Page 233 of Sinful Desires
Because my greatest desire was no longer just freedom or fame or success.
It was this.
To live. Fully.
Forever, in his arms.
And this wild, trembling, lavender-soaked love story was ours.
And ours only.
Epilogue
“Happiness is only real when shared.”
?Jon Krakauer
Théo
Five years later
“How do I look?”
I let the corner of my mouth lift as I straightened the knot of his tie. “Perfect,Papa.”
His laugh was soft, brittle.
“Let’s not keep them waiting,” I added, gripping the handles of his wheelchair. “You know how my wife gets when I’m late.”
We rolled through the corridors of the château, past stone archways and marble floors worn down by centuries of ghosts. Portraits lined the walls, each LeRoy watching from their frames with sharp, pale-grey eyes.
Men who had built empires. Men who had destroyed them.
Their stares followed us, cold and familiar.
From the gardens, I could already hear the music. Laughter. Glasses clinking.
“Scarlett is just like your mother,” he said, his voice low. “Impatient as hell. Beautiful beyond sense.” His hands curled tighter around the arms of the chair. “Guess you followed my path after all, son.”
Marc LeRoy was a fighter.
After he’d miraculously woken up from his fourteen-year coma, it had taken a few months before he could speak. Then came physical therapy. Long, brutal months of gait training, sweat, silence, and pain.
His right leg remained numb, forever stiff, but he pushed. He walked with crutches now, resting in his wheelchair only when the pain became too much.
He once told me he’d recognized my voice in the fog. That somewhere in all that blackness, he’d heard me. He’d tried to reach it. Tried to swim to it.
And then, he had opened his eyes.
It’d been five years. And somehow, he was stronger than ever.
I’d asked for his forgiveness again and again. And I always would.
And each time, with tears in his eyes, he would pull me into his arms.
He even went back to work a year ago. Said he felt more alive than he ever had. Said he wanted to make up for all the years he lost.
And we do.
