Authors: Kate Hewitt
‘Where
… where’s Jacob?’ Mollie asked. ‘Mr Wolfe?’
‘He
sent a car,’ the assistant told her, and Mollie followed the woman downstairs
to where a limo waited in the rain-washed Parisian night.
Within
minutes she was speeding away to an unknown destination, and when she rapped on
the tinted glass that separated her from the driver and attempted to ask where
she was going and, more importantly, where Jacob was, she simply received a
Gallic grunt in reply.
Sighing,
Mollie leaned back against the leather seat and decided to simply—and
literally—enjoy the ride.
A
quarter of an hour later the limo pulled up to the front of a tall, modern
building, elegant and spare in its lines. Mollie saw, to her surprise, that it
was a museum of modern art, recently constructed.
As
the driver opened the door of the building, she saw a small, commemorative
plaque—
J Design—
and she felt a
frisson of excitement.
‘Top
floor,
mademoiselle
, the driver told
her, and disappeared.
The
museum was deserted, although Mollie glimpsed several works of priceless art
hanging on the walls. Jacob had to have some serious pulling power to be
allowed into a museum without security, and she couldn’t help but be impressed
as she rode up in the lift and the doors
whooshed
open
to the glassed-in penthouse, with every side open to the incredible city view.
And
in the middle of all that elegant space stood Jacob.
Mollie
stepped forward, taking in the table for two set with creamy linen and
sparkling crystal, the two tall candles in the centre casting dancing shadows
over the penthouse. She glanced around the room, and saw a few modern
sculptures artfully placed.
‘I
feel a little overdressed,’ she finally said, laughing a bit, for although
Jacob looked amazing in a charcoal-grey suit, she was dressed like Cinderella
about to go to the ball.
‘You
look beautiful.’ Jacob stepped forward so the candlelight flickered over his
face. ‘And this is a special occasion, so you’re dressed as you should be.’
‘It
feels very special,’ Mollie admitted. She was still a little overwhelmed. She
walked towards the window, gazing in amazement at the City of Light spread
before her. Even though she’d never been to Paris before, she could still pick
out the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. She felt Jacob come to stand
behind her, and she leaned a little against him, revelling in his strength, and
that it was hers.
At least for now.
They
still hadn’t talked about the future, and she had a horrible, creeping
suspicion that this whole surprise might be Jacob’s way of saying goodbye. Go
out with a bang. Or was she just being terribly insecure, because their
relationship was so new and untested?
Jacob
touched her lightly on the shoulders. ‘I have something for you.’
‘You
do?’ Her stomach lurched, just a little bit. She turned, smiling up at him. His
eyes glinted in the candlelight.
‘Yes
… and it took a little doing.’ He moved away from her, and when he returned
seconds later he was holding something. A flower, Mollie saw.
A rose.
Yet
it wasn’t just any rose. She could tell that as she took it and inspected the
deep red centre, the orange petals a creamy white at their tips.
‘It
looked just as I imagined it,’ Jacob said, a smile in his voice. ‘Like your
hair.’
‘My
…’ Mollie gazed up at him in wonder. ‘This is my father’s rose.’
‘The
Mollie Rose,’ Jacob confirmed.
She
gazed down at the flame-coloured flower again, tears stinging her eyes. ‘But
how …?’
‘A
lot of favours and pulling strings.’
‘I’m
speechless.’ She laughed a little even as she blinked back tears. ‘Thank you,
Jacob. This—it means a lot to me.’
‘I
didn’t mean to make you cry,’ he said softly, and touched his thumb to the
corner of her eye.
‘Good
tears,’ Mollie managed. She could still feel the imprint of his thumb on her
skin.
‘Then
I might as well go ahead and give you all the surprises at once,’ he said, and
Mollie’s heart bumped as he withdrew a small box of black velvet from his
trouser pocket. She could only stare, speechless, incredulous and with dawning
joy, as Jacob dropped to one knee in front of her. ‘Mollie Parker,’ he said,
his voice a low, heartfelt caress, ‘will you marry me?’
‘MARRY
you?’ Mollie repeated, as if they were words in another language, and in a way
they were. In all her distant dreamings of a possible future with Jacob, she
had never been so bold as to imagine this.
‘Yes,
marry me,’ he told her, and she heard a hint of laughter in his voice at her
obvious surprise. ‘I’m deeply, desperately in love with you and I want you to
be my wife.
For ever.’
For ever.
What wonderful words. ‘I never thought—’ Mollie
began, because she really never had.
Jacob
smiled. ‘I didn’t either,’ he told her softly. ‘I never thought such happiness
could be mine. I never even dared to dream or hope for it. For the past
nineteen years, Mollie, I’ve been living a half-life, or even less than that. I
let myself become consumed with work because it was all I had, all that made me
value myself. When I worked, I didn’t remember.
Didn’t think.
Didn’t dream.’
