Page 81 of Beltane

My heart dropped to my ankles.

Down at the end of the aisle stood my wife, all five-foot-seven inches of her in Jimmy Choos and a power suit. Her wild ginger hair hung around her head in a frayed mess, indicating how rushed she’d been to get here. She must have come right from the press conference. Behind her, Carter stood with hope glowing in his eyes, and on either side of him were two bodyguards that must have helped her get this far.

They’d come for me.

“Miriam Stuart, duchess of Aberdeen…I forbid you to marry anyone else.” Ivy stalked forward, her chin held high, rendering all the journalists and family in attendance speechless. My bodyguards moved toward her, Reginald’s and Gran’s joining in.

“What is the meaning of this?” Gran snapped.

“Fucking finally,” Edward said, rolling his eyes.

“Grab her!” one guard shouted while one of Ivy’s guards joined in with, “Touch her, and I’ll snap your neck, buddy.”

“Stop,” I said, the desperate word shoving out of some place deep in my gut. “Just…stop.”

All bodies turned toward me, the guards pausing to see what I would do.

“Let her through.” I nodded, tears burning the corners of my eyes as I dropped Reginald’s hand and turned to face her.

“My love?” Reginald said. “Miriam? Do you know these people?”

I ignored him in favor of watching my wife move through the crowd toward me like some kind of Amazonian queen come to rescue her princess. She’d never been more beautiful, and I realized I’d never been more in love with her.

“Miri,” she said when she reached me, running the backs of her fingers down my cheek in a tender caress. Her steel eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and her voice coated my skin in velvet, reminding me of all the times she’d whispered it in the throes of lovemaking. “You can’t do this. You know you can’t.”

I took a deep breath, fighting the sob that threatened to tear out of my throat.

“I love you,” she continued. “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, and now the whole world knows.”

“Miriam,” Gran tried to cut in. “This is preposterous, and hardly the place.”

I ignored that, too, tuning it all out. She’d come for me, as she promised she would all those years ago. And that ache inside, the place where my heart once occupied, gave a half-hearted pulse. I missed Lex, I truly did. But was my grief worth separating myself from the only people who had ever truly loved me? Or was I rash in assuming we couldn’t grieve together, that we couldn’tlovetogether? Ivy and Carter’s adoration poured into me like an avalanche, and I let it take me. I let her have me. Iwantedher to have me, even if it meant suffering through losing Lex together.

“Miri, please come home,” Ivy said, cupping my face and pressing her forehead to mine. “I’ll do whatever you want, be whatever you want. I’ll marry you if that’s what it takes.”

Visions of walking down the aisle to Ivy dressed in a white suit echoed through my mind, and my stomach lurched. I had never considered the possibility that she and I could go public, that it wouldn’t be her and Lex or her and Carter…but her and me. Us. All of us.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” I whispered, clenching my eyes shut as tears streaked down my cheeks.

“I know,” Ivy said. “I know, it’s a PR nightmare, but…I don’t care.” She pulled back so she could look down at me and wipe the tears away, gentleness and determination radiating out of her stare. “I want you, Miri. I want the dream Lex told us about. Don’t you want it, too?”

The mention of our former lover split me right down the middle, cracking open my bleeding soul. Ididwant that with a desperation I could barely describe. Sobs raced up the back of my throat, squeezing my lungs.

“After all we did,” she went on. “After all we’ve done for them, don’t we deserve a choice? Don’t we get a say in our own lives?”

I couldn’t deny her, not anymore. The thought of rejecting Ivy publicly and returning to my arranged marriage made me want to curl up into a ball and weep. But what she described, running away and living our lives together despite the public scrutiny, well, that made me weightless.

Why shouldn’t I have it? I’d suffered at the hands of a fairy king. I’d defeated him with his own magic. I’d sacrificed my prince of darkness for this realm.

I’d been a stupid, stupid girl. Again.

“Okay,” I finally said, the word coming out in a whisper.

She smiled the most radiant grin and leaned in to kiss me, right there in front of God, my grandparents, and the rest of the world. Unable to resist her, I deepened the kiss while most of the audience gasped or applauded. When we broke away, I caught the melting metal in her eyes, burning affection, just for me. Then she grabbed my hand and raced down the aisle to the protests of the king and queen of England and the old creep I’d been engaged to.

“Miriam, you can’t do this!” Gran shouted. “Miriam, stop this instant!”

But we didn’t. I jumped into Carter’s arms, pressing my mouth to his in a blatant display of possession and love.

---