Until I Break

Despite our very public and very elegant location, she squeals and claps her hands loudly. I can’t help but smile. Now I’m confident I made the right choice.

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! This is it, isn’t it?”

“If you mean that I’m going to marry your sister and make her deliriously happy, then yes. This is it.”

“Oh dear God! I’m so effing happy I could hump your leg right now.”

“Please don’t.”

Chris laughs and her eyes twinkle merrily. “Maybe later. Right now, I want to hear what you’ve got to say, because it better be good!”

“Lucky for me, your approval is not what I seek. Your help, however…”

As always, Chris lets my teasing roll right off. She gives me a dismissive wave and leans forward conspiratorially. “So, what are we doing?”

“With Samantha’s release schedule, she’s going to be pretty busy for the foreseeable future, so I thought we’d take care of most of the planning and details so she won’t feel the pressure of the wedding.”

“But she knows, right? I mean, you’ve already proposed and explained that you’re doing this?”

I shake my head.

Chris gasps. “You haven’t even asked her?”

“No, that’s not how this plan works.”

This is the one area I’m a little shaky on. I have it all planned out in my head, and it’s perfect. The only thing I can’t see with absolute clarity is her answer.

I know she loves me. And she knows I love her. But we’ve never talked about marriage. I don’t really know how she feels about it. We talk about spending forever together, but nothing more specific than that.

But now I want to be specific. I want to know that she’s mine. Forever. That she’s not going anywhere. Ever. And that she’ll bear my name as well as my children.

Children—that’s another gray area, but first things first.

“A-lec’s ner-vous,” she says in a sing-song voice.

“Hell yeah, I’m nervous. But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to tell you what you’re going to do for her for her wedding.”

“Do tell.”

“I want you to design her wedding dress.”

Chris’s face goes comically blank. “What now?”

“I. Want. You. To. Design. Her. Dress.”

“English is not my second language. I understand what you said. I just didn’t understand what you said. I design shoes. You know that, right?”

“But I’ve seen the sketches you’ve done of dresses. And Samantha loves them. I think she’d be pleased if you’d do it. She’d be proud and it would make the day even more perfect if she was walking down the aisle in something you made for her.”

Much to my surprise and dismay, Chris’s eyes fill with tears. “Ohmigod, you really are perfect for her.”

I shrug. “I don’t know about that. I love her, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s part of it. But it’s so much more than that. You’re…you’re…ohmigod, you’re her soul mate. I mean…you really are the one.”

“I sure hope so.”

Tears overflow her lashes and slide down her cheeks. She reaches up to wipe them away and I fidget in my seat. I hadn’t expected this and I’m terrible with female emotion. That was established long ago.

When she pulls herself together, she laughs and reaches over to squeeze my hand where it rests near my glass.

“Oh, you are. Trust me.”

“Does that mean you’ll do it?”

She swats her hand at me. “Of course I’ll do it. And she’ll be the best damn bride with the best damn dress on the Eastern seaboard.”

“With the most modest sister.”

“That, too,” Chris says with a grin and a flip of her hair. “Annnnnd, it gives me something other than Greg to focus on.”

I don’t know what to say to that. Samantha told me about Chris’s decision to move on from Greg and find someone who will love her for the person she really is, but that doesn’t make me any more comfortable discussing it with her.

My eyes fall to the cake. I’d nearly forgotten it.

“Oh and I want you to taste this cake. I think she’d like it, don’t you?”

Chris watches me for a few seconds, her smile never fading. She shakes her head in something like amazement as she picks up her fork and cuts out a bite of the moist white cake.

She tastes it and her eyelids flutter in ecstasy. “Gawd!” she mutters around her full mouth. “That’s heavenly.”

“She’ll love it, right?”

She grins despite her puffed out cheeks. “She’ll love it.” She cuts another piece and stabs it with her fork. “She’s lucky to have you, Alec.”

“No, I’m the lucky one. I didn’t have much of a life before she came along. The least I can do is make one day perfect for her.”

“According to her, you make every day perfect for her.”

I hold back the smile that twitches at my lips. It makes me feel like a sappy kid, but hearing that makes me happier than I care to admit.

“So she talks about me a lot, huh?”

“Ugh! All the time. I get so sick of hearing about Perfect Alec this and Perfect Alec that. ‘Perfect Alec saved my life’.”

That gives me pause. “Did she say that?”

“She says that all the time. Why?”

This time I do smile. I can’t help it. “Just curious.”

“But why? Why are you curious?”

“I just wonder if she knows she saved mine, too.”

Chris wrinkles her nose and winks at me. “I think she has a clue.”

I think back to the wild morning we had before I came in to town today, the wild morning followed by twenty minutes of kissing afterward.

“I was dead before I met you and I’ll be dead again if you ever leave me,” I told Samantha.

She leaned up on one elbow and tilted her head to one side, considering me. “You don’t have to worry about that. This is safe with me,” she said, kissing the left side of my chest, right over my heart.

Now, with Chris, I smile again. “Yeah, I think she has a clue.”

EPILOGUE PART TWO - Samantha

Four months later

All the lights are off when I unlock Alec’s front door. I pause just inside, listening. Not a sound.

