Her condo echoed with their argument long after Stephen left. Weak with ebbing adrenaline, Corina shut off all the lights except the ones glowing from her glass-front kitchen cabinets.
In her bedroom, she shoved open the balcony doors and stepped into the night, into the stiff breeze off the brackish river and the song of crickets. Long angles of light fell over the waters from the homes and businesses across the way on the barrier island. Draped in a strand of Christmas lights, a small sailboat drifted toward the high, arching causeway.
Stephen. He’d come to see her. But not to claim her as his own, to confess his love, but to reject her all over again. Corina leaned on the rail and dropped her head, vivid emotions churning through her, tears sailing down her cheeks.
Her marriage. Carlos. Her family life. So much loss. When she’d arrived home after Stephen’s parking-lot confrontation, she was determined to sign the papers. After all, wasn’t the move to Melbourne about starting over, carving out a life for herself?
How could she do it if she were chained to him? She prayed for courage as she waited for him to knock on her door. But when he walked in, the idea about Carlos sparked and she couldn’t let it go.
Wiping her cheeks with the edge of her top, she had no regrets over her request. Her little speech to Stephen flowed straight from her heart, and it felt good to cleanse herself of her burden.
She didn’t need Stephen’s mercy. He needed hers. So what if her demand hitched her wagon to his for the next few weeks, months, or even years? Her family would finally have closure. Peace. The chance to be the Del Reys again. Always together, always laughing.
Corina eased down into the wooden Adirondack chair. In moments like these, she missed her brother’s wise, albeit saucy counsel. She missed his robust confidence. His booming laugh.
But tonight she also missed what should have been with Stephen. Carlos had always been her best friend. She never imagined anyone could take Carlos’s place. Until she met Stephen.
His bold, brash confidence won her over . . . Well, eventually. Corina smiled at the picture of Stephen sitting behind her in a postgraduate leadership class, leaning over her, whispering his questions in her ear. As if he sincerely needed her help. But he was a flirt. An unabashed, charming flirt.
When she relented to his persistent chase and agreed to a date, she lost a piece of herself to him. He became her soul mate, her true love. More than a best friend.
But life decided to have its way with her.
Corina pushed up from the Adirondack, leaving her thoughts on the balcony, and headed inside. Snatching her phone from her handbag, she dialed Daisy, her best friend since junior high, married with two gorgeous little girls.
But she hung up before the first ring. She didn’t feel much like talking. And conversations with Daisy were peppered with dialogue to her daughters.
Tossing her phone onto the bed, Corina walked over to her wardrobe in the corner of the bedroom, cutting through a mysterious, lingering scent of Stephen’s cologne. Or was her imagination playing tricks on her? When he was deployed, she’d keep his pillow case unwashed so she could breathe him in as she drifted off to sleep.
But that was a long time ago. A story from the fairy tales. Corina faced the antique wardrobe that had once belonged to her great-great-grandmother Thurman on her mama’s side, purchased in France in 1910.
Turning on the corner lamp, Corina opened the carved oak doors and shoved aside her sweaters, finding the iron ring on the back panel that let her into a secret compartment. Didn’t she put something in here after her last trip to Brighton? When Stephen had rejected her?
In the muted light, she found the envelope. The one she’d stuffed in there when she came home from Brighton that fateful January over five years ago.
A month before she’d been so happy, anticipating a joyous, happy Christmas at home, her secret of being a married woman adding a bit of private fun to the season.
Presents had been shipped to Carlos in plenty of time. And Corina’s private gifts had gone out to Stephen.
She was to Skype with him in the early hours of Christmas morning. Oh, how buoyant and warm she was with the treasure of their secret. A lovers’ dream.
But the Skype call went unanswered. As well as the family’s call to Carlos.
What seemed perhaps an innocuous, minor thing—after all, they’d missed calls before—became a heinous nightmare from which Corina thought she’d never wake up.
Reaching in, she took the envelope from the compartment and headed to the balcony, thinking she should throw the darn thing in the river. Never mind the water’s edge was about a quarter mile away. The toss would be symbolic. A metaphor for removing the last bit of Stephen from her heart and head.
She drew back her hand, wondering how far she could fling the lightweight envelope. Just her luck, it would get caught in the wind and fall to Mrs. Davenport’s balcony below.
Corina returned to her bed and dumped out the contents.
One greeting card. One newspaper clipping. One soda bottle cap. And one thin, silky red ribbon.
Corina picked up the card, tracing the image of a beautiful, demure 1900s bride wearing a gown with a high neck collar and a long, flowing veil. Her burnished ringlets curled about her porcelain cheek as she smiled at her dazzling, dark-haired groom with blue eyes.
And she slipped into the memory.
“He looks like me.” Stephen said, plucking the card from the rack.
“Yes, but she doesn’t look like me.”
“Perfect, this card is for you. To remember me.” He gathered her to himself and kissed her, passionate and loving, not caring one whit that the shop owner looked on. “I’ll have my own memories of you.” His wicked grin told her exactly what kind of memories he’d treasure, and she blushed.
“Stephen, shhh . . .”
“What? You’re my wife. My memories will carry me through my tour. I love that they’ll be mine, all mine. No one knows to ask, ‘Ow’s the missus?’ When I get a goofy grin on my face, they’ll just think I ate too much succotash.”
“My, my, such high praise. I equate with your love of succotash.” Corina popped his shoulder gently, laughing, blushing. “I’ll have my own private memories too. But I’ll take the card. It’s so lovely. And a souvenir from our Hessenberg wedding night.”
