“Of course we did,” Aurélie said. “By accident. They’re the ones who suggested eloping.”
Marco rounded the counter like he was going to tackle us, then thought better of it and settled for grabbing me in a bruising hug first, thumping my back. “I’m so proud of you, Daddy,” he muttered in my ear, obnoxious and smug and suspiciously wet-sounding.
“Say that again and I’ll drown you in the Aegean," I muttered, but I clapped his shoulder back all the same.
Ivy yanked Aurélie into her arms, rocking her like she might never let go, already muttering about dresses and vows. Kimi squeezed my shoulder in passing, solid and grounding. Lucy hovered on the edge, hands twisted together, until Aurélie reached out and pulled her into the hug circle too.
The kitchen was chaos. Voices, limbs, laughter, the faint sting of tears. Naxos red sloshing in glasses, garlic and tomatoes thickin the air, the sea visible over our shoulders through the terrace doors.
For a second, I stepped back and just watched her there, buried in the middle of it, ring glinting against Ivy’s dark hair, lips curved in a bright, helpless smile I knew she wasn’t faking.
Our scandal, our war, our grief—they weren’t gone. But in that moment, in this kitchen, in this villa, with these idiots screaming and toasting and tripping over each other to wrap us up in their joy, those things weren’t the headline.
We were.
“Right,” I said finally, clearing my throat and reaching for pasta bowls. “Now that you’ve all gotten your unhinged squealing out of the way, sit your arses down. You crashed our sexcation, our holiday, our wedding, our honeymoon—our honeyday. Whatever you want to call it. Our rules while you’re here.”
Marco sniffed dramatically, wiping his eyes. “He’s so bossy now that he’s somebody’s fiancé,” he muttered. “And future husband. This is disgusting. I love it.”
I set the pot in the middle of the counter and met Aurélie’s gaze over the steam. She was already looking at me, like she always was, like she always had been.
Our island. Our bubble. Our rules.
Our future.
By the timewe migrated down to the beach, the pasta was gone, the wine bottles were mostly empty, and my cheeks hurt from smiling.
The path from the villa to the beach was lit with little tiki torches stuck into the sand, flames bobbing in the breeze. The sea was a darker shadow than the sky now, black and silver, moonlight streaking across the surface in a long, shimmering path. The air was warm enough that I didn’t need a sweater, just the same black romper, now smelling faintly of garlic and steam and Callum’.
We’d grabbed a stack of beach towels from the linen closet and thrown them across the sand in a messy circle. Ivy immediately staked her claim at one edge and flopped down with all the grace of someone whose spine had given up hours ago. Marco dropped beside her with theatrical groaning, like he’d personally pushed the Airbus to Milos. Kimi relaxed on hisback at the edge of the circle, close enough to the water that the occasional wave could threaten his toes, staring out at the horizon like it owed him money.
Lucy hovered for a second, clearly doing the mental calculus of where she was allowed to sit, before Ivy patted the towel between them and tugged her down by the wrist.
“Come on, popstar,” she said. “You survived the rise to fame. You can survive a little sand.”
“I—I like sand,” Lucy said, which sounded like a lie but an earnest one. “My pedicurist will hate that it dries my feet out, but it’s fine. This is fine. Everything is fine.”
Callum and I put two towels next to each other, the edges overlapping. He sank down first, stretching his legs out, then I backed up until my spine rested against his chest and his thighs bracketed me. He propped himself on his hands behind us, and I let my head tip back onto his shoulder with a satisfied little noise. My warm, solid, husband-to-be.
“Comfortable?” he murmured against my hair.
I hummed. “Very.” My fingers found his bare ankle and wrapped around it. “You’re a good pillow.”
“I’m a lot of things, baby,” he said. “Pillow wasn’t the title I was going for.”
“Too late,” I retorted. “You’re stuck with it now. Mon fiancé, my pillow.”
His chest rumbled against my back makingme grin.
Someone had brought the bluetooth speaker down from the villa, and now it played quietly beside us, some chill playlist that had shifted from Greek lounge music into one of Harper Rose’s slower songs. I waited to see if Lucy would panic at the sound of her own voice. She only smiled faintly, picking at a loose thread on the knee of her denim shorts.
“Marco, how the fuck are you surviving in a long-sleeve and jeans?” I blurted.
He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at himself like he’d forgotten what he was wearing. Dark henley, black jeans, ankles bare, expensive watch catching the moonlight.
“It’s a habit,” he said. “I run cold.”
I snorted. “You’re Italian. You run on espresso and rash decisions.”
