Thank fuck, and thank the lord, they managed to get Lucian’s breathing steady before we pulled up at the hospital, screeching to a halt outside the emergency entrance.
I waited for him through a long night.
Francesca rushed in to give me a hug and hold me tight. I waited until the morning next to the people who’d become our friends, grateful for the true support I felt from them with every breath.
And then, finally, when the sun was bright outside and London was stirring to life for another day, the doctor arrived to tell me Lucian Morelli was done with surgery, and that he too was stirring with life for another day.
Lucian Morelli was going to make it.
My fiancé was going to survive.
This wasn’t a tragedy, after all. It wasn’t a love story the way the world understood them. He was my monster, and I was his doll, and we would live together forever.
Epilogue
Lucian, one year later
It’s a beautiful thing, having such ultimate power over somebody so powerful. Enough evidence to destroy them if they so much as step a threatening foot onto your turf.
My father accepted my engagement to Elaine Constantine, realizing it wasn’t worth the risk or the fight. Elaine and I had enjoyed our engagement very happily in our Morelli-Constantine manor in Bishop’s Landing.
I was surprisingly nervous as the day began, waking up alone in bed with a strange rush of flutters in my stomach, still scarred after all these months from taking the bullet. Leo, Tiernan, and Carter were downstairs in the breakfast room, still looking groggy from my bachelor party as they guzzled down black coffee. Devon was telling them about his insurance empire when I joined them. All three of them let out a mocking cheer as I sat myself down at the breakfast table, giving them a smirk that matched my mood. A happy one.
“Here comes the groom,” Carter said, reaching over to punch me in the arm. “Never thought I’d see you getting hitched. Never thought it would be to a Constantine.”
“There must be something in the water,” Leo said, his voice dry. Over the past year I’d learned that he’d fallen for his own Constantine. She’d attend the wedding with him.
“Elaine is worth it,” I said, my voice sober.
Devon nodded. “My wife absolutely adores her. Has since the moment they met.”
We still had a few hours before the ceremony. The guys started on the whisky as soon as we were dressed up ready for the service. Tiernan was more gruff than the other brothers, but even he had shown up to support me. It touched me more than I thought it would.
We got ready together, a photographer there to document the occasion. Surreal as fuck.
The caterers and wedding planners had already been at work on the manor for days. It looked even more incredibly grand than I’d expected as we set off in the limo for the church, and it should. I’d invested the very best into the very best celebration life could offer.
The church only had a few guests in their seats when the four of us arrived and made our way inside. My brothers took their positions at the entrance, ushers standing proud, and I gave them a thankful nod as I left them to their duties.
It was Devon I’d chosen to be my best man, his place feeling very natural at my side as we stepped into the front pew. My brothers were there next to him, and my sisters in the pews.
“I’m weirdly fucking nervous,” I confessed to Devon, and he laughed.
“Never thought I’d see you nervous, Lucian. It’s a damn novelty.”
The nerves only heightened as the benches filled up with associates, as well as some of my old business acquaintances who’d flown in.
My family sat in the front rows of the groom’s side. My mother, looking severe with her begrudging approval of my bride.
Bryant Morelli had been cleared of the worst of it when it was revealed that Elliot had masterminded the plot to kill us. We were a bloodthirsty family, when it came down to it, but I was actually glad that my father hadn’t done it. It hadn’t been the worst betrayal.
Now the company was mine, and he was only a figurehead over the family.
Elaine’s friends were filling up her side of the aisle just as mine were filling up mine. I recognized many of them from local events she’d been attending, all of them giving me a wave as they saw me standing there.
Yes, the room was most certainly filling up.
It was almost full when I saw them. Elaine’s sisters. Vivian and Tinsley, looking spectacular in pastel gowns. My heart lurched, thumping like a fucking train, hardly daring to believe they’d shown up for the sister who’d seemingly betrayed their family name. My heart thumped even harder when I saw Harriet, her cousin, stepping in to join them. The cousin that Elaine had cried about missing when we were in London, desperate to see again.
And there was Winston Constantine, along with his new bride. The patriarch of the Constantine family, came to show his support of the union.
Still, my thumping heart had nothing on the fucking speed it thumped when Caroline Constantine, Elaine’s mother, came into view and took a seat alongside them. My eyes met hers, staring hard in disbelief. Total, utter disbelief.
I expected nothing but hatred on her face as she stared at me, but it wasn’t there. There was nothing but…grace. Grace and…thanks, and holy fuck I felt it. Jesus Christ above, she offered her imperial approval with a small nod of her head.
I’d have stepped right on over to begin dialogue with her if the harpist hadn’t started up the beautiful music for the bride’s entry. My whole body heated up in the most incredible of ways as I strained to get sight of the church entrance, because even now, after months of imagining it, I couldn’t quite believe it. I couldn’t believe my love, Elaine, was walking up the aisle.
She’d taken my breath away countless times since the very first moment I’d laid eyes on her, all the way back at Tinsley’s ball, but my breath was ripped right from my chest as I saw her there, nervous, her blonde curls swept up behind her, and her white veil positioned so perfectly underneath her tiara. White, because she was pure. Regardless of the sex. Regardless of her history. She was pure in every way that counted.
Her dress was the most intensely beautiful thing I’d ever seen on her. It framed her figure in such a way that would burn itself into my heart forever, flowing around her feet in the most divine of ways with every step.
Elaine was walking up the aisle. To me. My love was walking up the aisle.
Every step was getting closer.
Every step had my whole soul desperate, insane.
It was the guy who utterly despised me that was standing next to her with his arm in hers, all set to give her away. The best friend she’d known since she was a teenager, who I’d knocked out cold when I was hunting her down a year ago. Not exactly the best of introductions to your future wife’s bestie, but it was what it was.
As it turned out, Tristan wasn’t glaring at me when he delivered her to my side. He managed a smile, and I managed the briefest of smiles back. Her bridesmaids, Francesca, Raven and Cara were grinning bright as they took their seats, but I barely saw them. My eyes were fixed all on Elaine. She was shaking like a leaf as she joined me at the head of the aisle, her beautiful blue eyes, pools of perfect love.
“I have no words,” I whispered to her. “None that could do you justice right now.”