“Sorry we can’t do more, love,” Stephen said. “But when I’m back from my tour, we’ll sort our marriage out with Dad and the Parliament. You’ll select a ring from the royal jewels. Then we’ll have a proper party. Fit for a prince and his princess.”
“Stephen, I don’t care. You know that, don’t you? As long as I’m yours.” She kissed him with ardent love. “Is it real? You’re all mine?”
“Very real. You’ve captured my heart, love, and we’ve our whole lives to make memories.” He blessed her temple with a brush of his lips. “But until then, you have this as a reminder.” Stephen held up the card, walking toward the sales counter.
If the shop owner recognized him, he said not a word. Now Corina opened the card, tears pooling in her eyes as she read the simple verse.
To say I love you is more than mere words.
’Tis a truth in my heart.
I love you, my darling, and you’ve married me.
And we will never be apart.
Beneath the rhyme, they each signed the card. Their signatures represented their final pledge to one another.
Corina tossed the card across the bed. What a crock. It was all a lie. Stephen only loved when it was fun, easy, and convenient. When some mysterious obstacle arose? Bam, he was gone.
She reached for the ribbon and roped it around her ring finger. Since they didn’t exchange wedding rings, Archbishop Caldwell offered Stephen the ribbon to tie around Corina’s finger as he repeated his vows.
Stephen was so apologetic he’d not planned more thoroughly for his proposal. “But I promise . . . any jewel you want when I return.” He’d held her face in his hands and kissed her over and over.
Truth was Corina had her own family heirlooms to bring to their union. Her great-grandmother Del Rey’s diamond engagement ring had once been on display at the Smithsonian. But how Corina loved the ribbon and the tender, sweet, romantic moment it represented. She held up her hand and listened . . .
“I pledge to you my love and fidelity, my honor and trust, to cherish you until death parts us.”
The heiress and the prince. They were meant to be. In love. Forever. They were going to make it, defeat the odds of wealth and power pulling a modern couple apart.
Both of their parents had a loving relationship. Well, hers did until Carlos died.
Corina tucked the ribbon back in the envelope. How could she have been so fooled by him?
The third memento rested inside the envelope. A large color photo of them at the Military Ball, the night of Stephen’s proposal. One of Corina’s friends had taken the shot with her iPhone and texted it to her. “Save to show your grandchildren. The night you danced with a prince.” Oh, little did she know . . .
Corina had printed it out and framed it, setting it by their bed in her flat, treasuring all the image represented.
Now, out of its frame and folded into quarters, Corina smoothed the picture on her bed. The image, bent and creased, caught her in Stephen’s arms, in their element, the emotions of their hearts all over their faces. Relaxed, laughing, in love.
She was surprised the press didn’t catch on that night. But Stephen had a clever and keen way to stay out of the media’s eye.
Lying back on her pillow, Corina held up the photo, allowing some of her sentiment to remind her how she felt that night.
Stephen was striking and swoon worthy in his dress uniform. She looked free and happy, wearing the heck out of the white, feathery Luciano Diamatia. Mama had moved heaven and earth to have the gown made for Corina’s society debut when she turned eighteen, using every wily prowess in her vast arsenal to lure the world’s most exclusive and reclusive designer out of hiding to sew her daughter a little ole dress.
But the designer failed to deliver the gown on time for her debut. Mama was fit to be tied. Corina almost wore it in the Miss Georgia contest, but Mama feared it’d start a riot with the other girls.
But five years later, when Corina moved to Brighton to be with Carlos as he trained for the international peace task force, she packed the dress, obeying the still small voice telling her she might need it.
The rare, precious gown was one of Corina’s most prized possessions. Because the first and only time she’d ever worn it, she wed her true love.
Corina lowered the photo and stared at the ceiling. Maybe they had just been caught up in the moment, swept away in the romance, the drama of being able to marry simply because they wanted.
She sat up. But no, when he proposed atop the Braithwaite Tower, Corina had absolutely no reservations or doubts.
“Yes, of course I’ll marry you. Yes!”
In that moment, they were the only two in the world. No media. No rules. No traditions. No two-hundred-year-old laws. No expectations. No aristocratic loyalties on either side of the ocean. No pressure. No deployment. No war. No obligations.
They were free to follow their hearts. And so they did.
She glanced at the photo, staring for another moment. The face smiling at her from the photo paper was hers. But the emotion of that Corina was a lifetime away from this Corina.
And her prince? He was more handsome than ever, confident and full of swagger, his physique rugby-muscled and disciplined.
But that was on the outside. He still carried pain in his eyes. The same look she saw when she flew to Brighton that New Year’s Eve.
“What happened in Torkham, Stephen?”
His crystal blues were dull, lacking life and merriment. Something ate at him deep down. But instead of telling her what it was, he ended their marriage.
Enough. Memory lane was fraught with peril. Returning the picture to the envelope, Corina spied the ferry tickets lodged in the bottom. They’d barely made the last boat to Hessenberg, their feet landing on the deck just as the vessel was about to pull away from the dock.
Laughing, they tripped their way to an inner cabin.
“Are we doing this?”
“We’re doing this.”
“Are you sure, really sure? I can wait—”
His lips covered hers, stealing her breath and her confession. “Corina, I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you. Walking across campus.”
She pressed her hand against his chest. “And I didn’t give you the time of day.”
What was she to do with her unrequited love? The man wanted an annulment.
Corina stuffed the envelope back into the secret compartment of the wardrobe and slammed the door shut. When and if she ever met a man to marry—should God be so kind to her—she’d find the courage to toss that envelope, with all of its treasures, into the river.