Page 169 of When Hearts Surrender

“Belle,” I wipe the tears on her face, “she knew. Whether it was back then and that’s why you had those dreams or centuries later, but she finally knew.”

Her face crumbles and tears fall down her cheeks again, sobs tearing out of her lungs.

“I love you so much.” I hold her in my arms. A heady warmth sweeps through my body. The chains of the curse binding my family are broken. The deaths are solved.

We are finally free.

I hug her closer, tighter against me.I’ll never let go. Not again.

Minutes pass by as we reel from the revelations, finally getting the answers we’ve been searching for all our lives.

“I think my soul recognized yours the moment we met, and I’m the lucky man who gets to fall in love with you all over again,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to her hair.

A breeze blows by, bringing a scent of wildflowers—faint, a whisper of spring around the corner. The season of hope and new beginnings.

My voice leaves me as she flips to the next page of the journal, and what I see there has my heart thudding in a righteous rhythm.

A sketch—a dark silhouette of a woman wearing a locket, the jewelry rendered in the most intricate details. It’s the same locket around Belle’s neck. An inscription is dotted with watermarks. Tears, if I had to guess:

Once lost but destined to be found. My love for you transcends time and death.

Belle’s eyes widen and I reach for the locket on her chest, the one I knew belonged around her neck the moment I laid eyes on the photo. Gently, I open it.

Images of the past meld with the present, of my fingers tracing the words when they were newly carved and again when I put the locket around Belle’s neck centuries later.

To E,

Upon you, my dearest, my love rests for eternity and beyond, for anything less would be insufferable.

Your servant,

S

To Emma from her Silas, star-crossed lovers.

My heart churns and flutters as I stare at my wife, the woman I’ve been waiting for my entire life…and quite possibly longer, even if everything transcendslogic and common sense.

I’ve loved her since before I can remember. Every moment with her just adds to the tapestry we’ve been weaving together since the dawn of time.

“Belle,” I whisper, my hand gently clasping her nape.

“Maxwell.” She looks up, her luscious lips parted, a pink swath blooming on her face. She looks like a wildflower in the snow. The beginning of spring.

Slowly, I lean down, watching her eyes flutter shut, and press my forehead against hers.

I breathe her in.

Her scent. Her warmth. Her vitality.

The wind caresses our bodies—a lover’s embrace, and I angle Belle’s face toward mine. My nose grazes her cheek, then to the hollow where her ear meets her neck, and every nerve ending inside me is on fire.

Burning for this woman in my arms.

Unable to withstand it any longer, I press kisses to her soft skin as I make my way back up to her lips.

A thousand kisses for all the years we were apart.

A thousand kisses for all the tears she had shed for me.

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