“And your father knows?” Dietrich asked.
Ella smiled. “He knows, and he has given his blessing,” she said. “I think you may have won him over when you found me again.” She wound her arms around his neck again. “That, or he really likes the way you take care of his horses and thinks that means you’ll be able to take care of his daughter too.”
Dietrich rolled his eyes. “If only you were as easy to take care of as twenty horses.”
Ella gasped in mock outrage. “I’ll have you know, I’m quite easy to take care of!”
“Says the girl who disappeared for...well, for most of her life.”
“True,” Ella said, “but I certainly never expected that I would find the love of my life when I found you.”
“I thought I was the one who found you,” Dietrich said, his thumb running across her cheek.
“Do we need to argue about it?” she asked, her lips curling into a smirk.
“I can argue with you, or I could just kiss you.”
“I would not mind that,” she said, her fingers curling into his hair. “I do have a question, though.”
He raised his eyebrows and waited.
“Is the position of your best friend still open?”
His lips turned up into a smirk of his own. “It is. Perhaps you’d be willing to fill it, and then I can kiss you for the rest of our lives?”
“Is that a promise?” Ella asked.
“It’s a promise,” Dietrich smiled as he leaned down to kiss her once more.
And as their lips touched again, Ella knew she would quite happily spend the rest of her life making sure that he never forgot his promise.
Epilogue
Thea
Thea watched the three couples seated in the corner of her café with an amused grin. How had three of her friends found themselves falling in love with nobility?
Fortunately, she had no interest in finding a noble to fall in love with her. She was quite content with her café and her cat.
The door opened, and Nathaniel waltzed in with a fresh bouquet of flowers. “Good morning,” he said, as he snagged a vase from behind the counter and placed the flowers in it on the bar. “Some flowers for the café,” he added, as if she were too silly to recognize the fact that every time he brought flowers for the café, they were really for her.
“What’s this?” he asked, glancing over at the couples. “Have all the local nobles fallen in love in your cafe?”
Thea shook her head as Beatrice’s laughter rose up across the room. “I don’t know what she said to bring them all here,” she said quietly, “but I am thankful for their patronage, whether or not they planned it.”
Each of the couples here had somehow brought more business to her café. Sophia and Caspian had been the first, then Beatrice and Alexander, and now Dietrich and Ella.
But as she watched the three couples, she found herself wishing that she could sit with them and not feel out of place because she was alone. She glanced at Nathaniel, who would no doubt be more than happy to be at her side. He made no pretense of hiding the fact that he still loved her just as much as he had all those years ago.
But how could she trust him again after everything he had done, and how could she let her heart be open again?
Nathaniel made his way to the fireplace, which lay empty but still was Ginger’s favorite spot to sit, and as the man she had once loved knelt down to pay attention to the cat that was her most loyal companion, Thea’s heart constricted.
Dietrich stood and made his way to the counter, where he handed her a few coins. “Another round of tea, please?” he asked. “Apparently, the ladies are quite thirsty today.”
Thea quickly made another round of tea, pouring three more cups of the cool peppermint tea that she had made earlier in the morning, knowing that it was likely that at least some of them would be visiting since Caspian and Sophia were recently back in town.
“You seem happy,” she said to Dietrich, who was, in fact, glowing.
