EPILOGUE

      IT WAS A twenty-minute walk from the apartment block to the Rockefeller Center but the two small boys weren’t complaining about the distance. It was too exciting to be walking through the park in the dark of the evening and besides, if they weren’t having a turn riding on Daddy’s shoulders, they got to hold hands with Grace.

      ‘Look, Daddy...look, Gace...’ It was Max’s turn to be carried high on his father’s shoulders. ‘What are they doing?’

      ‘Ice skating,’ Charles told him. ‘Would you like to try it one day soon?’

      ‘Is Gace coming, too?’

      ‘Yes.’ Grace grinned up at the little boy, her heart swelling with love. One day maybe he would call her ‘Mummy’ but it really didn’t matter.

      ‘Of course she is,’ Charles said. ‘Remember what we talked about? Grace and I are going to be married. Very soon. Before Christmas, even. We’re a family now.’

      ‘And Gace is going to be our mummy,’ Cameron shouted.

      Max bounced on Charles’s shoulders as a signal to be put down. ‘I want to hold my mummy’s hand,’ he said.

      ‘She’s my mummy, too.’ Cameron glared at his brother.

      ‘Hey...I’ve got two hands. One each.’ Grace caught Charles’s gaze over the heads of the boys and the look in his eyes melted her heart.

      Mummy.

      It did matter.

      Not the name. The feeling. Feeling like the bond between all of them was unbreakable.

      Family.

      A branch of the Davenport family of New York—something which she still hadn’t got used to—but their own unique unit within that dynasty.

      Charles had shown her the Davenport ring last week, after that magical sleigh ride in the park.

      ‘I’ve told Zac it’s waiting for him, if he ever gets round to needing it. It belongs to the past and, even before you agreed to marry me, I knew it wouldn’t suit you.’

      ‘Because it’s so flashy?’

      ‘Because it represents everything that is window dressing in life, not the really important stuff.’

      ‘Like love?’

      ‘Like love. Like what’s beneath any kind of window dressing.’

      He’d touched her body then. A gentle reminder that what her clothes covered was real. Not something to be ashamed of but a symbol of struggle and triumph. Something to be proud of.

      So she had chosen a ring that could have also made its way through struggle and triumph already. An antique ring with a simple, small diamond.

      ‘We’re almost there, guys.’ Charles was leading them through the increasingly dense crowds on the Manhattan streets. ‘Let’s find somewhere we’ll be able to see.’

      Grace could hear the music now. And smell hotdogs and popcorn from street stalls. People around them were wearing Santa hats with flashing stars and reindeer antlers that made her remember the horse that had pulled her sleigh so recently on the night that had changed her life for ever.

      They couldn’t get very close to the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan but it didn’t matter because the huge tree towered above the crowds and the live music was loud enough to be heard for miles. Charles lifted Cameron to his shoulders and Grace picked up Max to rest him on her hip. He wrapped his arms around her neck and planted a kiss on her cheek.

      ‘I love you, Mummy.’

      ‘I love you, too, Max,’ she whispered back.

      A new performance was starting. If it wasn’t Mariah Carey singing, it was someone who sounded exactly like her. And it was her song: ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’.

      Grace leaned back against the man standing protectively so close behind her. She turned her head and smiled up at him.

      ‘That’s so true,’ she told him. ‘It’s now officially my favourite Christmas song, ever.’

      ‘Mine, too.’

      When the song finished, the countdown started and when the countdown finished, the magnificent tree with its gorgeous crystal star on the top blazed into life.

      The Christmas season had officially begun.

      And Grace had all she had ever wanted. All she would ever want.

      The tender kiss that Charles bent to place on her lips right then made it clear that they both did.

      * * * * *