hey had rooms at the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath.

Nate had taken them out to dinner and then walked his exuberant, excited daughter through the opulent Georgian city with a quiet Fazire and Victor following them. Back in their rooms, Nate let Tash read to him before she went to sleep in one of the two bedrooms in their suite. This was not an easy task, considering her anticipation for the festivities of the next day.

Through this all, he’d kept tight control on his thoughts and put up with Fazire, who he knew was barely containing his desire to make some grand statement, and his father, who was also barely containing his desire to have a heartfelt talk with his son.

Nate was coasting on pure, adrenalin-fuelled fear.

He hadn’t felt fear since he was a young boy. But he remembered what it felt like, though fear of a pummelling from one of his mother’s drug-addled lovers was nothing to the gut-twisting fear he had of losing Lily.

Again.

His insane, misguided, absurd decision to show her who he was in his unique, obscene way, to hold her guarded against her own loving heart, had been the most extraordinary mistake he’d made in his life.

And he remembered each one he’d ever made.

Vividly.

And he’d thought the last one, not following Lily to Indiana when her neighbour had told him she’d gone home, was bad enough.

This one had been worse. This time he didn’t have Danielle and Jeffrey to blame. This time he’d broken her all on his own.

The glass of vodka he was holding snapped in his hand, he felt the shards tear through his flesh and watched, removed, as the blood formed, dripping mingled with vodka, to the carpet.

As he was watching, detached, as he bled there came a knock at the door. This was a strong knock but it was quickly followed by an overbearing one or, more aptly described, an overbearing succession of knocks.

His father and Fazire.

Nate took out his handkerchief and wrapped it around his hand. Ignoring the glass, vodka and blood on the floor, he went to answer the door. Both men stood outside. Victor’s face was grave. Fazire’s, Nate registered in a distracted way, was the same. Fazire was also holding a photo album.

“We need to talk,” Victor announced.

Without hesitation, Nate nodded and stepped aside. Fazire and Victor shared a surprised glance, clearly thinking they’d meet resistance.

Nate was beyond resistance, he didn’t have the energy for it. He left them at the door, walked into the sitting room and lowered himself onto a settee.

“What have you done to your hand?” Victor asked in alarm and Nate watched as his father checked himself from rushing forward.

“Broken glass.” Nate calmly motioned to the glass on the floor and didn’t explain further. He didn’t need to.

Both Fazire and Victor stared at the glass then stared at each other again. Victor closed the door; they walked forward in unison and sat opposite him.

“Is everything all right between you and Lily?” Victor asked and at his question, Nate threw back his head and laughed. It was much like Lily’s laugh that morning, stronger but just as mirthless and bitter.

When he was done, he levelled his dark gaze on his father and saw Victor had gone pale.

“No,” he replied honestly.

“I didn’t think so,” Victor murmured, showing, to Nate’s surprise, that he didn’t know what to do next.

Fazire wasn’t so uncertain. Lily’s bizarre friend slammed the album on the table between them.

“It’s time,” he announced.

“Fazire –” Victor put in.

Fazire’s gaze swung haughtily to his compatriot. “It’s time,” Fazire insisted.

Victor leaned back and looked at Nate. “Son, steel yourself,” he warned in a dire tone.

Nothing, Nate thought, could penetrate the fear of what tomorrow would bring, not even Fazire.

Again, Nate was wrong.

Fazire started talking and Nate turned his eyes to the outlandish man. “Many years ago, a man bought my bottle –”

“Your bottle?” Nate interrupted.

Fazire’s hand came up. “Do not interrupt me, Nathaniel.”

Nate looked at Victor then shrugged. Best to get this over with so he could make himself another drink, then another, then another until he was drunk enough to sleep and so that he could be hungover enough for tomorrow, when Lily came to her senses, he would have something else to think about when she left him at the proverbial altar.

