“Good answer,” she said, already turning on her heel. “This way, loves.”
Aurélie turned to grin at me like she’d just found heaven.
And I couldn’t stop staring at her.
The tasting room looked like it was part of an old farmhouse, maybe a century old or more, with stone walls and wide-planked hardwood floors. A thick wooden beam split the vaulted ceiling, strung with lights and ornate chandeliers. The windows were tall and arched, open to the wind, and the whole space carried that quiet hum of age and resilience, like it had stood through storms and sun and silence, and still decided to be beautiful.
Ivy paused and let out a low whistle. “Damn.”
Even Marco looked impressed. “Okay, yeah. This is vibey as hell.”
Our footsteps thudded softly across the boards, muted by the faded rugs scattered throughout and the intimacy of the space. Nothing echoed, not with the filtered light, the quiet breeze, and the way this place felt lived in. It felt like someone loved it enough to keep it warm and breathing through all of life’s seasons.
And in a way, it felt symbolic. Like a foreshadowing of marriage. Not just the wedding day, but the years that came after. What it meant to tend to something. To choose it, over and over. To let it grow wild and beautiful and imperfect, and still stay.
I looked at her.
At Aurélie. Auri.My Auri.
Aurélie was thunder.Auriwas rain on the roof. She turned all my noise into weather I could sleep under. When she looked at me, even my anger found somewhere gentler to live. Aurélie was fire, but I got Auri’s embers, the warmth that lingered after the blaze and the glow that turned a house into a life.
She was the reason the wordtomorrowdidn’t scare me. With her, I was never outrunning anything. I was arriving at the next version of our future—a better version—that awaited us.
The world cheered for Aurélie. I kneeled for Auri. Not in worship but ingratitude. She converted my life from velocity into vow. She was the shrine I made in the middle of a messy world, complete with a laugh that broke and remade me every goddamn time.
And after this morning, after strangers tried to make her body a form to be filed, standing here felt like defiance.
It proved that with her, I never needed a map; I needed a promise. And now we were planning theforeverpromise. That kind of peace… it was breath. It was the reason I could take both racing and the rest of my life, and finally stop choosing one over the other.
Auri laughed softly at something Ivy said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, her skin glowing in the golden light. And it hit me all at once how much I loved her. Not just with heat and hunger and pride and a fierce kind of protectiveness and a sense of belonging deep in my soul.
But withawe. With a kind of ache that stretched deep inside my chest and made me feel like I’d just gone ten rounds in the car. Like I’d raced through every corner of my soul and ended up here—at rest.
She was everything. She was my home. And I didn’t know how I was supposed to walk around holding that kind of feeling inside me without falling apart.
My eyes burned, so I ducked my head, pretending to adjust my sunglasses, pretending I hadn’t just come undone in the middle of a goddamn tasting room.
But she turned toward me, almost as if she felt it. Just like we always did, because our souls were connected in a way that constantly gave us away. Every breath, every flicker of emotion—it was all laid bare between us.
And when our eyes met, she didn’t say a word, only reached for my hand and laced her fingers through mine, steady and sure.
I closed my eyes. Exhaled once. Then wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her close, anchoring myself in the feel of her, the shape of her body under my hand. Pretending I hadn’t just fallen in love with her all over again.
She didn’t let go, and I thanked my lucky stars for that, because I needed her right now. I needed her strength, her steadfast presence, her love to wrap around me and match mine.
We didn’t rush to join the others, but she stepped in closer, snaking an arm around my waist and pressing a slow, grounding kiss just below my shoulder. Right over the thin cotton of my shirt. Right over the part of me that always reached for her first.
And we stood like that for a second—two hearts, one beat—before moving forward together.
The tasting bar was carved from olive wood and aged bronze. There was a long rustic table in the center of the room and a matching one just outside on the stone terrace, both surrounded by mismatched chairs, soft cushions, and faded linen throws.
Beyond the open doors, a small deck jutted over the hillside with a panoramic view of the Aegean. The water stretched into the horizon in deep shades of sapphire and aquamarine, cliffs spilling down into the sea like sun-bleached ruins.
And something in my chest cracked open.
Home.
It felt like Scotland, not in the look of it, but in the soul of it. The warmth, the stone, the stillness. It felt like our house in the French countryside. It felt like long drives and quiet mornings. Like starting over. Like choosing peace.
