“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t book anything, just in case we took longer than expected. But how about continuing your tourist attraction tour? Chinatown?”
She laughs. “They have a Chinatown back home, you know.”
I chuckle. “I know. I did live there too. But it’s a good Chinatown, and Soho is right next door. We can wander around until we get hungry.”
“Alright,” Casey nods, ducking her head and tucking her hair behind her ear as we fall into step. Am I imagining it, or was she a little slow to take my arm this time?
We only have two days left, so we make the most of them. I check Casey out of her hotel early to save her money and she moves her things to my place, and I get a preview of the kind of bliss that awaits me when she’s here permanently.
Chinatown, Soho, art galleries, and museums; all of it is framed by mornings and evenings and nights at home, in bed together. And every time we get into bed is just as exciting as the last. I love making her throw her head back and grip hold of the sheets, pulling them up in her fists as she moans my name. The more practice she gets at this whole thing, the bolder she gets, reaching for me to wake me up with a stroke, crying out loudly to let me know of her pleasure, pulling my hands to her breasts when she wants me to touch her. I don’t want any of it to end.
But her last day comes, like we knew it would, and I feel a wrench. I don’t want to lose Casey – in fact, I refuse to. She’s mine now, and that is never going to change. She will wear my ring. She will carry my children. But with so little time together, it was never going to be enough.
And now Casey is not the only one who has a big decision to make.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Casey
I swallow hard, looking at my packed suitcase. All of my things are inside of it, packed up and ready to go home. Not a single piece of clothing left behind, including the things Edward bought me. He insisted that I take it all, because it’s mine, and he doesn’t want me to go without while I'm back home.
We still haven’t spoken about the future, and I don’t know if I want to. Edward has been strangely cagey all morning, as if he was avoiding me, and I’ve barely even seen him. But now the time has come, and it’s too late for anything else. My bags are packed, and it’s time to go to the airport. If I don’t go now, I’ll miss my flight.
“I’m ready,” I say.
Edward looks up from the kitchen table, where he’s sitting with his phone, poring over something on the screen. He gives me a tight nod, smiles, and gets up. “I’ll carry your bag to the car,” he says, reaching out for it.
I almost stop him. I don’t want him to take it to the car at all. I don’t want to drive to the airport. I don’t want to get on the plane. I don’t want to leave him.
But I know I have to. There’s more in my life than just this – I have plans, responsibilities. All of my things are at home, my family and friends. I can’t just stay here. That’s not how life works.
I get into the back of the car and we sit quietly together as the driver takes us to the airport. I can’t say a thing, because my mind is too full of thoughts, about the fact that this is it, the last day, my last moment. After this, it might all be over. It might be the last time I even see him.
I sit in silence, my head taking over, my racing thoughts too loud for anything else to break through. What can I do? What should I do? What should I say? How can I ask him what I’m terrified to know – whether he will still feel the same about me when I am on the other side of the ocean?
I miss what should have been my last look at the streets of London. I can’t focus. I can’t say whether we passed Big Ben or the Empire State Building – none of it exists for me right now. As we travel closer and closer towards the one place where I really don’t want to go at all, I can feel everything slipping through my fingers. What am I supposed to do? How can I stop this from happening?
We pull up at the airport far too soon, and I’m startled from looking out of the window – seeing nothing except my thoughts – automatically unbuckling my seatbelt and getting out. I’m not at all sure how my body is still managing to move. I know for sure that my head isn’t behind it, and my heart isn’t on board either.
I head to the back of the cab, where Edward has already lifted my suitcase down to the sidewalk. But then he lifts down another case, one I’ve never even seen before.
“What’s that?” I ask, startled. “I only packed one bag.”
Edward gives me a slow smile, digging into his pocket. He digs out a piece of paper and holds it in front of me, letting me read it. For a moment nothing sinks in. It’s a ticket for my plane. So what? I already know I’m flying.
“I’m coming home with you,” he says, and my eyes pick out the name on the ticket, not mine, but his. “I need to talk to your father. Before we make this openly official, I have to get his blessing.”
I cover my mouth with my hand, tears glistening in my eyes for a moment, before I fling my arms around Edward’s neck, holding onto him like I never want to let him