“As I was saying,” Fazire continued, “a man bought my bottle and sent it to a woman, his wife. She lived in Indiana and she became my friend. Her name was Sarah…”

Then, for half an hour, Fazire talked. He told Nate he was a genie. He told Nate about Lily’s parents, Becky and Will. He told Nate about baseball games and lying in innertubes, floating hot summer days away on a pond. He told Nate he’d actually created Lily. Then he’d opened the photo album and showed Nate what Fazire called his “greatest mistake”.

Nate’s somewhat alarmed gaze swung to pictures of Lily, pictures he’d never, at a glance, recognise were Lily if he hadn’t looked closely enough to see her remarkable blue eyes, or, in some of the photos, her quirky smile.

Stunned by the pictures of the chubby, plain (but not entirely unattractive, not with those eyes or that smile) girl that was his Lily, Nate listened further without interruption to Fazire telling him about Lily’s obsession for romance novels. About the children being cruel to her at school (this, Nate had no trouble believing, even though everything else Fazire was saying had to be the ravings of a functioning madman), about the boy she had a crush on insulting her and breaking her fourteen year old heart.

Then Fazire told Nate of her wish, her wish for him, her wish for a romantic hero who would love her more than anything on earth and think she was beautiful.

When he was done speaking, Nate was staring at him.

“You’re mad,” Nate whispered, wondering if perhaps he should call a doctor, now.

Fazire looked at Victor and Victor nodded.

Then Fazire snapped his fingers and Nate heard a tinkling of glass. His gaze swung to the broken shards on the floor and he saw them jump around then, in the blink of an eye, disappear along with the blood and vodka stains.

Slowly, Nate stood. “What the hell?” he muttered.

“I’m a genie,” Fazire announced.

Nate’s gaze swung to and narrowed on Fazire.

“You’ve been caring for my daughter,” Nate stated in a voice so controlled, it had a lethal edge.

“I wouldn’t hurt Tash. I created her mother for goodness sake,” Fazire blustered but Nate was having none of it.

He’d had enough of this strange man and he wasn’t going to have some bizarre magician claiming himself to be a genie living with Lily and Tash. He knew from Lily mentioning on several occasions her “wish” that Fazire had convinced her, too, that he was a genie.

Nate glared at him.

“Get out,” he demanded knowing in that moment if Fazire didn’t get out, Nate would bodily eject him from his life and his family’s, “right now.”

Fazire snapped again and the room was filled with a voice, a voice that was achingly familiar. Lily’s voice but young, her voice that of a girl turning into a woman.

“Fazire, I wish one day to find a man like in my books. He has to be just like in one of my books. And he has to love me, love me more than anything in the world. Most important of all, he has to think I’m beautiful.”

Nate froze at the disembodied words that seemed to dance through the air. There were no tape recorder and no speakers, the words just hung in the air, coming from nothing, nowhere but they were all around them.

“He has to be tall, very tall and dark, and broad-shouldered, and narrow-hipped.”

Nate’s fingers curled into fists and he ignored the pain in his injured hand as he heard the words Lily spoke to him just weeks ago, smiling, teasing, telling him he was her “narrow-hipped” romantic hero who could “lean well”.

“And he has to be handsome, unbelievably handsome, impossibly handsome with a strong, square jaw and powerful cheekbones and tanned skin and beautiful eyes with lush, thick lashes. He has to be clever and very wealthy but hard-working. He has to be virile, fierce, ruthless and rugged.”

“Stop it,” Nate demanded on the word “rugged” and Lily’s sweet voice saying the same word she called him weeks ago but saying it years ago, in a wish.

The voice relentlessly went on.

“And he has to be hard and cold and maybe a little bit forbidding, a little bit bad with a broken heart I have to mend or one encased in ice I have to melt or better yet, both!”

Nate closed his eyes at the hope in her voice but wished instead he could stop his ears from hearing.

“We have to go through some trials and tribulations. Something to test our love, make it strong and worthy. And… and… he has to be daring and very masculine. Powerful. People must respect him, maybe even fear him. Graceful too and lithe, like a… like a cat! Or a lion. Or something like that. And he has to be a good lover. The best, so good he could almost make love to me just by using his eyes.”

