Page 48 of A Billion-Dollar Heir For Christmas
My life,he’d called her, and she was. He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead, the tip of her nose so that she laughed, and then, finally on her mouth. Like a vow.
“I want to live like you do. So brave. So open. I want to learn how to love as you do, beyond all reason.”
She tipped her head back and slid her hands up along his chest, making him realize he had been walking around with his shirt wide open, which was something he would never have dreamed of doing before. And now he couldn’t imagine why.
He was Tiago Villela, was he not? He could do as he pleased. And he thought it was about time he started.
Especially when he watched his wife, his Lillie, light up there before him, and then laugh as if she’d known how this would be all along. The two of them like this, their baby on the way, and nothing but choirs singing in between them.
“I’ll tell you right now,” Lillie told him when the laughter danced away into the pine trees standing tall around them this Christmas Eve. “It’s as easy and as hard as this. All you do is look for the light and the joy no matter how it scares you. And hold on to me, just like this.” She reached down and took his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together. “And then we’ll do it together.”
And they did.
Starting right then and there, bright all the way through.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FIVEYEARSLATER, Lillie spent Christmas Eve morning dressing herself in a beautiful white gown. She had her mother at her side, tearing up at the slightest provocation and fussing with all the flowers the staff had cut from the courtyard garden.
And when it was time, she gripped her father’s arm as he walked her down the aisle they’d made that led to the fountain in the center of the garden, where even on the twenty-fourth day of December, the sun shone down like a blessing.
Today of all days, Lillie thought, that’s exactly what it was.
“We’re so proud of you, my darling girl,” her father said roughly as they walked. And Lillie grinned up at him, so hard it made her face hurt.
All of her friends from university sat waiting for her and across the aisle, the friends Tiago really did have sat with matching smiles. Because Lillie and Tiago had spent these years strengthening their bonds in all kinds of relationships, not only with each other. Even Patricia, her old boss, was here, happily sporting her latest Spanish tan and a lover to go with it.
Tiago had flown with her to Aberdeen before the new year began. And Lillie had taken far more pleasure than she should have when she’d brought him into that shared house that had been her home for so long, that he had reacted to as if it was an actual prison cell she’d only narrowly escaped.
She packed up her things and then left without looking back.
Because, finally, she knew her purpose. Her life had meaning because she loved, was loved in turn, and had a child on the way. Those three simple facts changed everything. Infused everything. Made sense of everything.
Tiago and her parents circled each other a bit warily at first. But when it became clear that everyone involved loved Lillie to distraction, they found their way to a friendship that was grudging at first, and then bloomed into its own kind of beauty.
Lillie moved down the aisle, happy that once she’d left Aberdeen behind, she’d found her way back to herself. To the woman who fought for what she wanted, wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself, and let herself get vulnerable. She and Tiago had spent a lot of time learning how to love each other, something that only worked when they both let themselves love fully and wholly.
Once it had been clear that Lillie also had a head for finance and business, Tiago had wasted no time giving her access to the company too, so that she couldn’t have been bored if she tried.
Though every now and again she claimed she was, just to see what her ferociously inventive husband would do.
Her father stopped at the head of the aisle and kissed her on the cheek, then solemnly handed her over to the best man.
The best little man there ever could be, Lillie thought as she gazed down at sturdy little four-year-old João with eyes like a stormy sea, and a mess of dark curls.
“Come,Mãe,” the Villela heir, who was normally a mischievous bolt of light and energy, told her sternly. “It’s time to get married.”
Lillie looked over at Leonor, who held one-year-old Carolina in her lap, named for the great-grandmother whose gardens bloomed around them even now. The baby gurgled happily and waved her chubby fists.
And Lillie let her son lead her forward, to where Tiago waited for her.
Tiago, who had dedicated himself to the task of learning how to love with all of his considerable strength and power.
And now the man known as a glacier left his iciness at the office.
At home, he laughed and sometimes, like the night when Carolina had come too fast into this world and they had thought they might lose her, he cried.
But he never let go of Lillie’s hand. He never stopped searching out that light, that joy.