She took another breath, spoke in a different voice, easing her hands free from both of them. “Now, I must go and fetch Dan from school. You two stay here,” she said. “And make your peace.”
She headed back into the kitchen, reaching for her handbag on the hook by the back door. She felt wrung out emotionally, yet walking on air.
As she slid her bag over her shoulder, she was whirled around. Xander was enveloping her in a bear hug, so close, so tight, it melded her body to his.
“Thank you,” he said into her hair. “Thank you!”
He drew back a fraction, and Laurel could see his eyes were wet as well. It started her off again too. She touched his cheek with her fingers.
“Oh, my darling,” she said. “Our own happiness reaches to the stars. We will not shut your father out. He will be part of our life—and of Dan’s.”
Xander’s eyes burned into hers. “I don’t deserve you,” he said, and such emotion was in his voice that it made her melt.
She patted his cheek, her eyes soft and tender, and so very loving. “No, you don’t, but you’ve got me all the same.”
She smiled, a smile that wrapped them both in the love that after seven long years of anger and distrust, of unjust condemnation and separation, now finally united them.
And always would.
Epilogue
XANDER STOOD,RAMROD STRAIGHT, in front of the celebrant. Beside him his best man Dan spoke in a reassuring way.
“It’s all right, Dad. She’ll show up. I made her promise, and she said she definitely would,” he told his father confidently.
A low chuckle sounded from the seat nearest Xander. His father, who had become a firm and instant favourite with his grandson, and Dan the immediate adored apple of his doting grandfather’s eye, spoiling him shamelessly and devotedly, sat there, waiting like Xander and Dan, for Laurel to make her entrance.
They were in a Palladian folly set in the grounds of the country house hotel where Xander used to stay, where his father was now staying. The stone folly, licensed as an open-air wedding venue, was in the style of a miniature Greek temple, which seemed an appropriate way, Xander thought, of paying tribute to his own heritage, as this was to be a civil wedding only. And a very small one. The big celebrations—which his father was insisting on, and which Xander knew was for Laurel and Dan’s sake, to give them an official welcome to the Xenakis family and friends—would take place when they went out to Greece in the summer.
For now, over Dan’s brief half term school break, they were staying in England. Tonight, though, they would be dining privately at the hotel, Dan staying up with them, and spending their wedding night here, with Dan safely tucked into an adjoining bedroom, just like at the jamboree.
Xander’s expression flickered. That night he had been flying blind, but now…
Now I know exactly where I am going—into a future happiness that will be as golden as the sun!
He heard the softly playing background music change, swelling in anticipation. The celebrant cast a smile at him. At Xander’s side his father got to his feet.
An excited voice sounded beside him. “She’s coming, Dad!”
He turned, unable to resist. Approaching him along the sunlit path was Laurel. His breath caught. The wedding dress she’d chosen, and which he now saw for the first time, was in palest pink-blush white, with a ballerina skirt and sweetheart neckline. A delicate wreath of pink roses adorned her hair, caught back in a low full chignon, and her wedding posy was also of pink roses and a tracery of ferns.
He could not take his eyes from her.
“I told you,” whispered Dan. “And don’t worry, I’ve got the rings.” He patted the breast pocket of his tuxedo, a miniature version of Xander’s.
“Good man,” Xander murmured now, as Laurel gained the folly.
Beauty lit her like the sun, and his eyes melted with love for her as he reached out a hand.
Across from his father Laurel’s matron of honour was taking her seat.
Olympia.
Xander still couldn’t get over it. She had written to Laurel, wanting, she’d said, to make her peace with her. Wishing her every future happiness with the man she was marrying. Telling Laurel that now that she knew for herself what a truly happy and fulfilled marriage was, she would only wish the same for her. Just how the suggestion had arisen that Olympia should be Laurel’s matron of honour he still could not fathom. Laurel had said she’d need one—every wedding needed two witnesses to be legal—and Olympia and his father would serve that purpose.
“And she says she wants to see you marry the right woman this time, not the wrong one,” Laurel had said to him. “She’ll only stay for the ceremony itself, then she and her husband are heading straight off to Italy to visit his family and show off their baby.”
Xander’s eyes glanced to Olympia now, the woman he had made the mistake of marrying. She looked…happier. He gave her the slightest wry nod of acknowledgement, received the faintest trace of a smile in return.
Then his eyes went back to Laurel. Olympia vanished. No other woman but Laurel existed. Nor ever would or could. The only woman in all the universe. The music gave one final swell, and died away. Xander lifted the hand he was holding and raised it to his lips. In homage and in love. Her eyes twined with his, love-light radiant.
Then they both turned to the celebrant.
“Time to get married,” said Dan happily.
And it was.
So they did.