At that, Nate opened his eyes and laughed, this time without bitterness.

He threw himself back on the settee and listened to a young Lily describing her deepest desire, her most heartfelt wish.

Him.

“Is that it?” Nate heard Fazire’s voice ask. “Are you sure you want this to be your wish?” There was hesitation then Fazire went on. “Very well.”

Lily’s voice cut in. “Don’t forget that part about him loving me more than anything on earth.”

Her words and their fervent tone tore through Nate’s gut.

“And!” Nate heard her burst out in desperation. “The part about him thinking I’m beautiful.”

“Lily, you will be beautiful, you already are.” Nate heard Fazire’s disembodied voice assured her, his eyes cut to the strange man and for the first time he looked at him with unguarded respect.

“Just, don’t forget those parts, they’re the most important,” Lily reminded her genie, her voice shaky and, Nate thought, terribly, unforgettably sad.

“I won’t forget any of it.” Nate heard Fazire promise his beloved fourteen year old girl, a girl he’d followed through her trials and tribulations, a girl whose side he never left. “Lily, my lovely, your wish is my command.”

Then the room was filled with the sound of a snap and then it went quiet.

Everyone sat in stunned silence.

Victor, even though still pale, was grinning at Nate.

Nate’s eyes moved to Fazire who, he should not at that point have been surprised but he was, Nate saw was floating and wearing a ridiculous outfit the colours of turquoise and grape, including a fez and curly-toed shoes.

Fazire was looking down his nose at Nate. “Nathaniel, I am very good at my wishes and if you don’t do something and soon, I’ll lose the Wish of the Century award,” he declared.

“It’s nowhere near the end of the century, Fazire,” Victor explained.

“Time flies when you’re immortal,” Fazire shot back. “Competition is heating up, just yesterday –”

Nate didn’t let him finish. He didn’t have time to process the fact that Lily had her own personal genie. He just looked up at the man floating, cross-legged, in mid-air (something, Nate noted, his father didn’t seem at all surprised about).

“Fazire,” Nate cut in and when he had Fazire’s attention, he said simply, “Tash.”

Fazire nodded. “Of course.”

Then Nate grabbed his car keys and with long strides and without a look back, he walked out the door.

Nate opened the front door to Lily’s house, his house, their home.

It was late but not late enough for the hen night festivities to be over but he heard, standing in the entry vestibule, no laughing voices, no tinkling glasses, no music and no merriment.

This did not surprise him.

A week ago he’d set himself the task of forcing Lily to fall out of love with him so when she found out about who he was she would not be destroyed.

At the silence of the house and Lily’s recent behaviour he worried that he had, as usual, succeeded swiftly and soundly in his aim.

He opened the stained glass inner door and stopped dead.

Laura, wearing a dove grey satin dressing gown, her face free of makeup, her hair pulled back, was sitting on the stairs waiting for him.

Mother and son held each other’s eyes for long moments then Laura got to her feet and came forward.

She lifted her hand to Nate’s cheek and said softly, “I knew you’d come.”

At her quiet assurance that she knew innately he would do the right thing, that she believed in him and Nate realised always had, Nate’s arms went around her. Laura rested her cheek against his chest.

Finally she tilted her head back to look at him. “Lily’s upstairs. We decided to have an early night.”

Nate nodded and they disengaged. Then he took his mother’s elbow and escorted her to the door of the guest room where he kissed her cheek and watched her enter. When she closed the door he turned with purpose to his and Lily’s bedroom.

The door was closed and when he opened it the room was dark, the curtains drawn and he could see Lily’s sleeping form in the bed. He walked to the side and stared down, noticing in the dim light she was curled around his pillow, hugging it close to her.

Quietly, he took off his clothes, dropping them to the floor and pulled back the bedsheets. He slid into bed carefully and pulled away the pillow, righting it behind his head and positioning his body in its place. Unfortunately, before he had completed this task, she woke.

“Nate?” she murmured, her voice husky with sleep.

