Knight and Day

Chapter Thirty-Three

Sometimes, very rarely, there are perfect days in our lives. Sometimes they happen unexpectedly, they start out normal and then something happens to make them burn brightly in our memories forever. And sometimes they happen because there’s no way they could be anything but perfect, because they are so jammed full of special moments that thinking back over them warms our hearts even on the coldest of days.

Lucien and Sophie’s wedding was always going to be one of those days.

The afternoon sky seemed a little bluer and the sun a little brighter to Sophie as she stepped out of the villa with Kara and Tilly at her side. She’d grinned with delight as she’d dressed her daughter in her meltingly gorgeous white cotton bridesmaid dress, every inch her daddy’s little girl with her blonde locks and his blue steel eyes.

Sophie saw in Tilly the child that Lucien must have been, precocious and funny, as happy to run in the arctic snow as she was to play on an Ibizan beach. Already well travelled, Tilly was destined to grow up a cosmopolitan young woman with the world at her feet. Sophie pitied her boyfriends in decades to come; it was hard to imagine a more formidably protective father than Lucien. She imagined the boys quailing under his gaze. He was protective of all of them. Of Sophie, and Tilly, and of the unborn child who had already begun to weave its gossamer thread into the fabric of their family.

She turned as Kara squeezed her elbow, beautiful beside her in a bias cut, calf length nude pink dress that suited her sun-kissed complexion perfectly.

“Time to go,” Kara said, propelling her gently forward towards the waiting car.

“I know,” Sophie said softly, breathing in the scent of the wild flowers she held, a larger version of the corsage on Kara’s wrist and the tiny posy clutched in Tilly’s hand. She kissed her daughter’s apple cheek as Esther, her nanny, appeared and scooped her into her arms to go and secure her in the car.

Sophie stilled on the steps and turned to Kara.

“Don’t you dare start crying,” Kara warned. “Lucien is expecting radiant, not the bride of Dracula. I’m not bringing any fresh mascara.”

“I’m not going to cry,” Sophie said. “Not yet, anyway.”

She looked out beyond the villa at the lush Ibizan landscape. “This place has been good to all of us, hasn’t it?”

Kara nodded, suddenly nostalgic even though the summer wasn’t quite at its end. The day was heavy with portentous, magical romance, of lifetime love being sealed with a promise, and of precious new love being acknowledged for the first time.

Despite her stern warning to Sophie, tears lodged in her own throat and she resolutely swallowed them down.

“Come on, lady. We need to get you to the beach on time.”

Dylan drove Lucien to the secluded private cove in Kara’s red Mustang, roof down, shades on, a whole lot of handsome that turned the head of every woman they passed along the way.

Lucien’s perfectly tailored black-blue suit followed close against the lines of his body, his open necked white shirt an elegant contrast with his golden skin. He epitomised laid-back glamour in the way only a beautiful, self assured man can.

At the wheel, Dylan was a different kind of sexy. A little more subtle maybe, a little less intense, yet no less capable of commanding any room he walked into. They made a formidable duo as Dylan parked the car at the top of the cove, flicking his phone onto silent when it buzzed for the third time since they’d set out. He wasn’t in work mode today.

“I’m guessing there’s no need to say it’s not too late to back out,” he said with a grin, getting out of the car and running his hand over his inside pocket for the tenth time since that morning. Yes, the rings were still there. “You’d have to be one crazy fool to not marry someone like Sophie.”

Lucien rested against the side of the car, his arms crossed lightly over his chest. His tone was thoughtful.

“I used to think you’d have to be a crazy fool to marry anyone.”

Dylan looked out across the still, blue sea, keeping his personal feelings towards marriage firmly out of the conversation.

“So what changed?”

Lucien shrugged. “I still think everyone else is a crazy fool to do it.”

“But not you?”

“Hell, yeah. I’m as much of a crazy fool for Sophie as the next guy. Whatever love is, it’s what I have with her.”

Around them, the sounds of nature filled the quiet air. The chirp of crickets, the light breeze moving through the leaves, the distant lap of the Mediterranean.

“From where I’m standing, that makes you lucky, not crazy.”

“Crazy and lucky. I can live with that.”

The cherry red Mustang was conspicuous when the car bearing Sophie and Kara eased into the tiny clearing that served as the beach car park.

“Looks like you haven’t been stood up at the altar,” Kara said lightly, glad to be able to be flippant about a subject that a few months previously would have wounded her deeply. As they stepped onto the sand, she straightened Sophie’s train and made last minute adjustments to her artfully romantic up-do, checking that the tiny fresh flowers she’d pinned in the back of it still looked perfect.

A single diamond on a golden trace chain glittered at Sophie’s throat, a wedding gift from Lucien. The bracelet around her wrist was her only other jewellery, another gift from Lucien, given to her back when he hadn’t known how to express his love in words. He’d shown her instead by entrusting his mother’s bracelet into her care, one of his most treasured possessions, and now one of hers.

A slow, steady bloom of joy unfurled inside Sophie’s chest as she and Kara picked their way along the path towards the beach, Tilly scampering ahead of them.

The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky, casting the whole scene peachy gold. The tiny, private cove provided the perfect, intimate setting for this most special of days, with its sugar-white sands and a tiny pavilion restaurant nestled at the edge. The soft, joyful sound of steel drum music floated on the air as Kara caught up with Tilly and took her hand. She shook it off and set off purposefully across the deeper sand, wobbly and ungainly but determined, making Sophie and Kara laugh as they clutched each other’s forearms to kick their shoes off.

In the distance, a raffia pergola stood close to the sea’s edge, fresh island flowers wound around its struts.

Inside it were three figures. The wedding celebrant. Dylan.

And Lucien.

Sophie stopped for a second and caught her breath as she looked at him, so distinctive even from a distance. He turned at the sound of Tilly running towards him, breaking into a huge smile and hunkering down with his arms out towards the little girl. Sophie watched him swing her up into his arms, and whoosh, her heart burst wide with love for them both. Kara gripped her hand tight.

“I hope I have what you have one day, Sophie.”

Sophie hugged her quickly. “You will, Kara.”

Sophie saw Dylan turn and raise his hand in greeting across the beach.

“You might just have found it already.”