This was so stupid, so reckless, and she didn’t even know why she was giving this serious thought.
This had only been three days. But Danika and Betty both had told her repeatedly, a day in Kingdom was a month on Earth. And it had felt like months. She’d keenly felt the length of each day. Time was different here. Each day had felt like an eternity and in the time she’d spent with him, she’d learned one indisputable truth… Captain James Hook was a good man. And he was hot.
Like, super crazy hot. And the hook, her stomach curled, she was positively addicted to that thing, the way he played her body with it. Strummed her like an instrument… Oh yeah, she was one hundred percent lost.
Her, the girl who changed out guys the way another girl changed out purses had finally found a man who made her want it. Love.
The thought was terrifying as hell.
He must have sensed her indecision, because he kissed her lips. A quick peck, nothing intense, but it held a wealth of meaning. Wrapping his hooked arm around her waist, he whispered against her lips.
“I am sorry for your sister, and I think the bastard deserves to rot in hell for it, but I swear to you, I am not him, Trishelle Page. I would honor you, make you the other half of me. Your pain will be my pain, your joy, mine, your happiness, mine. All of you, everything, all mine and treasured above everything else.”
“I’m so scared,” she whispered, “scared that this will end, scared that you’ll wake up one day and realize I’m not her after all. That you’ll regret this and I don’t think I could take that. I’ve never given my heart to anyone.”
Bringing her cold fingers to his lips, he kissed each and every one. “Give it to me and trust.”
Trust, she was so bad at that. Trisha liked to believe that she wasn’t really jaded, but she could see now how she’d always doomed any relationship to fail from the get go, because trust was something she’d taught herself not to do. And she’d always said it was to honor her sister, but in the end, she saw it was really because she was a big, fat coward.
“Can I still visit home, every once in a while? At least let my parents know I’m still alive?”
A smile split his face. “Is this is a yes?”
“Is yours?”
Picking her up, he twirled her around, giving a jubilant shout and causing all the lights to wink out. “Yes, little bird, yes.”
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him passionately.
“Then yes, Hook. I will stay.”
Chapter 15: Epilogue
She slept. Blonde strands of hair curled around her face and upper body. Moonlight kissed her temples as the sea gently rocked them to sleep. But he couldn’t rest, because tomorrow was their wedding.
Every day Trishelle stayed in Kingdom was another day she’d age on Earth. Here, she was locked in a perpetual stage of youth and verve, but if she ever decided to return to Earth to visit any family or friends she’d age to the point she should naturally be.
She’d been here another eleven days. Which meant she was already another year and two months older. He wanted her by his side for all eternity, wherever he went. Be that the Isle of Sylphs’, or modern day England.
He could just slip the stone of Veritas around her slender neck and whisper the vows that would seal her immortality on any realm, but Danika had convinced him that Trishelle deserved a wedding. A true one, with flowers and cake and guests. For him, none of that mattered. He’d be just as content to recite their vows in bed and not leave his room for another year at least. But he’d do much to make her smile, and if it took an extravagant wedding to do it, then so be it.
Laying on her stomach, small hand curled above her cheek, his heart clenched. She’d been through so much, and not just as Trishelle Page. The day he’d met Talia had been the day he’d known he’d finally found his other half. His true and pure self.
The wrapping might be different, but the essence of that purity lived on and it was that purity that called to him still. Dragging his knuckles along the velvety softness of her temple he memorized the planes of her face.
By nature he wasn’t a giving or a kind man, never really had been. Save for her. She owned him, every ugly, wretched inch of his body and soul belonged to this woman. He’d vowed to her that her pains and sorrows would be his and he aimed to prove himself true.
There was a ghost that lay between them, the memory of her sister’s death. It was a great chasm in her heart, and he sensed it was because justice had never truly been served.