His arm went around her quickly holding her tight against his body and he reached out and turned on the light.

She lifted up with her hand on his chest and blinked at him as his other arm closed around her, bringing her body over him so she was lying mostly on top of him.

“What is it?” she asked, still blinking but her face was clearing. “Is it Tash?”

“Tash is fine,” Nate assured her quietly.

Lily stared at him then her eyes dropped to the clock at the bedside table then they came back to him and he saw, in that short time, she’d put her shields up. She looked wary and she tried to push away.

His arms got tighter.

“What’s going on?” Lily asked.

“Do you know,” Nate began conversationally, having mentally rehearsed his words in the car, doing this in order to shove away the thoughts and memories that had been pelting his brain viciously for the past week, “until Laura and Victor adopted me, I didn’t know my birthdate?”

Lily’s body stilled and she stopped trying to pull away.

“I’m sorry?” she queried, her face melting from annoyed and watchful to confused.

Confused, Nate thought, was good. Nate could work with confused.

So he went on. “I didn’t know my birthdate until Laura and Victor adopted me and told me. It’s the fourteenth of September.”

Her head jerked at this news but she recovered swiftly and bit her lip then released it.

“How could you…” Her eyes shifted away and he could tell she was trying to decide how to respond. Curiosity, he was pleased and hopeful to see, won. Confused was good, curious was much, much better. She continued. “Not know your birthday?”

“My mother never told me,” Nate answered matter-of-factly.

Lily’s eyes grew wide with shock, wary and guarded gone. She was staring at him with undisguised disbelief.

“Why on earth wouldn’t your mother tell you?” Lily was holding her body still, tense and he sensed she was unsure how to react to his unprecedented sharing.

He wasn’t surprised. He’d been behaving erratically, pushing her away and pulling her close, holding her at arm’s length and then demanding her attention, yelling at her when she bought him presents, keeping himself from her and then, finally, brutally showing her who he was.

Or who he thought he was.

And he hadn’t just been doing this for the last two months; he’d been doing it since they met.

“I never asked,” Nate replied, quelling his thoughts to focus on the very important matter at hand. “She probably didn’t remember considering most of the time she was drunk and when she wasn’t drunk, she was high or, more often than not, both.”

He watched as she closed and opened her eyes slowly as if this was beyond her comprehension.

“High?” Lily whispered.

“She was a drug-addict, Lily,” Nate responded softly then before she could react or put her shields back in place, he continued. “Her name was Deirdre.”

At more news of his life, his history, coming forth, Lily’s eyes grew soft and before she could control it, she said with a horrified reverence, as if he’d just shown her the fountain of youth and it was flowing with blood, “Deirdre.”

Nate saw his opening and without delay he relentlessly pressed through. “Until I went to school, I didn’t know you washed your clothes.” He heard Lily’s swift intake of breath and was heartened by the fact she wasn’t hiding her reactions. He talked over her gasp. “The teachers reported me to Social Services and they came to visit my mother. She put on a show for them and from then on she made me take our clothes to the Laundromat so they wouldn’t come back. Until I moved in with Victor and Laura though, I never knew you were supposed to clean your sheets.”

He felt as her still body grew rock solid in horror.

Then she whispered, her voice shaky, “Your mother made you wash your clothes?”

He kept pressing through, sensing he was gaining an edge, knowing Lily had a kind heart and, after all, she’d wished for him, he took advantage but ignored her question. “I stole food. I had to or I wouldn’t eat. I had milk and cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I didn’t know any better,” he told her then smiled, “and lots of candy. Candy was easy to steal, it fit in your pockets.”

Lily did not smile and clearly found nothing Nate was saying amusing. She swallowed, not pushing away, not holding herself from him, he felt her melting into his body but she did not speak. She simply stared at him, her eyes unguarded, lips slightly parted, face soft.

That’s when Nate decided it was time to let her know all of it.

