“I was almost done.”
“I know that, come up here.”
He did, his smile a wicked wink. She had to wait for him to locate his trousers and the condom, only to wait longer for him to put it on, but at last she had him where she wanted, his mouth where she could kiss it, his biceps where she could dig into them when she opened her legs and he started to move inside her body.
Kal groaned.
Rosemary flushed red from toes to the tops of her ears. “Oh, God.”
He pressed his forehead to hers and made love to her in smooth, slow strokes, the best kind of torture, the best man she knew, the love she got to keep close for as long as they could make it last.
She didn’t need him, but she wanted him. She loved him.
When she came, she came everywhere, with everything in her, and she held him tight, grateful that it was Kal who had brought her down from the top of the world, Kal who had traveled with her across time zones and miles, Kal in her bed, in her body, in her heart.
He was hers, and she was his.
It was perfect.
Epilogue
The wind gusted, positively frigid.
Rosemary climbed a bit higher, careful to find good placements for her feet against the icy granite. The sky was clear and blue, but the weather could be temperamental here in May, and though the sun was out, the temperature had risen only a few degrees since it broke over the horizon.
She clasped her hands in front of her face and blew into her cupped palms.
It had been one hundred and twenty-six days since she’d seen Kal.
She’d counted.
She tightened her hold on her wrap, mooring her hat in place against another blast of wind. She couldn’t be sure the pins would hold, and she didn’t want to chase her hat across the churchyard in these shoes. The church steps were treacherous enough, rimed with ice where the sun hadn’t warmed it enough to melt yet.
A black car pulled up to the curb, and Beatrice climbed out, waving madly. Rosemary waved back. “You made it!”
“I was only on the other side of the Channel.”
“Yes, but you never know when they’ll go on strike and cut you off.”
“I’d have swum to keep from missing this.”
Beatrice had cut her hair shorter since Rosemary last saw her in New York. The rainbow of colors was gone, replaced with a uniform soft pink that made her skin glow.
“How was the screening?” Rosemary asked. Beatrice’s film about Nancy Fredericks had been selected for one of the Parisian festivals, the fifth in the past six weeks and, Beatrice assured her, a sign of even better things to come.
“It was great. Some of the bigger distributors were there. I talked to one of them for twenty minutes. I think they might make an offer.” Beatrice looked around. “Is everyone else here?”
“Your father and Allie are inside. I think there are seats saved for you—your grandmother will know.”
“Aren’t you coming in? You’re a bit blue.”
Rosemary linked her arm in her daughter’s. “Of course. I was only waiting for you.”
The chapel had been decked out in royal blue and white, with sprays of white and pink roses on the pews, gothic windows streaming light, masses of gray stone built into impossible arches that drew the eye up and filled the heart with light. A chamber group played softly in an alcove near the alt
ar, the music as lovely and joyful as the occasion.
Rosemary wished she could feel more—take in the beauty of the morning with her whole heart—but she found herself counting windows and pews, surveying the crowd, looking for the one man who wasn’t here.