AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You didn’t,” she whispered. “If anything, it was me doing the advantage-taking.”
“Perhaps I should have told him that,” Will pretended to ponder, earning a look of shame from Lilah. “I’m kidding!” He put his hand on her knee. “I have no doubt that he would have preferred you to make a more suitable match. Not because he wants you to garner greater political importance. But because he thinks I’m not … right for you.”
“How can he think that? You are perfect for me. You are my match in every way. He talks to me of fate and destiny, and how we must meet ours. Doesn’t he realize that I met my fate the night he sent you to me?”
Will was very still. He stared at her with a dawning sense of wonder. But Lilah was still talking, “He found his bride! He found his love. And yet he doubts my ability to do the same?”
“Initially, perhaps,” he said, when words finally came into his mind. “But Abigail was very helpful in talking him around.”
Lilah’s smile was unconscious. Her sister-in-law would have argued Lilah’s case for her. Of course she would have! Just as Lilah had argued for Abi, when Kiral had been behaving in a pig-headed and stubborn manner.
“I should have told him,” Lilah said softly. “You should never have had to do that.”
Will shook his head. “I don’t care about that. I care only about what happens next.”
She nodded slowly. “And what happens next?”
His smile took her breath away. “We’re going to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Life. This. No more running. No excuses.”
She smiled back at him, her tummy lurching with anticipation. She was on the edge of a cliff, but if she stepped off it, she wouldn’t fall. No. She would fly. Will was her wings and he would carry her anywhere she wanted to go. “No more running.”
“Unless it’s down an aisle, straight into my arms.”
She laughed softly. “Will Wright, was that really a proposal?”
He looked at her gravely and shook his head. “Not yet.”
But two days later, in the cabin they’d first fallen in love, Will knelt before Lilah and held her hand in his. “I have no kingdom and no fortune. I am here before you with only my heart to offer you; my true heart. But if you agree to marry me, Jalilah Mazroui, I will serve you and worship you for all time. And you will always, forever, have my heart in your hands.”
Lilah, in the midst of zipping out of the snow-suit, stared at him in completely shock. “That’s my proposal?” She mumbled, her cheeks pink and her eyes huge.
“Marry me,” he nodded, gripping her hands in his and lifting them to his mouth. He kissed them with gentle hope. “Please.”
She crouched down in front of him so they were at eye-level. “You really, truly want to marry me? Knowing what my life is like? What your life would be like?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him in bemusement and finally, she nodded. “I have not a single doubt then that we should do this.”
“And soon,” he grinned, kissing her with all the love that burned through his heart. “And forever.”
EPILOGUE
In the end, their wedding was far more elaborate and
grandiose than either would have wished. While Kiral was willing to dispense with many of the protocols Lilah had, at one time believed essential, the formality of their marriage was not one he could sacrifice.
“It’s a sign of respect. To one another and to our people and traditions.”
And he’d been right. Marrying as they had, in a ceremony that lasted all afternoon and evening, surrounded by hundreds of guests including their loved ones and well-wishers, had started their marriage with the air of magic and wonder that it deserved. Harry had been a key guest, sitting up front, beaming at them both. Lilah had seen him dab at his eyes throughout the processing and all she’d wanted was to halt the ceremony and pull him into a big bear hug.
His heart was enormous, and he’d welcomed her into it.
Lilah didn’t want to replace Maddie.