“When I was eleven, I went to work for one of Deirdre’s lovers. She had a lot of them and I learned early, because she didn’t hide it, what having a lover meant in the physical sense.” Nate watched Lily again bite her lip at this news but didn’t hesitate and carried on. “I stole from her lovers too. Sometimes they’d catch me, which wasn’t good, so I learned to avoid them, to be invisible or fast enough to escape them. If I didn’t, they’d beat me. Sometimes, they’d beat Deirdre and I’d try to stop them so they’d turn their attention to me. Deirdre never tried to stop them.”

“Didn’t try to stop –” Lily repeated but Nate talked over her.

“Scott, one of Deirdre’s lovers, put me to work making deliveries and doing pickups. I don’t know what I moved but I didn’t care. He gave me money and we never had any money. In the end Scott went away and I took a job direct with his boss. His boss wasn’t a good man, he was a dangerous man but he paid me more money than I’d ever seen before. I was good at it –”

“Stop,” Lily whispered and her voice and eyes were tortured.

“You have to know,” Nate returned quietly. He hated to see the look in her eyes but he believed with everything he was that he was correct, she had to know.

“I don’t have to know,” she repeated, contradicting his belief, her voice growing stronger.

“I was a criminal,” Nate told her bluntly. “Since I could remember, I stole, I –”

Suddenly and forcefully she pulled free of him but not to escape. She sat up and glared at him.

“You were not a criminal!” she snapped.

Nate followed her up. “I was, Lily. I worked for a gangster. Whatever was in those packages –”

“You were eleven years old, for crying out loud!” she yelled and he knew she was agitated. He knew this because she was being loud even though Laura was in the house and Maxine was also spending the night. She was also shifting in the bed with intent and before she could jump up and start pacing, he captured her in his arm. He pushed her to her back and rolled over her with his body.

Then he went on. He needed to say it all, get it out so she could make her decision.

“It doesn’t change what I did, who I was and that person is the father of your child and tomorrow, if you don’t back out, he’ll be your husband.”

Lily glared at him. “Are you a gangster now?”

Nate shook his head but responded, “Lily, there’s more you need to know.”

“Have you had a birthday party?” she asked, suddenly switching the subject what Nate thought was nonsensically and he stared at her, thrown for a moment, before replying.

“Lily, we’re talking about me being –”

“Have you ever had a birthday party?” she interrupted him, squirming underneath him to get away.

“What does it matter?” he asked, pressing into her to keep her where she was.

“It matters!” she shouted and stopped wriggling in order to scowl at him.

“Why?”

“I…” she snapped, “I don’t know why, it just does. Have you ever had one?”

“I never wanted one,” he replied.

“Well, you’re getting one this year,” she declared on a huff. “I cannot believe you’ve never had a birthday party. What’s your favourite kind of cake?” she fired off her question, eyes narrowed.

“Lily, I need to tell you the rest.”

“Nate, I don’t care about the rest. What kind of cake is your favourite?”

Nate stopped talking and stared at his bride-to-be.

He was telling her things of grave importance, things she needed to know before she legally bound herself to him. He was telling her things he’d never told anyone, not even Laura though he knew that Victor knew and guessed he’d told Laura, it was likely that Victor told Laura everything.

But Nate was telling Lily things he’d hidden from everyone, all his hideous secrets, and Lily was talking about cake.

“I don’t have a favourite cake,” Nate responded.

“Everyone has a favourite cake, Nate,” Lily informed him.

“Cake is cake,” Nate shot back, impatient to get back to the subject.

“Cake is not cake. There’s angel food cake and Victoria sponge. There’s coffee cake. There’s streusel cake. There’s cheesecake. Don’t even get me started on chocolate cake. There has to be hundreds of different kinds of chocolate cake.” She hesitated and Nate, thinking she was finished with her bizarre litany of cakes, opened his mouth to speak but then she went on. “German chocolate, devil’s food, chocolate sheet cake, chocolate mocha cake –”

Finally, he lost his patience and he interrupted her on a quiet explosion, “Lily, for Christ’s sake!”

