Mason grins at my expression.
It takes me a moment to collect my jaw from the floor as it strikes me with brutal clarity.
Mason Grant is mine. Only mine.
And I’m never letting him go.
EPILOGUE
EVA
My next Instagram post -
Taken
That was two weeks ago.
I’m still screening Dan’s calls. Like Mum used to say, it’s always best to let bad news marinate. That and I’m too consumed by my moment of bliss in Sicily before we go back to Fort.
When Mason told me he was planning to leave for Sicily before I came knocking at his door, I freaked out. I couldn’t believe I was so close to losing him to the world, not just me, but his parents and friends have been scared will tip him over the edge. He was actually going to uproot his life and move here. Everything was pre-arranged. A secluded villa, virtual access to Kingsden, he even arranged for his Ducati to be brought over. And as it turns out, hisparents were not wrong. The things I have heard and seen since we landed here, I would rather not say.
I was terrified to meet Mason’s grandfather, since he already admitted I was the reason for his two cancelledtrips. But as usual, he ignored my voice of reason, flung me over one shoulder, and carried me on to the Morelli private plane, giving me his usualno one touches what’s mine,crap.
That led to me being detained by Border Control until I personally spoke to the Deputy Commissioner and confirmed I had indeednotbeen kidnapped, despite what it may have looked like on their security feed. Because, of course, Dan, the jerk, reported me missing when he caught Grace packing my bag and sneaking my passport to me.
Just the usual fun.
Nothing new.
Mum and Dad would be so proud.
And yes, I can finally talk about them in the past tense.
I’m still healing, still carrying the memories of that night, and it still hurts, but I’m surrounded by too much Mason to let it consume me anymore. With his warmth around me, I don’t need the pills to sleep. Not that he would let me take them anyway. My weekly sessions with Dr. Janet are more useful now that my amnesia is in remission and she no longer has to tiptoe around me or report every session to Dan.
“Are they always like this?” Elena, Mason’s cousin, asks beside me.
We are perched on a cluster of large volcanic rocks jutting out from the edge of the marina, bathed in the afternoon sun that casts a soft, golden glow across the Sicilian coastline.
I nod as we watch Mason and James, trying to throw Hugo into the deep, turquoise sea. “Most of the time.”
Elena bites her lower lip, checking Hugo out.Shall I warn her?
“So, when is the wedding?” Elena asksagain.
Alessia’s family has been very welcoming. Though I see why she was keen to leave. They areverypersistent. His cousins have been insisting on taking over the wedding planning beforeI have had the chance to get used to the heavy solitaire on my left hand.
“You’ve got to have the ceremony in Sicily,” Elena continues. “Nannu would?—”
“Finiscila!” Stop it.Mason walks back to me, looking like a modern-day Roman god in his usual jeans, black T-shirt, and leather jacket. “You’ll scare her away.”
Mason settles in front of me, then leans back and lets his head fall into my lap. Elena laughs at Hugo’s funny yoga poses and decides to join them.
“Will you stop doing that?” I complain when she’s out of earshot. “Your cousins will start hating me.”
“They are not allowed to hate you,” he murmurs, eyes closed, as my fingers rake through his hair.
“Still, butt out,” I mutter. “And no one is scaring me away.”
