EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

Hades

I KNEW THE moment I saw her for the first time that my life was ruined. A good thing, that in the years since, I’ve learned that I can be wrong.

Because the moment I met Florence Clare—now Florence Achelleos—was the moment my life was saved.

The first time she kissed me I knew it could only be a weekend. But after that, I couldn’t let her go. I thought of her when I should have been thinking of business strategies. I planned meetings around the cities I wanted to have her in.

For all the world it looked like the company was my reason for breathing.

But it was her.

It was always her.

I told myself it was all we could have. Stolen kisses, stolen moments.

Now we have everything.

Ten years of sneaking around. Ten years of hiding. Now we’ve had ten years of marriage. Four children. One very successful merger. But we leave the running of things to other people now. Our family is what obsesses us.

Our mothers make doting grandmothers, and our children are lucky to spend time in Lake Como and in Greece. But our favorite times are when we’re together, in the house we bought by the sea, so Florence can always look out at the horizon and plan her next adventure.

I look out at the horizon now. My wife went down to the harbor earlier to look at one of the new ships, and I’ve been waiting impatiently for her to arrive home. I am always impatient for her.

“Traffic was a nightmare.”

I turn and see her standing in the doorway. Like I conjured an angel, just by thinking of her.

Florence.

“But you came back to me,” I say, as she crosses the room and stretches up on her toes. Kissing me like it’s the first time and the last time all at once.

Even though we both know it isn’t.

We both know it’s forever.

“Always,” she says. “I never could resist you.”

We used to tell each other if we could have resisted, we would have.

Not now. Now we would never stay away. Not by choice, not for any reason.

Florence Clare is my forever.

And I am hers.