That was when her hands came up to either side of his face and she stared him in the eyes. He realised she wasn’t looking at him with a wary, guarded expression nor were her shields up. She also wasn’t staring at him horrified and repulsed that he’d slept in dirty sheets, had a mother who was a drunken drug-addict and committed crimes before he was in his teens.

Instead, she was planning his birthday party.

And she was looking at him the way she used to look at him, with a look of awe, wonder, as if he was conqueror of nations, creator of worlds.

This hit him with the weight of a dozen anvils, he felt that weight and a clutch in his chest even as he felt warmth spread through his gut and his voice was rough when he murmured, “Lily.”

“I’m going to make you a cake,” she promised softly, “every week until your birthday so you can pick which one you like best.”

At her soft words, he felt the clutch in his chest release, completely and finally, leaving him free for the first time in his life to just breathe.

He pulled her tight into his arms, burying his face in the side of her neck and rolled to his back, taking her with him so she was on top.

“And we’re going to have a big party,” she continued speaking softly in his ear. “And we’re going to have a big Christmas. But, before that, we’re going to have a Fourth of July party and Thanksgiving –”

“I love you, Lily,” he whispered into her neck.

“And we’re going… what?”

He tilted his head back into the pillows and looked in her beautiful blue eyes. “I love you, Lily, more than anything on this earth.”

For a moment she just stared at him, her eyes wide and filling with wonder. Then he watched, fascinated, as they brightened with tears.

“Really?” she breathed.

Keeping their eyes locked, Nate lifted his head and brushed his lips against hers. “Really,” he said there.

“You love… me?” she asked, as if that was impossible to believe.

Because of Fazire’s story, he now understood her disbelief that he could love her even if it still stunned him and Nate knew he had to make her believe. His hand came up and tucked a sheaf of her heavy hair behind her ear.

“Yes, I love you,” he said, his voice hoarse with feeling.

“But –” she began and he kept going, resting his palm against her jaw and running his thumb along her tear-stained cheek.

“I loved you the minute I saw you, elegant, untouchable, beautiful and not for the likes of me,” he told her with complete honesty.

“Beautiful?” she whispered.

“When I first saw you, you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen and I remember everything Lily, every woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. You were extraordinary, magnificent, so much so I couldn’t even move.” Nate watched as her tears came faster and his other hand came up to frame her face and wipe away the wetness with his thumb. Then he whispered, “You still are, darling.”

Her face clouded and she pulled slightly away. “I have to tell you…” she whispered hesitantly and went on cautiously, “it’s all a wish. You don’t really see me. You see what Fazire –”

“I know about Fazire,” Nate cut her off. “I know what he is. I know about your wish and it wouldn’t matter.” He watched her eyes grow round and he continued. “If there was no wish, no magic and no genies, I’d think the same thing. I see you Lily, your natural elegance, your beautiful eyes, your fantastic smile, your lush body –”

“Stop,” she cut in and rubbed her fingers across her cheeks, trying to brush away the tears as she pushed his hands away but he held fast.

“You are beautiful, but I don’t love you because you’re beautiful.”

She became still again in order to stare at him.

“Why do you love me?” she whispered and he answered immediately.

“Because you have the courage to jump on a purse snatcher’s back. Because you have an unnatural abhorrence to litter. Because you act like a ride on a motorcycle is like being given the keys to a kingdom of dreams. Because you have the ability to make all the people around you love you even when they barely know you. Because you inspire loyalty. Because you made our daughter happy even when you were not. Because you created a comfortable, loving home for her even though you had no money.”

“Nate, don’t –” she interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut as if it would blot out his words but he didn’t listen.

“Because you taste good and feel even better. Because you look at me like no one else has ever done.”

“Stop,” she broke in forcefully, her eyes flying open, “I want to tell you why I love you.”

He felt his body get tense.

“Do you?” he asked quietly.

“Do I what?” she asked in return.

“Do you still love me?”

