Page 59 of His Until Christmas

I’m in his arms, being kissed like he hasn’t seen me in forever, and everything comes right.

It’s that easy.

Boss or not, he’s the right man for me.

He murmurs a single word that says so much about our future. “Same.” His breath across my ear doesn’t only light nerve endings. I’m warmed to the core by him adding, “Wherever, Jack. However.” His kiss is salty. Sweet. Perfectly Reece, like his next promise. “I love you, so we’ll figure it out together.”

We kiss again, and part of me remembers Gramps calling romance mushy. I can’t help swooning like Gran pretended to do for rom-com heroes. My real-life version breaks off to inhale all the way down to his ankles, harbour lights illuminating tiredness. And care. “You okay?”

I am. Or I will be. I walk with him and channel one of my housemates—I can’t stop talking, telling Reece about so much more than Arthur’s last-minute need for tinsel. I also share about Gran, and how things have to be different, going forward. “For both of us.”

He nods, his arm heavy around me as we head towards pub windows that speckle cobbles with red, gold, and green light. That arm across my shoulders feels like shelter. I want to be the same for him, so I stop him before we reach the door and echo what he once offered in a starry courtyard. “Want to lead?”

I mean lead in a conversation that has been a long time coming, and that I’m pretty sure any mother who raised sons with huge hearts will be open to hearing. I’m also pretty sure the next time Reece gets into a boat, it will be with totes full of tinsel, but music starts, and Reece takes me up on my offer.

He opens his arms for me, and I’m turned in circles under stars that glitter seven days after I typedlifeto him, so I guess Gran was right. It can only take a week for wishes to come true for some lucky people.

Talking can wait.

So can tinsel and party planning.

Right now, we’re busy getting all of our Christmas wishes.

EPILOGUE

One year later.

REECE

Jack’s second Christmas party for the foundation out-glitters his first by miles.

By miles?

I’m pretty sure this island must be visible from the moon now Jack’s gone all out to make it festive. Fuck knows how he found the time to plan this partyandprepare to score his dream job, but interview tomorrow or not, the castle sparkles even more brightly tonight than when American tourists shared a dinner with the duke last December.

Tonight’s party is way bigger, and I’d thank Jack for lifting that fundraising weight from my shoulders if I could find him.

I need to, and not only to say thank you. After the glimpse I just caught of him on the red carpet on the harbour, an urgent need to track him down prickles at me.

Where is he?

I hunt, following strings of fairy lights that used to tangle me and Mum each Christmas season. Tonight, they don’t show me where Jack is, but they do light a granite stronghold, which pretty much sums up my mother. She’s even stronger than this castle, and it’s Mum who glows almost as brightly as Jack as soon as I mention his name to her.

“Have I seen Jack?” She stops adjusting tinsel around a doorway to shake her head. “Nope. Not since the party started.” A few steps bring us to a skinny arrow-slit of a window, where she points towards the yacht Jack chartered. “He was greeting guests as they got off theAphrodite. Have you checked the harbour for him?”

She won’t let me pass without a hug, but that’s okay. It gives me a chance to hug her back even harder. Her kiss to my cheek comes with a stern order. “You still planning on giving him his Christmas presents early?”

I pat the pocket of my borrowed dinner jacket on the way past. “I am,” I promise before resuming my search, but if Jack was at the harbour, now he’s nowhere in sight between the water and where Heligans have raised a portcullis to let in guests. Bankers sip champagne from crystal flutes there, glasses I saw Jack polish earlier with the kind of determination that always comes with his tongue making an appearance. Now neither he nor his tongue is in sight, and a quick check of the castle kitchen doesn’t help me find him either.

“Carole, have you seen Jack?”

Jack’s gran looks up from a list they’ve worked on all year together, first at her home, then on short London visits which have gradually extended. Her eyes sparkle so much more tonight than when I first met her. She’s in her organisational element, which is probably genetic and always comes with teasing, like now.

“Jack? No, I haven’t seen him since I caught you two cuddling over there.”

She points at a refrigerator covered in practice Post-its for Jack’s interview tomorrow, then she adjusts a silk scarf dotted with London sights we’re slowly but surely exploring together. That fabric around her throat is deceptive. It looks delicate but is actually resilient. It’s also as blue as her eyes, which twinkle.

“That was only fifteen minutes ago, Reece. Do you need another cuddle from him already?” She murmursso mushythe same way Jack muttersvery satisfyingwhenever he solves foundation problems, but right now I’m in a hurry to solve a problem for him, so I leave the kitchen behind and take stone steps up two at a time to reach the highest point of this castle.

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