Cruel Legacy (Cruel 3)

“I’m so sorry,” I blubbered.

“Shh,” he whispered, stroking my hair. “We’ll work it out together. Just like we should have.”

I nodded and squeezed him tighter. “I couldn’t lose you.”

“You weren’t in danger of losing me, love.”

“It felt like it.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, shut up. Don’t be sorry. This is my fault.”

“We’ve both been idiots.”

I pulled back and wiped at my eyes. “We have. I should have chosen you all those years ago and never let you slip out of my life.”

“Then choose me now,” he said, dragging my lips hard against his.

“I choose you,” I breathed.

“Marry me,” he breathed back.

I jerked back in surprise and laughed. “One day, Penn Kensington. One day, I will.”

“How about now?” he teased.

“Right now?” I said, going along with his joke. “I don’t think we have a ceremony waiting for us.”

“Natalie, I don’t want to live another second in a world where you think I don’t want this,” he told me evenly. “Unless you don’t want this.”

“I want this,” I assured him.

“Then marry me.”

I stopped laughing and really looked at him. “Wait…you’re serious?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“But we…we just had this huge argument and…you don’t mean it. And I mean…there’s no ring. Or…or anything,” I whispered, suddenly on uncertain ground.

“Who said there was no ring?”

Then he removed a small blue box from the inside of his jacket pocket. My hands flew to my mouth as he got down on one knee right there in front of the Louvre, in our park, by our bench, where it’d all started. He opened the box to reveal a perfectly haloed circle-cut diamond on a simple band.

“Natalie, eight years ago, this all started on a park bench in Paris. Will you make me the happiest man alive and start our next journey together here, too?”

“Oh my god,” I gasped as tears flooded my vision again. “Yes!”

He slipped the diamond on my finger and then picked me up into his arms and twirled me in a circle as Paris blurred all around us.

Chapter 41

Natalie

Three days later, I stood in a garden in front of the Eiffel Tower, dressed in white. My feet were bare. My hair was free, blowing easily in the breeze off the Seine. I held a bouquet of wildflowers that I’d picked up from a local market along the way. The crown necklace at my throat. And Penn waited for me at the end of the small walk in a gray suit.

My heart beat a rhythmic drum inside my chest. Excitement and disbelief. Three days didn’t seem like long enough to arrange all of this, but we’d done it. Officially, our elopement wasn’t legally binding until we signed paperwork back home, but all that really mattered to me was the here and now. Symbolic or legal didn’t matter because, soon, I would be his.

I didn’t falter as I continued the remaining feet to stand before Penn and the officiant.

Penn’s eyes lit up, and he seemed unable to help himself. He pulled me close and briefly kissed my lips. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I breathed with a smile.

I’d found the flowy bohemian dress tucked away inside the very first bridal shop I looked into. When it had fit—the straps perfectly molding to me, the soft lace wrapping around my waist like a cinch, and the material falling like a curtain to my feet—I had known it had been waiting for me all along.

Like fate.

Like us.

I reached forward and clasped hands with Penn as the officiant began the ceremony. I barely heard the words. My attention was trained on Penn. The look in his beautiful blue eyes as they stared down at me with all the love in his heart. Matching the expression I knew was on my face. I didn’t see the crowd gathering on the public walkways to witness our little ceremony. Or hear the sounds of the city as our wedding melody.

Just me and Penn. Making a commitment and uniting our love. Binding us together from that moment on. A promise to have a love that endured beyond death.

“Vows aren’t just words but represent the commitment you make with each other in marriage for all the years to come,” the officiant said.

I swallowed and nodded. Penn grinned back.

“Do you, Natalie, take Penn to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?”

“I do,” I breathed.

“And do you, Penn, take Natalie…” the officiant began as tears sprang to my eyes, unbidden.

When the officiant finished, Penn confidently said, “I do.”

“Now, for the rings,” he said.

Penn retrieved the rings from his pocket and passed me his. I held it tightly as my hands shook. This was it. This was when it was so real. Holding his wedding band and making this promise between us.