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I glance at Alastair, our eyes locking for a beat before we release a breathless laugh that bubbles over despite everything.
It’s not much longer before the furnace is fixed and the university has had carbon monoxide detectors installed, and with the place tested and deemed safe, we all pile back inside, desperate for warmth.
Alastair cradles me to his chest, carrying me to his room without fear of who might see us, and every burden I’ve carried on my shoulders the last several years has seemed to slip away.
He lowers me to his bed, planting a kiss to the top of my head before taking a few steps back and lowering himself to kneel before the hidden compartment I found on the side of his chest of drawers.
“Alastair?” I ask, and when he returns a moment later with that velvet box in tow, he sets it beside me, lowering to his knees and lifting each of my feet, pressing a kiss to the inside of my ankles before removing my booties.
He remains down there when he takes the box in his large hands, glancing down at it and back up at me with a million emotions etched into his face.
“Do you remember the first time you told me about John?”
I nod, remembering vividly how the bile climbed my throat as I waited to find out if Alastair would think me as unworthy of love as my ex-husband clearly had. Of course, he hadn’t. He’d told me John had been a fool and that someday, I’d have that necklace I’d wanted so desperately.
“I called the shop owner to confirm she still had the necklace before I left for the weekend and made the trip over there to retrieve it.” My breath gets caught in my throat and I swallow around a lump. “When I’d gotten there, a matching ring sat nestled beside it,” he says with a small smile, glancing down as if recalling the moment. He opens the velvet box, lifting the necklace from the satin. He holds it out in front of my chest, leaning into my space as he moves to clasp it around my neck.
The delicate emerald pendant weighs next to nothing, but the knowledge of how it found its way to me feels unbelievably heavy. Tears gather in the backs of my eyes as he lowers his hands and plucks the ring from the box, holding his hand out for me to take.
“I love you, Calista Ravenna, and I believe I always have. My soul knows yours intimately, having lived a multitude of lifetimes together. It’s the only explanation for how fiercely I love you. How well I know you—mind, body and soul. Our souls have been parted for too long, Calista.” He says it as if it’s been exhausting waiting for me, and I believe it, laughter bubbling up my throat but I keep it held within. “I’ve waited forty years in this lifetime for you, and I’d wait forty more, but please don’t make me,” he says, cracking a smile. “My ruinous love, will you do me the honor of claiming me as yours forevermore? Marry me.”
Tears stream down my cheeks, and I swipe them away with the back of my hand, desperate to see clearly and commit this moment to memory. With such simple words, he’s shifted the trajectory of this abhorrent day and turned it into one I’ll cherish in this lifetime and the next.
“Y-yes,” I squeak out. “God, yes!” I say with more conviction, and the wide smile he rewards me with is prize enough. Ring or no.
He slips the ring onto my finger, and I lunge into his embrace, wrapping my arms around his neck and delighting in the swell of belonging the simple touch elicits. Cradling a hand on the back of my head, he presses tender kisses to my cheeks, temples, forehead, and the patch of freckles beneath my eye. “You have ruined me for anyone else,” he whispers, voice low and reverent. “It’s been an honor and a pleasure to be corrupted by your wit, beauty, and humor.”
“I don’t believe you capable of corruption, Alastair. Your heart is the purest thing I’ve ever known.”
“Only because you made it so.” He strokes a palm down the column of my spine. “But never underestimate the lengths I’d go to keep you safe.”
His words should shock me. Scare me. Send me spiraling back into the instinct to run.
Instead, they settle into me like truth.
There is a thrill in being loved so wholly, so completely and undeniably—but there is something deeper, steadier beneath it. Safety. Certainty. The quiet knowing that I am no longer bracing for impact. When I think of his words, I do not hear a threat. I hear a vow. One I know, deep in the marrow of my bones, he will keep until his dying breath, and beyond the veil.
For the first time, I do not question whether I deserve this devotion. I simply accept it.
And that is how I spend the day after Christmas, wrapped in warmth and laughter, making love to my fiancé for hours until Mrs. Briar bangs on our door, scandalized and breathless, demanding I quit screaming his name.
I fall asleep in the safest place I have ever known, my body nestled against Alastair’s, the world held at bay by the steady rhythm of his breath. His presence anchors me, prevents the dark from creeping in. Tonight, and every night that follows, the nightmares evade me, replaced by dreams of a future I no longer fear to imagine.
A life chosen freely.
A love survived.
A story finally allowed to end in joy.
The end.
Epilogue
Five Years Later
Alastair
Asmile cracks my lips at the sound of my wife’s soft footsteps, every sound heightened as I lay here with my arms and legs tied to the bedposts and my eyes covered by those sexy as sin stockings she’s always traipsing around in.
