“Why not? You already know that I love you. And I’m certainly not going to leave you.” She threaded her fingers through his hair. “I believe I’d follow you to the ends of the earth if you asked me. A bistro round the corner will be no trouble at all.”

His arm came around her waist, drawing her close.

She’d told him that he didn’t have to say it back, but she waited nonetheless. Waited for him to say that he loved her, too. She certainly felt as if he did. It was in the touch of his hands, and the deep tenor of his voice. The way he held her in his arms as if he’d never let her go. She sensed it as surely as if he’d declared it from a mountaintop.

And a few moments later, it seemed as if he did declare it. Albeit, in a way that only she would understand.

“Would you like to go to the seaside tomorrow?” he asked.

Happiness was an elusive thing at the best of times. But she felt it flower within her. A bright bloom of optimism. Of hope. “To Cannes? Or to Devon?”

His chest rose and fell on a deep breath. “Let’s start with Cannes. And then…we’ll see.”

“I remember Hayes’s Lavender Water.” The rims of Tom’s spectacles glimmered in the light from the bistro’s brass gasolier. “I used to see it in the apothecary shop in London where I bought my shaving soap.”

“Oh yes,” Laura said. “It was our most popular product. For a time you could find it most anywhere.”

Their table was set back near the kitchens. It was small, covered with a snow-white cloth. For the last hour, the four of the them had huddled around it, drinking red wine and eating a simple Provençal meal of lamb stew, fried artichokes, and some manner of garlic soup that seemed to contain every vegetable in the region.

Alex was quieter than usual. He was still trying to acclimate himself to the reality that Tom was here in front of him. Not only here, but in good spirits. Laughing, and drinking wine. Showing no signs of anger or bitterness.

It was the oddest thing to see Laura seated beside him. To watch the pair of them talk with each other. Smile at each other. As if Alex’s past and his future had collided on a remote railway track.

But this was no gruesome collision. There was no wreckage. No injuries. Instead, he had the strange sensation that the two disparate halves of his life were interweaving before his eyes. Joining together at the seams with a strange—and altogether unexpected—sense of rightness. Of harmony.

He wondered if Tom was experiencing the same feelings.