Twins for the Mafia Heir (The Warwicks #3)

Epilogue

Emma: One Year Later

The crowd in the church is a small one, but it’s a friendlier sight than a gloomy drawing room manned by a single priest and some paperwork. There aren’t huge flower arrangements or banners or even a color scheme. Still, this is more than I ever dreamed my wedding would be like.

Paul walks me down the aisle. His eyes haven’t been dry all morning, but he manages to keep himself together long enough to get me to the altar. When he hugs me at the foot of the shallow steps, I bury my face in his shoulder, more grateful than I can ever say, not just for today, but for his love and guidance since the day we met. He’s been more of a father to me in the short time I’ve known him than mine ever was.

Then I just have to climb up three steps, and I’m face to face with my husband- my groom- Achilles Ashwood. The irony of being handed off to my groom by the man my groom once shot in the arm isn’t lost on me, but neither of the men hold grudges against each other. In fact, Achilles holds nothing but respect for Paul now, especially after I shared my real past with him.

My groom has never been more beautiful than he is now, dressed in a white suit with black lapels, a burgundy rose tucked into his breast pocket. The most gorgeous part of Achilles, of course, is his smile, bright and uninhibited and awakened just for me. He’s been through so much misery in his life, but when he looks at me, I know he’s found the strength to begin again.

I hand my little bouquet to my maid of honor, Raleigh, who’s beaming from ear to ear and looks stunning in a little green dress that matches her eyes. I hope that everyone in the church appreciates the humor of having the woman whose name I stole for a month, the name Achilles first knew me by, standing on the dais but not being the bride.

Raleigh certainly does. She laughed about it during our entire bar-hopping extravaganza last night.

The priest begins his speech, but I know this song and dance and don’t bother to listen. I’m too busy smiling at my past and future husband, and all the friends who loved me enough to come join me on this big day. Paul is sitting down next to Iris, who shocks me by looking a little misty-eyed herself. Clara and Thomas Warwick are here, along with Derrick Lindman and baby Roman Lindman. The Ashwoods who helped liberate us from Wesley Hall have all turned out in their best looks too, including Skylar Ashwood, who ended up making a full recovery.

And looking like a fairy tale princess in her little pink dress, Sidony sits in the front row with a blinding smile and eyes as wide as dinner plates.

Beside her, sleeping soundly through this entire affair, are her new baby brothers, Simon and Jamie Ashwood, the most beautiful and healthy twins I could ever hope for.

At first, Achilles and I had been eager to be officially married. But I didn’t want to make the mistake of taking for granted all the people who cared about me a second time. Raleigh and Paul, Iris, and even Thomas had worried for me while I was gone, had even been ready to come rescue me. I wanted them here to celebrate the happy ending of it all, and that would take a little more pre-planning than our drawing room wedding the first time around. And once schedules started to clash and my morning sickness ramped up, we decided it would be better to wait until after our babies were born to nail everything down.

If I hadn’t had Achilles and Sidony at my side every moment supporting me, I don’t know how I would have made it through. Sidony helped me pick out extra baby clothes for her new siblings, Achilles had one of the rooms in Ashwood House renovated into a gorgeous nursery that he surprised me with, and the Lindmans even flew out to stay with us so Raleigh could be with me for the birth of my babies.

When I held their two tiny bodies in my arms, despite all the pain and fatigue, I wept with a happiness brighter than any I’d ever felt before.

The priest prompts us to exchange rings, and Achilles’s best man, his cousin Harper, holds out the two bands for us. He’s doing the job of the one person missing from this perfect moment- Piers, who disappeared the day Achilles put Fantasia on a plane out of London, and who hasn’t returned since.

Curious.

We’re still wearing our first set of wedding rings, our matching moss agate rings that we’ve never removed. We didn’t want to replace them, since for us they symbolize all we’ve been through together, but reusing them for this ceremony didn’t feel right either. So we picked out a second set of rings, two bands of yellow gold engraved with a braid pattern, a symbol of our fresh start.

Achilles slips my ring onto my finger, and I put his ring onto his, a year to the day after we exchanged our rings for the very first time in that little shop in Edinburgh. The priest prompts us, and Achilles lifts me off my feet and kisses me. Our little audience cheers, but he’s all I know.

Two days later, Achilles, Sidony, the twins, and I are sprawled on the beach of Jost Van Dyke, the Caribbean sun warming our skin. Despite the tropical weather of our family honeymoon, we didn’t forget that today is Christmas. The entire morning was spent opening a mountain of presents in our private beachside bungalow, which included toys and books and dresses for Sidony, and about a thousand new clothes for Simon and Jamie, who are already growing too fast.

While I help Sidony build an ambitious sandcastle, Achilles walks Jamie a few inches into the surf, bent almost in half so he can hold our little boy up firmly under the arms. Jamie squeals and kicks his feet at the slightest touch of the water, and Achilles laughs with him, and every sound sends a pang of happiness through my chest. Simon sleeps sound as a rock in a sling against my chest, his silky auburn hair and head protected by a little bonnet.

It took all of two minutes for Achilles and I to decide we didn’t want a traditional honeymoon with just the two of us after our official wedding. Sidony had always been a part of our relationship. In a way, I’d bonded with her first and more easily. It was letting her into my heart, letting my inner child heal through her, that allowed me to even consider my feelings for Achilles. And as for Achilles, he’s been inseparable from all three of our children. I’ll find him in his office with the twins in his lap as he works, or napping on the couch covered in kids. Every day his smile brightens and the shadows in his eyes are chased away by them. As much as we enjoy each other’s intimate company, taking a trip without our kids didn’t feel right.

That doesn’t mean we aren’t taking our quiet moments when we can, of course.

When the kids are tucked into their beds at the end of the day, exhausted from playing in the sun and the sea, we’re able to slip away. A personal nanny- one of our trusted staff- keeps a careful watch over the sleeping children, ensuring that they’re settled and content in the comfort of the bungalow. Achilles and I go back out onto the beach with a bottle of wine and two glasses between us. The sky is so huge over our heads it’s almost overwhelming. I could lay in the sand and count the stars forever, but I’d rather be pulling Achilles’s body over mine and kissing him until I can no longer breathe.

“Emma,” he murmurs against my lips. “Thank you for coming back. Thank you for saving me.”

Not just from Fantasia’s dungeon, but from the sorrow he couldn’t find his way out of, from the doubt he couldn’t let go of.

“Thank you ,” I whisper back, “for giving me a place to belong to.”

He smiles into our kiss, his breath cool against my skin in the heat of the night. I turn to clay in his hands as he traces every curve of my body with his fingertips and claims my mouth with his tongue.

Under the Caribbean stars, we kiss and drink wine until the moon falls and the sun just begins to rise over the ocean, bathing another day in our new life with golden light.