She nods, emotion swelling in her chest.“No managers.No castles making decisions for us.”
“No,” he agrees.“Just us trusting one another.Choosing each other always.I love you, Isla, and can’t live without you.”
Isla closes her eyes, breathing him in.“I choose you, Callum.I love you, heart and soul.”
For the first time in her life, love hasn’t asked her to compromise herself.
“Please don’t ever leave me again like that,” Callum says softly against her hair.
“I won’t,” she promises.“We’ll find a way together.”
“Yes,” he says as his lips cover hers and she surrenders to him, knowing that she’s found a lasting love.One that won’t disappear.
For the first time in her life, love hasn’t asked her to compromise herself.
It’s asked her to trust.
And this time, she does.
Chapter28
They stand together beneath the lights, the hush of the audience settling into something expectant and reverent.
Isla sits at the piano, her fingers hovering for a heartbeat before she lets them fall.The first notes unfurl, clean, deliberate, alive, and then Callum joins her, his guitar threading through the melody like a promise kept.They don’t look at each other right away.They don’t need to.The music knows where it’s going.
This is not inheritance.
This is choice.The music began with her father, but in her hands and Callum’s, it becomes something shared, love shaped gently from what he left behind, a quiet reverence for the man she never truly knew.
The audience listens as if holding its breath.The piece builds, swells, resolves, not into triumph, but into belonging.When the final note fades, the silence lasts a beat longer than applause ever does.Then the room erupts.
Backstage, Isla laughs, breathless and bright, and Callum catches her around the waist, lifting her just enough to make her yelp.They’re giddy in that way that comes from doing something hard together and surviving it intact.
“We did it,” she says, as if she still needs to convince herself.
“We keep doing it,” he replies.“That’s the trick.We love music, we love each other, and we show the world what we can do together.”
“I love you, Callum,” she says almost reverently.
“I love you more.Now let’s go home,” he says.
“Home?”she asks.
He doesn’t hesitate.“Home.”
The drive is familiar now, the road curving toward stone and sky.The castle rises out of the dusk, solid and welcoming, not a monument, not a test, but a place they return to because they want to.Because someone is there.
Inside, the air is warm.Lived-in.Music stands lean against walls.A kettle hums.There are signs of presence everywhere, shoes by the door, a scarf on a chair, a guitar resting where it can be reached.
Six months ago, they were married on the lawn of the castle.Her mother even came from the States.It was a simple ceremony with friends, music industry guests, and old friends of her father.
Now when they’re not touring, they reside here in the castle, but it’s been changed.Updated to reflect their lives and not Keir’s.It’s now a place that feels like home.
Isla pauses, taking in their sanctuary.“It doesn’t feel like it used to.”
Callum squeezes her hand.“Good.”
“It feels good.Like the walls are accepting.”