“Hello?” I call out to the empty room as I remove the key and close the door behind me. Alec told me to meet him here at nine. It’s nine. And I’m here. And there’s no Alec.

Dropping my purse at the foot of the stairs, I make my way through the living room and kitchen. Still, I find no evidence of Alec. I crack open the garage door and see both the Mercedes and the Range Rover parked there. He’s definitely here. Somewhere.

Closing the garage door, I make my way toward the stairs, ascending first one level then another as I head for the master bedroom. When I reach the landing, I see the pale flicker of light. My stomach twitches in response.

Alec has been pretty busy with work and…whatever other stuff he’s been so preoccupied with lately, that I haven’t seen him as much as usual. And my body is reminding me how much I miss him.

My heart already knew that.

“Hello?” I call again. Still nothing, but I continue on into the bedroom.

I look around the empty room. There are no candles lit that I can see, only the soft glow of the fireplace. That must’ve been the light I saw.

“Stop,” comes Alec’s deep, velvety voice. I jump in surprise, whirling to search him out. I see only his silhouette in front of the balcony doors, outlined by the moon at his back. He’s so quiet and still, I didn’t even see him.

I start toward him, but he stops me.

“Stay where you are. Close your eyes,” he commands.

With an excited smile trembling at my lips, I do as he asks. Anticipation curls in my stomach as I listen for his movements. I can barely hear him approach, but I can certainly feel it when he nears me. He disturbs the air around me in a way that no one else does. Like there’s electricity moving between us, a constant arc of attraction that never dissipates.

The brush of his lips against mine is like heaven. Although I saw him for a moment just this morning, it’s not enough. It’s never enough. I always want more. Always need more.

I lean in to him, but he pulls gently away. I’m tempted to open my eyes, but I don’t want to ruin whatever he’s going to do next, so I quell the urge.

I feel his mouth as it brushes my collarbone. Chills spread down my chest, a trail for his lips to follow as they make their way to my breasts.

Only they don’t.

I feel Alec’s fingers slide down my left arm and tighten over my palm. He strokes each of my fingers from knuckle to tip, slowly and with a practiced seductiveness that only Alec can manage. Every place he touches, no matter how innocent, can be turned into an exercise in erotic pleasure. This is no different.

Only, this time, there’s something else. Something…more.

“I remember with perfect clarity the first moment I saw you, sitting so primly in front of a crowd of your biggest fans,” he begins softly, his voice arising from somewhere below me.

The cadence of his words coupled with the languorous touch of his hand threaten to lull me into a stupor, but something deep inside me struggles to pay close attention. His words…there’s something different about his words…

“I think I might’ve fallen in love with you that very day. And a little bit more every day after. I tried to let you go. I thought I could live without you, that I could move on. But I couldn’t. I could hardly last a day.”

My heart swells at his words. Alec has told me he loves me a thousand times, but never like this. He’s never opened up like this before. His confession is like a rare, night-blooming flower—so precious and so fleeting that I’m afraid to blink and miss one glorious second of its beauty.

“I don’t ever want to be without you again. Air doesn’t feel the same. Food doesn’t satisfy me. Water doesn’t quench my thirst. In my life, for as long as it burns on this earth, there is only you, Samantha. Only you. Forever.”

I feel tears breach my closed lids and pour down my cheeks. I bite my lip to hold in sobs of pure joy.

“Open your eyes,” he says, the words more a plea than an order.

My lids part to the image of Alec on one knee in front of me. Even through the shimmering wash of my tears, I can see that his hand is holding mine and his heart is in his eyes.

My breathing stops and all of time and space stills around me.

“Will you marry me?”

I let go of a sob that refuses to stay put behind my ribs. My knees, unable to support me anymore, buckle and I drop down in front of Alec.

“I’ll do anything you ask of me, Alec. Anything. For the rest of my life, you have me. Body, heart and soul. And nothing would make me happier than to be your wife.”

His lips curve into a smile, one of his genuine smiles that I see more and more of lately. His eyes fall to our joined hands as he slips an enormous diamond onto my ring finger.

“Then clear your schedule for tomorrow. You’ve got a wedding to attend.”

I feel my mouth drop open as his words and their meaning sink in. A laugh bubbles up in my throat. I cover my mouth with my hands, but my fingers can’t stop the sound from spilling out.

“What? You mean…does that mean… did you…”

When I can’t form a coherent question, Alec chuckles and fills in the blanks. “Yes, me, an incompetent man, has managed to plan an entire wedding without you having to lift a finger.”

“But…but…what about…”

My mind is spinning in delirious circles, my happiness so blinding and so complete that it nearly steals my breath.

“But nothing,” he says, raising his hand to cup my cheek gently. “I’ve taken care of everything. All I wanted was to give you one perfect day. And I hope it will be.”

Through the haze of my elation, I stare at this wonderful man who tore his way into my heart. “I can’t imagine a day, a moment more perfect than this one.”

Alec brings my diamond-encircled finger to his mouth. As his lips brush my skin, I see one brow rise over the back of my hand.

“Let me see what I can do to change your mind.”

My insides burst into flame as Alec pulls me roughly toward him, crushing me against him and covering my mouth with his own. And, true to his word, he proceeds to make this day, this night, this moment even more perfect than I could’ve imagined.

And now, thanks to Alec, I can imagine anything.

THE END