Page 51 of Love Walked In

I stood in front of the floor-length bedroom mirror in Leo’s flat in London Fields—no, my flat too now—loving the feel of the June sunlight on my skin as I brushed out my hair.

I had been awake since before six because of the midsummer dawn creeping through the bedroom windows.

Ordinarily I might be mad about the early wake-up call, but excitement and anticipation were better than caffeine for tiredness.

I’d gone into the kitchen, brewed coffee and made cinnamon toast for the both of us, then carried it back to the bedroom just to see the look of surprise and pleasure on Leo’s face.

He made me feel so cared for every single day, and I loved knowing that I could show him the same kind of care.

Now, a few hours later, Leo wandered in, studying his tablet, and my hands paused as I watched his reflection.

His navy suit pants sat low on his narrow hips, and his navy-and-white flowered shirt hung open, showing golden skin leftover from his last trip to California.

After some persuading and cat-calling from me, he’d spent a lot of time sitting by the pool at Suzanne’s house reading Dorothy Sayers mysteries wearing just a pair of swim trunks and sunglasses, and it turned out the sun glanced at him and he tanned like an Italian movie star, the jerk.

But if I watched him for too long, we’d end up back in bed. “How much longer do we have?”

“Fifteen minutes until Graham and Catriona come get us,” he said, marking something on the tablet with a stylus.

I smiled to myself. He’d become a little bit dreamy over the last year, coming home from the college studio full of ideas, his hands always moving on his tablet or his sketchbook.

He’d even gotten his first commission, making pen-and-ink drawings of London street scenes for a new travel website.

I loved that he had something that gave him so much joy, that he was letting his creativity run free instead of shoving it in a too-small box.

But we had places to be. I swept my hair over my shoulder, the opal in my vintage engagement ring flashing rainbows in the sunlight. “Zip me up?” I asked with a purr.

My love looked up to meet my eyes in the mirror and smiled.

“With pleasure.” He put his tablet on top of the bureau, then his bare feet padded across the wooden floor to stand behind me.

He zipped the bottle-green silk up my back, then he placed a tender little kiss on my neck, then another next to it, then another…

I couldn’t help but close my eyes from how good it felt. “You look really handsome in navy, but it must be thirteen minutes now.”

He growled softly and ran his hands down my sides, teased his fingertips at the hem of the short dress. “I can be quick, if you want me to.”

I bit back a moan. I had extremely fond memories of being yanked into a random janitor’s closet on a vineyard tour in Napa and Leo’s mouth and fingers sending me to heaven in three minutes flat. “I want you to take your time with me tonight. When we’re at the hotel.”

“No, I wasn’t planning to very thoroughly consummate our marriage. I was thinking we’d watch telly and fall asleep without touching. But I suppose your idea is better.”

I loved how he could go from turning me on to cracking me up so easily. “Devil boy.”

“All yours, darling,” he said with a smirk.

“But now—” I held up a bottle of tinted moisturizer, and with one last peck on my cheek, he waved his hand and turned around to finish getting dressed while I did my makeup.

Yes, we were a little cheesy, I thought as I smoothed on the moisturizer.

But it just felt… right. Right to wake up in the morning and wrap myself around him.

Right to feel that little lightning bolt of excitement when he walked into the room.

Right to go to the pub with Graham and Catriona and hold hands under the table.

It had taken a year of dating long-distance, crisscrossing the Atlantic when it was a particularly quiet time at Orchard House or when he had a break from studying.

I painted on pale eyeshadow and curled my eyelashes as I remembered how last June, I’d gotten to the arrivals area at the international terminal at SFO ridiculously late at night.

Leo’s flight had been delayed, the turbulence over Canada had been unusually terrible, and my poor boyfriend was ragged and exhausted.

When he’d gotten down on his knees, I thought he was so tired he didn’t know what he was doing.

It was only when he held out a ring, a sparkling opal flanked by two tiny diamonds, the jewels emerging from gold scrolling leaves, that my brain turned from fear into amazement.

I was so grateful for every conversation we’d had, every love letter Leo had written in messy blue script and sent across the ocean, every kiss and touch we’d claimed when we were together in person.

But this moment was more than I’d ever dreamed of in all my lonely life.

“I love you. I love you, I love you,” I’d blurted, kneeling on the cold airport floor.

He’d smiled tiredly. “I had a whole proposal planned, but I suppose I only have to say please?”

He was so funny and so smart and he wanted to be mine forever. “Yes. Yes to all of it.”

Of course, it hadn’t been that easy. We’d had to decide where we would live and, when we’d finally agreed that we’d live in London for the first few years, securing a fiancée visa for me had taken many more months than it was supposed to.

I’d finally landed at Heathrow at the beginning of March, and Leo greeted me at the airport with endless kisses and an armful of daffodils, an explosion of spring just for me.

Leo stood behind me again in the mirror, tying a plain navy tie as I stained my lips watermelon pink. He was already wearing a navy jacket over the shirt, and dark brown brogues so well polished I could have done my makeup in them instead of the mirror.

When I finished blotting, he put light hands on my hips and admired our reflection. “So pretty,” he said softly.

I leaned back against him a little bit, getting a hit of his bay rum shower gel. “You’re the artist, you would know.”

He reached over and grabbed his phone.

“We need to go?” I asked.

“Two minutes. Plenty of time.” He tugged on my arm so that I’d turn around.

“For what? One hundred twenty seconds aren’t…” I stopped, because Leo’s mouth was on mine, slow and loving and thoroughly ravishing. I lost myself to his chocolate taste, to his grasping hands, to the attraction that burned between us hotter and hotter all the time.

After a moment, he pulled back, his mouth stained pink and turned up in his most evil grin. “I would say I’m sorry…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I joked, handing him my trusty jar of makeup-remover gel.

Ten seconds after I finished repainting my mouth, the flat buzzer rang.

That would be Catriona and Graham coming to walk us to Hackney Town Hall.

Neither of us had wanted a big, flashy ceremony—just our closest people around us: Suzanne, Judith and Tommy, Jamie and Annika and the boys, Elaine and David and the twins.

But tonight, at the old antique shop space Leo had bought with his Ross & Co.

money, we’d have a party with his friends from his course, Bex and Paul, Vinay and Sonali, and, of course, the whole Beckett gang.

There’d be champagne and chocolate cake, hugs and cheers and toasts, and I couldn’t wait to be surrounded by all that sweetness, all that love.

And then? Then I’d build a new bookstore. It’d be small, with soft cushions in the bay window and a cozy children’s section downstairs at the back. It would be a store, but it would also be a gathering place, a refuge for anyone who needed it.

I slipped on my yellow kitten heels, checked my vintage clutch to make sure I had my lipstick, phone, and keys, then headed for the door. But Leo’s gentle hand on my forearm stopped me.

He looked down at me, his whiskey eyes bright. “I know it’s about to get really busy,” he said, his voice warm and velvety, “so I wanted to tell you that I love you, and I think this is going to be the best day of my life.”

“Oh, so it’s all downhill from here?” I wrapped my arm around his waist. “I love you, too. So much. And how about it’s the best first day of our lives?

” Because before we’d met, we’d both thought in our own ways that our lives were over just as they’d begun, that we were stuck doing the same things forever.

It had taken meeting each other, pushing each other, giving ourselves away to each other, to make us realize that our lives were what we made them.

We were each other’s spring, each other’s new beginning.

He nodded, his cheeks pink. “I like that. I like that very much.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose. “Now, let’s get started.”