Jacob’s face had become serious, his
gaze still holding hers, and Mollie knew he needed to say this. She needed to
hear it. ‘I never let anyone close enough to find out who I really was, or at
least who I thought I was, underneath.’
She
reached out to touch his cheek. ‘You aren’t though.’
‘And
you made me realise that. You made me look at myself in a way I’d never been
able to before. Do you know the night after I told you everything I had the old
dream again? Only this time I saw it as I really was. I saw myself in a way I
never had before, and I saw that I’d been tormenting myself for so long, for no
purpose.’ He shook his head, his lips brushing her fingers.
‘Guilt
has a way of getting right inside of you,’ Mollie said softly, ‘and keeping you
captive.’
‘But
you set me free from it,’ Jacob told her. ‘Loving you has set me
free,
and I want to keep doing that for the rest of my life,
if you let me. Will you, Mollie? Will you marry me?’
The
answer was so wonderful, so easy and obvious and right. ‘Yes,’ Mollie said, and
she held out her hand for Jacob to slip on the ring.
He
held her hand gently, and she gazed in wonder at the antique diamond flanked by
two perfect sapphires. ‘The diamond is from my family,’ Jacob explained, ‘and
the sapphires are new. Because we may not forget what we’re from, but together
we can make—and be—something better.’
‘I
love it,’ Mollie whispered, and both laughing and crying just a little, she
drew Jacob up from his knees and stepped into the loving circle of his arms.
The
morning of her wedding dawned clear and bright. It had rained the night before,
but now the last shreds of grey cloud were vanishing on the horizon, leaving
nothing but pale blue sky.
Mollie
stood at the window of her childhood bedroom; she’d decided to spend her last
night as a single woman here. After they were married, the little gardener’s
cottage would be renovated and turned into an office space for her new
landscaping business.
After
Jacob had proposed, he’d told her he wanted to live in Wolfe Manor and make it
a home. ‘I don’t want to put it on the market, and walk away from it like it
never existed. Just like that big stump of yours in the garden. Wolfe Manor is
my home, and it’s yours too. I want to fill it with the new memories we’ll
make, good ones. I want to hear the laughter of our children ring through the
halls, if we should be so blessed.’
Smiling,
Mollie gazed out at the gardens, now touched with the gold of autumn. Staying
at the manor had felt so right; she realised she couldn’t imagine living
anywhere else, and she was filled with joy that Jacob felt the same.
The
past few months had been a whirlwind, preparing for what some magazines claimed
was the ‘wedding event of the year’ as all the Wolfe siblings and their new
spouses came back to the estate for Jacob’s marriage.
Mollie
had been amazed and overwhelmed to see them all together; she knew Jacob felt
it too, even more than she did. Last night they’d all sat down to a catered
dinner after the rehearsal, and the table had been full. The house was full.
Her heart was full.
Wolfe
Manor was a home again.
Mollie
heard a light knock at her bedroom door and Annabelle, her matron of honour,
peeked
her head round the corner. ‘How are you doing? I came
to help you dress.’
‘My
stomach is full of butterflies,’ Mollie admitted as she turned away from the
window. ‘Good ones though.’
‘It’s
a big day,’ Annabelle agreed.
‘Are
you feeling all right?’
Annabelle
patted her slightly rounded middle and made a face. ‘Fine, as long as I eat
every few hours. The morning sickness is mostly gone now, but it strikes every
so often.’
‘Well,
you look amazing,’ Mollie said. She’d never seen her friend more radiant. Gone
was the carefully applied layer of make-up to hide the livid red scar that cut
across one cheek. Now Annabelle held her head proudly, her eyes shining with
the love she had for her husband, Stefano. Gone also was the cool distance
she’d cloaked herself in as a way to protect herself from the world. She smiled
at Mollie and squeezed her shoulder.
‘Come
on, then. We’d better get moving. The photographer wants you dressed and ready
to smile in an hour.’
It
was going to be a big wedding. Mollie had, briefly, argued for a small, quiet
affair, and Jacob would have gone along with it, but as she talked to his
brothers and sister she came to accept that their older brother’s wedding was
the perfect event to reunite the family, as Jacob had always wanted to. How
could Mollie stand in the way of that?
Now
she slipped into her wedding grown, an ivory silk sheath that rippled over her
skin. She wasn’t the kind of girl to do
ruffles
or
lace, and the gown made her feel sexy.
Beautiful.
Loved.
Annabelle
twitched the gossamer veil over Mollie’s bare shoulders. ‘Gorgeous,’ she
murmured. ‘Jacob is going to fall over when he sees you. Either that or grab
you and head to the nearest—’
‘Annabelle!’
Laughing, Mollie wagged her finger at her friend. ‘Actually, I think Stefano is
far more likely to grab you and make a run for it. Every time he looks at you,
I can see the love in his eyes. You both glow.’