Riled (The Invincibles 4)

“You deserve this and every happiness,” I said, brushing a tear away. Was it for that happiness that I was crying, or was it because I’d never know it to this extent again?

When the music began to play, I looked to the back of the chapel and watched the two bridesmaids walk to where we stood. The music changed, those in the pews stood, and Grinder’s fiancée, Pia, began her walk toward us. Although, she didn’t walk at all. She danced her way down the aisle. Love and happiness seeped from her every pore, and her eyes stayed fixed on those of my friend.

I couldn’t help but think of Kensington and the joy I wouldn’t be there to witness on the day she wed. As hard as I tried to keep my focus on the man and woman about to be married, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Instead of thinking about Celestina and the way she’d looked on our wedding day, I could only see Kensington in my mind. What she’d wear. The flowers she’d carry. Even where she would be married. It felt like a knife in my chest when I realized what I was picturing was the tiny chapel on my own estate on Mallorca.

The harder I tried to close my mind to the images flashing before it, the faster they came. Not just the wedding, but the birth of Kensington’s first child, of her holding the tiny boy in her arms and beaming up at the father. Then of her playing in the sand on the steps below my house, with her children. She had four, just like she’d said. Why was my own mind torturing me this way?

I could hear the words of the priest as he led Grinder and Pia through their vows, but it was as if my ears were stuffed with cotton. The only words I could hear clearly were those spoken by Kensington in my imagination. I could hear her talking to her children, telling them how much she and their daddy loved them.

When I heard the priest ask us to bow our heads in prayer, I didn’t pray along with him. I prayed to God to please stop torturing me this way. I wanted nothing more than to be joyous for my friend and his wife, not mired down in my own unhappiness.

God refused to answer my prayers. For the rest of the night, I was plagued by visions of Kensington. No matter how hard I tried to distract myself in conversation with the other wedding guests, a reel of Kensington’s life without me continued to play in the back of my mind.

“Is everything okay?” Grinder asked shortly before it was time for the couple to depart the reception.

“Never better, my friend. My heart overflows with happiness for you.”

Pia came and stood beside him, wrapping her arm through his. “Thank you, Rile,” she said, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. “Thank you for making sure he found his way back to me.”

“The two of you were always meant to be together, sweet Pia.”

“I hope you find that too,” she said.

I bid them goodnight, and once they’d said their long goodbyes to their other guests and were gone, I drove back to Florence and spent the night in a hotel close to the airfield.

My dreams, like every minute at the wedding, were filled with Kensington at every stage of her life without me. I woke with tears streaming down my cheeks, wondering if I would be cursed by the madness of not being able to escape witnessing her happiness from afar.

When I woke the next morning, the visions were gone. In their place, I felt Celestina. She didn’t speak to me, but I could feel her calming presence.

When I boarded my plane an hour later, I suddenly felt a chill. Celestina? Please don’t leave me, I begged.

“Cortez, my love…”

Don’t go, I begged again. I feared that without her, the visions of Kensington would return. I couldn’t bear the pain of it. It would be easier to allow the pain of missing my beloved wife to claw its way back into my soul. That pain I knew. I was accustomed to it. It wasn’t new and raw like that which had entered my heart with the realization that Kensington would one day marry another man, have children with him, be happy. It’s what I wanted for her, but never did I imagine the pain would be more excruciating than anything I’d ever felt before.

My eyes fill with tears as I murmured, “Celestina.” Please, I beg you, come back to me. You were more than my northern star. You were my sun, my moon, my universe, my guiding light. Without you, I’m lost. So lost.

When I heard the chimes indicating our descent, I forced myself to look out the plane’s window, below to Mallorca, the island that I’d made my home. Where my beloved and our unborn child were buried. The house, my house, was not destined to echo the happy sounds of my children running through it or of their mother laughing at their antics. Nor of I with her.

The pilot taxied the plane to its hangar and parked. Part of me wished I could tell him to turn it around and take me back to Italy. But would my pain be less there? Hadn’t it come when I witnessed the happiness of my friend and his wife? Could I bear seeing it again?

I stood and stretched my legs, noticing from the window that my valet was pulling my Mercedes-Benz convertible out into the sun and lowering the top. The weather today was perfect, as it was most days this time of the year on the island.

I took a step down the plane’s ramp and gripped the handrail when I was overcome by what felt like a hurricane-force gale. The air around me went still, like the calm before the storm, or had it already been? I

rubbed my temple with my other hand as Celestina’s voice spoke to me. “Kensington is in danger. Go to her, Cortez. Hurry.”

I spun around, back into the plane. “File an emergency flight plan,” I told the pilot. “I must get to London immediately.”

31

Kensington

“Shall we try again to have lunch today?” Linc asked when our four-hour morning meeting broke up.

“Sounds good to me, if we have time.”

He smiled at me the same way he had yesterday. “We have time.”