He watched her brows snap together. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He smiled at her and he knew it was a smile filled with regret. “I don’t know, darling,” he answered softly, “maybe because I let you go, broke my promises, didn’t take care of you, made you beg for –”

She lifted her hand between them and waved at the air while saying, “Oh that. I’m over that.”

At this breezy announcement and her acting as if his constant betrayals of trust were akin to forgetting to take out the rubbish, Nate couldn’t have stopped it if he’d tried, which he didn’t and his body started shaking with laughter.

He decided instantly that he loved that about her too, her ability to forgive though, in the same instant, he vowed he’d never do anything that she’d have to forgive, not ever again.

His laughter was short-lived when he heard Lily gasp.

“What’s happened to your hand?” she cried, rearing back, she grabbed his wrist and stared at the bloody handkerchief tied around his hand.

“It’s nothing.”

She lifted her eyes from his hand to his face and glared at him and even with her angry glower, he could have kissed her.

“Right, nothing. Like my migraines are just headaches,” she snapped.

“Lily.”

She crawled over him, her hand latched to his wrist and pulled him out of bed.

“I want to see,” she said, tugging him toward the bathroom.

“I said, it’s nothing.”

She halted and turned back to him. “I want to see.” She underlined her words verbally and there she was.

He knew in that instant that he finally, irrevocably, had her back.

His Lily.

His.

She’d wished for him.

Him.

Nathaniel McAllister.

He was meant for her and she was meant for him, they belonged to each other, they belonged together.

Relief sweeping through him, he gave his wrist a swift yank. Pulling her off balance and into his arms, his head descended and his mouth took hers for a quick, hard kiss.

When he was done and he saw the smoky dark blue at the edge of her irises was creeping toward the pupil, he muttered in a voice that said, clearly, she really had no choice in the matter, “You can see when I’m done making love to you.”

Without hesitation she agreed, “Okay.”

It was then that he started laughing again but this, too, was short-lived because Lily leaned up on tiptoe, threw her arms around his neck and she gave him a hard kiss.

But Lily’s wasn’t quick.

Much later, Lily’s naked back pressed to his front, Nate buried his face into her fragrant hair.

He hadn’t made love to her, she had pushed him to his back and she’d made love to him, her mouth and hands on him as she spoke softly, lips against his skin, telling him all the reasons she loved him.

Not because he was rugged, lean-hipped and wealthy with a broken heart she needed to (and did) mend.

But because he was, she said, brilliant. He was strong and people respected him. He kissed well and she mentioned something about gymnasts doing cartwheels and back handsprings in her belly but he wasn’t paying much attention because, at the time she was saying it, her tongue was tracing the ridges of his own stomach and he found he couldn’t concentrate on her words. She told him he had a beautiful smile. She informed him, to his surprise, her parents would have liked him. She explained he was a good son to Laura and Victor. She said he was good at taking care of her when she was ill. And finally, she finished with the fact that he made her feel safe and he was an excellent father.

With her finishing words, he rolled her on her back and took over the lovemaking with such rigorous intent, she couldn’t speak at all.

When they were done she’d again yanked him out of bed to see to his hand. She cleansed it, bandaged it and he’d allowed it, not letting on that she was the first and only person he’d ever let take care of him. He’d never even allowed Laura to tend to him but he didn’t share this either. He would, just not right then. There were other things he needed to share.

Then he guided her back to bed. There he pulled her back to his front and quietly, he shared with her the rest of his life, speaking more words at one time than he ever had. He told her of growing up with Deirdre, of his mother not sending him to a special school when the teachers told her she should, of her murder, of Victor’s part in saving him then Laura’s, of Danielle’s unwanted attention and Jeffrey’s malice.

Through this all, she said nothing, simply rested her arm on his at her waist and laced her fingers in his. Often her body would tense but she didn’t interrupt him.

Finally, when he was finished and silent, she whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

It was his turn for his body to tense. “I thought if you knew, you’d leave.”

“Why?” she asked.

“You’d probably never seen a syringe filled with heroin or held your mother’s hair when she was so drunk she was getting sick in the toilet,” he explained.

