endorphins in the morning. Though she didn’t usually experience it quite this early.
“Hurry up!” Melinda called back to her.
Caitlyn looked up and saw her friend laughing several steps ahead of her.
“Sorry.” Caitlyn picked up the pace. “If you keep sprinting off like that, how are we supposed to talk? And then what’s the point of being awake, or even alive, at five in the morning?”
Melinda wiped her brow. “Exercise, I’d guess?”
Caitlyn made a noise.
“It’s good for you.”
“But at what cost, Mel? What cost?!” Caitlyn pleaded.
Melinda laughed and looked over Caitlyn. “You sure complain a lot. I’m not sure I believe you run back home.”
“I like the trails better in Cincinnati. And not this early.”
“Pfft. New York is better than Cincinnati. Can you get a tattoo and a hooker at 3am in Cincinnati?”
“I wouldn’t want to do either of those things at any hour!”
Melinda laughed wickedly. Caitlyn fought her nature so she could speed up and leave Melinda in her dust. She loved Mel, she did, but they were two very different people. Caitlyn was really only out there with her this morning because Caitlyn was staying at Melinda’s apartment while visiting the city. After four days of being shaken awake at the ass crack of dawn, she’d finally given in.
But Caitlyn was a night owl by nature and preferred to work and exercise and anything else much later in the day. It wouldn’t kill her to come out with Melinda in the mornings while she was here, though.
Probably.
When they’d finished the trail, the two of them settled into a seat outside at a juice bar. Melinda would have to get back to the apartment and shower so she could go to work, but Caitlyn could do her work for the day back at the apartment ensconced with a latte and Melinda’s cats.
“So are you really not liking the city?” Melinda asked.
“I like it okay. I like visiting with you. It’s a bit crowded for my tastes.”
“I’m off tomorrow. We’ll find some better things for you to do. Oh! And I have tickets to that movie screening on Friday, and there’s an after party.” Melinda held her hands up. “Just a small one at a lounge, my little antisocial butterfly. We do have to dress up, but it won’t be loud and crowded like a club.”