“North?” My eyes flew to his from the box.
He swallowed nervously. “You once told me that this is where you realized you were lost and that maybe staying in Scotland would help you find yourself again.”
He remembered.
He remembered everything.
“I wanted to bring you back here because I know what it feels like to be lost.” North stepped closer to me. “I’ve been lost since I was seven years old.”
Tears for that little boy who’d had so much taken from him burned my eyes.
“Until you,” he confessed. “And I think what you felt here that day was fate. I think fate kept you here for me. To find me. So we could stop being lost together. Will you stay?” North got down on one knee and opened the box to reveal a stunning large oval diamond within a cluster of smaller diamonds set in a diamond-shaped platinum clasp. It looked old Hollywood and was so me that I was momentarily dazzled by its perfection. North continued, drawing my eyes back to his, “Will you stay found with me, Aria? Forever?”
I nodded, lowering myself to my knees. “Forever.”
Relief and joy filled North’s face and then he kissed me, hard, hungrily, our lips parting in laughter and tears, until finally he let me up for air. But only to slip the diamond on my ring finger.
“Do you like it?” he asked, caressing my finger with his thumb.
“You couldn’t have picked anything more perfect.” I reached for his face, the diamond winking in the late September sun. “I couldn’t have picked anyone more perfect. I’m so lucky you picked me back.”
North closed his eyes as if in sweet agony before resting his forehead on mine. A cool breeze fluttered over our skin as birds sang the perfect engagement song. Peace, a sense of utter rightness, moved over me, and I knew North felt it too as we kneeled in blissful silence, together, connected.
Homeamong the heather.
Epilogue
THEO
This was Scotland for you. Only a few short hours ago, the sun had been shining, glinting off the North Sea. I’d even taken a bracing walk along the private beach on Ardnoch Estate.
And now the evening sky, usually still bright so far north at this time of night, was dark and foreboding. Rain lashed my suite windows, and I could see the waves crashing against the beach beyond.
It made me think of Gothic tales and tragic love stories.
It made me think of the reason I’d escaped to Ardnoch.
I exhaled heavily, for once feeling the prick of isolation. North wasn’t here to throw back a whisky with. It was strange arriving at the estate and not having Aria Howard greet me. I’d gotten used to the woman, and she was far prettier to look at than Lachlan Adair.
However, my old friend North had managed a miracle and actually persuaded the woman to have a life outside of Ardnoch Estate. I liked them. But fuck, they were annoying with their sickening lovey-dovey ways.
Fools too, I thought broodingly.
It would end badly. All love affairs ended badly.
I should know.
“God, I’m bored.” I groaned, flopping down on the gargantuan bed. I would call up Clarissa but I got the distinct impression my call would be unwelcome. I think it was the text she’d sent calling me a colossal prick that tipped me off.
Shame. She was an ex-gymnast and still incredibly flexible.
I wondered who else was staying on the estate and whether there was anyone worth fucking. I desperately needed the distraction.
See, I had writer’s block.
I’d felt it coming for months. The last script had been a struggle in between filming projects for other people. Yet writing was the thing I enjoyed most, and I couldn’t bloody come up with anything worth a damn.
If I couldn’t come up with anything while living in a castle on the Scottish coast with violent waves and forlorn wind wailing against the windows, then I was absolutely, positively fucked.