“You thought I’d leave because you had a terrible, awful, horrible, useless, unspeakably bad mother?” she queried and at any other time Nate might have smiled at her dramatic description of his mother but it wasn’t the time for smiles.

“I thought you’d leave because I did bad things.”

“You didn’t know,” she defended him.

“I did know. I was young but I wasn’t stupid,” Nate replied.

“You had no choice,” she returned immediately.

Nate didn’t answer for this was true.

Finally he said, “It isn’t a pretty story of genies and magical wishes or even lazing away summer days floating on ponds.”

“No,” she admitted, “but it made you… you.”

“Yes,” Nate allowed for this was true too.

“And I love you,” she went on.

This time his arm tensed, pulling her deeper into his body.

“Yes,” he murmured.

“And I wouldn’t change a thing about you, except to erase what you’ve been through,” she told him, snuggling even closer.

“I didn’t want it to touch you,” Nate shared. “It was ugly, dirty and I didn’t want it to be a part of your life.”

“It was ugly and dirty but you weren’t,” Lily replied in a voice vibrating with feeling and registering so low, he had to tilt his head closer to hear and what she said next shook him so deeply, any remaining armour he had around his heart fell away (although, there wasn’t much left) and the quickly melting ice around it shattered. “I’m proud. I’m proud of who you were, how you survived and what you’ve become. And I’m proud that you were an inspiration to make Victor see he should change his life so you and he and Laura could have a better one. And I’m proud that you love me and we made Tash together.”

Nate closed his eyes and drew in his breath. Of all of it, he’d been dreading this moment the most. He had one last admission to make that night.

“Lily, there’s something else you need to know.”

“All right,” she said trustingly and, now vulnerable, knowing he’d come so far, she’d given so much and he had her back, he steeled himself against her reaction to his next words.

“I meant to get you pregnant,” he announced.

She went completely still and Nate felt his chest constrict. Then she turned in his arms and looked into his eyes, hers were bemused.

“I did it with intent,” Nate went on, feeling she had to know and hating himself for doing it as well as the fact he had to tell her. “I wanted to bind you to me, I knew how you felt about family and I thought making you pregnant would mean you’d never leave. I didn’t know you were pregnant when you did leave but I did everything I could when we –”

“Thank God,” she breathed, shocking him into silence with her words. Then she smiled her quirky smile and Nate stared at her, dumbfounded by her reaction.

She moved in, brushed her lips against his and turned again, nestling contentedly into his body.

“If you hadn’t,” she carried on sleepily, clearly not upset in any way that he’d callously impregnated her in a selfish effort to tie her to him then left her to bear the child alone through a difficult pregnancy and a birth that caused her to die for two minutes and thirty-eight seconds and then, for seven years, she’d reared Tash under supremely trying circumstances all without Nate’s assistance, “we wouldn’t have Tash and, well, anyway… thank God.”

And that, Nate realised with a profound sense of relief, was that.

He buried his face in her hair, laid silent and listened as Lily fell asleep.

Then he held her.

Then, for the first time in his life, at peace with himself, at peace with his past, Nate slept.

He woke before dawn and carefully pulled away so as not to wake her but she rolled into him and wrapped her arms around him.

She lifted sleep-filled eyes to his, “Where are you going?”

He kissed her softly and murmured, “I have to go to Tash. Go back to sleep, darling.”

She nodded, gave him a sleepy smile and let him go. The minute he exited the bed, she clutched his pillow to her.

Nate dressed, sat on the edge of the bed and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“You’ve seen me on our wedding day,” she muttered into the pillow, not opening her eyes.

Nate bent down and touched his mouth to the skin at the back of her ear.

“I think we’ve had all the bad luck there is to have,” Nate assured her.

Her lips came up in a half-grin before she fell back to sleep.

Nate allowed himself a moment to watch her, a moment to feel the joy that had replaced the tightness in his chest, to come to terms with his newfound sense of contentment, security, belonging.

Then he left his soon-to-be wife and went to their daughter.