Page 57 of Vicious Hearts

Her eyes widen in surprise, then soften as she looks at me with a tenderness I’ve never seen from her. Nina tends to veer on the side of bossy older sister when life changing situations arise.

“Does he know?”

I shake my head and bite my lip. I haven’t discussed it with him. He didn’t ask me to come with him. Not outright. But I know he stayed this long in Seattle hoping we could pick up where we left off. He said as much when we were in Guatemala and he told me we would never be over. And the fact that he still hasn’t left and keeps intruding on my life. He’s never going to go away. I don’t think I want him to.

“It’s so cute the way you two are in love but choose to dance around each other,” she says, clapping her hands together like a good romantic.

“Who said anything about love?”

“You did,” she points out. “Right then – when you told me you were going to be with Caleph. People don’t make that sort of a leap unless they’re in love.”

* * *

For the firsttime in my life, I feel like I’m in control of my life. And it feels good.

I enlist Attila’s help and order an Uber to take me to the private airstrip. I have precious little minutes to spare before Caleph’s jet takes off. They’ve just removed the stairs and closed the doors when my Uber comes to a stop on the tarmac. The jet is starting to do a slow crawl down the runway. I take out my phone and call him, hoping against hope that he hasn’t switched his phone off yet.

“Ariadne.”

The way he speaks my name into the phone makes my heart gallop with longing and desire.

“Do you have room for one more on the plane?” I ask.

There is a pause on his side of the phone as I wait. Mere seconds pass before the jet stops moving and the door falls open. Caleph is standing there, his head bent, looking out at me with an intensity that tells me he’s going to shred me to pieces once he gets his hands on me. It was never a matter of if, but when, I’d run back into his arms. He lifts the phone to his ear and breathes heavily.

“Don’t move.”

When the metal platform is pushed against the door, I watch as Caleph disembarks slowly and walks toward me. He takes his time, like he has all the time in the world, certain in the knowledge that he's not going anywhere without me.

He’s wearing my favorite navy suit with a white shirt and no tie. He is the most handsome man I’ve ever met, and if it were at all possible, he’s even more dashing than he was the day I met him.

He stops a few steps away from me, his gaze assessing, before he closes the space between us and lifts a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.

“I thought you’d never get here,” he says.

“I couldn’t let you leave without me.”

“And what if I’d already left?”

“I would’ve caught the next plane to be with you.”

53

CALEPH

I’d delayed the flight as long as possible, in the hope that she would have a change of heart and call. I had hoped that she would realize what I now understood; that we were tethered to each other in a way that most people waste a lifetime dreaming of. But she hadn’t called, and it had seemed the last time we met that she had closed the door on the possibility of us. That she was reopening that door was a welcome surprise, although I had still held hope til the last moment.

As the jet door swings open, my heart races with anticipation. And then I see her, standing there on the tarmac, and suddenly everything clicks into place. All the noise and distractions of my past fade away as she becomes my present and my future. In this moment, it feels like we have come full circle, our destinies intertwined forever. Nothing else matters but this moment and the eternity we will spend together.

All that exists is her, standing on the tarmac, her hair blowing gently in the breeze, a smile on her face that lights up the darkest corners of my wretched soul. In my eyes, she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, a fragile flower that stumbled into my fractured life at the most unexpected time. How easily we could’ve ended differently, considering our history. How ironic that it was the twisted hand of fate that threw us together and caused our hearts to collide. I don’t know how we’ll navigate our lives together moving forward; I’ve never had a relationship and I’ve never wanted to have one withanywoman. Until Ariadne. But this is what I do know… my life begins and ends with her. And her alone.

Our eyes lock as I step slowly onto the tarmac, and as I make my way towards her, the world falls away until all that remains is us. My measured steps are slow and deliberate, like I have all the time in the world. When I lift a palm to her cheek, she curls into it and closes her eyes momentarily; this is where she’s meant to be. With me. Only me.

I never want to think about her as being a part of my past. She’s my here and now and my forever more. Yet I want more. It’s not enough that we’re just together. I want more. I want all of her. I want to bind her to me in a way which ensures she’s mine for the rest of her life. I want all her todays and all her tomorrows. I want the guarantee of always having her by my side, sealed to me, with me. I want her to be the mother of my children, and I want her to be my wife.

“Marry me.”

The words slip from between my lips without any hesitation. Her breath catches somewhere between her throat and her mind, and she teeters in surprise. No words come when she opens her mouth to speak. My hand moves up to her face, caressing her lightly, pushing back a strand of hair the salty breeze seems fond of playing with.

---