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“You’re so young,” Margaret said pensively. “Much younger than I pictured you.”

My shoulders straightened. “I’m twenty-five.”

“That’s some serious age gap between you two,” she said, her eyes darting between her brother and me.

“No less than ours,” Luca added.

Margaret elbowed him.

“You’re supposed to keep that to yourself, husband,” Margaret said, then addressed me. “He’s trouble.”

Luca looked wounded. “You married me.”

“I was young.”

“You were twenty-five.”

“I rest my case.” Margaret smiled triumphantly.

“Good thing you love me and gave me many children,” Luca teased, pulling her closer to him.

“Exactly,” Margaret replied back. “I’m trying to warn Sienna.”

Tyran’s jaw tightened. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am. That’s why I’m warning her.”

I burst out laughing. “Thanks for the warning, Margaret,” I said, smiling. “But I’m still marrying Tyran.”

Blackmail or not.

Before I could let that revelation sink in, I heard a familiar voice from somewhere beyond the kitchen.

Then another. And another.

My smile froze, and for one suspended second, I couldn’t breathe.

My heart slammed against my ribs so violently it hurt, the sound of my pulse roaring in my ears.

They are here.

My family was here.

After five years of wondering if I would ever see them again, after five years of missing them so fiercely that sometimes it felt like an ache carved straight into my bones, they were here.

I bolted from the kitchen.

I barely registered the hallway beneath my feet or someone calling my name behind me. I couldn’t stop, because every step carried me closer to the people I had spent five years longing for.

Then I reached the foyer and stopped. My feet refused to move another inch as I stared at all those familiar—more mature, older, beautiful—faces.

I was ten feet away, close enough to reach for them. Close enough to hug them.

Yet somehow it felt like there were planets separating us.

THIRTY-FIVE

SIENNA