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Elena woke to the press of his weight on the mattress. The room was still dark—not more than a few hours had passed. She was amazed she’d slept at all, though there had been peace in having the truth—all of it—laid out in the open. “Grayson?” she whispered uncertainly in the darkness.

“Elena, it’s me.” He drew her into his arms and she felt his strength surround her. She’d not thought to feel it again. “Everything’s alright.” He kissed the top of her head. He was naked. “Tell me what that means,” Elena said breathlessly. Did she dare hope he’d seen the truth of her confession?

“It means I love you, Elena. It means I understand why you did what you did. And in the end, we built our own truths together. I don’t want to turn my back on those.”

Elena squeezed her eyes shut, tears of a different sort than the ones she cried earlier leaking out the corners.

“Are you crying?” Grayson asked. “Why?”

“Because I am so happy. I don’t deserve it, Grayson.”

“Yes you do.” He pulled her hair aside and nuzzled her neck. “I want to marry you, in the chapel here at the pazo tomorrow. But I also have a duty to my family. I have to go back to England—I want to take you with me. But if you want to fight for the pazo, I’ll help you. If you want to sell it to Don Alicante, we’ll do it. Just tell me what you want.”

Elena sighed. Grayson was hers. The pazo, the village, had not been the happiest of places for her. She’d hung onto the estate because it had been the only thing she had to support herself. But now with Grayson by her side… Her decision was easy. “We’ll sell. My home is with you, always.”

It was the truth. In the past months, being with Grayson had taught her the most important of lessons: home wasn’t necessarily a place but a person. She’d gone looking for an imposter but she’d found true love instead. She turned in his arms and kissed him full on the mouth.

But that was merely a prelude to other things.

Three weeks later, Mr. and Mrs. Grayson Prentiss sailed up the mouth of the Thames to the Pool of London, with Patrick Flaherty beside them at the rail of the boat.

Spain and the pazo were now far behind them, though they had made sure that the pazo was in good hands. Unwilling to work for Don Alicante, the servants had pooled their savings and bought the pazo—thanks to some quick work between Paine Ramsden’s banking connections in Santiago de Compostela and London. It felt good to know that right now a modest sum was sitting in the Bank of London to help Elena and Grayson start their life in England.

Such a prospect filled Elena with nervous excitement. She would step off the boat as the wife of an heir to a viscountcy, though they would not be wealthy. Grayson had told her it might be years before his plan to restore the nearly bankrupt family estate paid off. Even now, they were not dressed in the height of fashion one might expect for a viscount’s heir. The money from the sale of the pazo would be used for other things in the coming months.

Elena did not care. She had not been overly wealthy before. Life would be much the same as it had been in Spain with one telling exception. She squeezed Grayson’s hand and exchanged a secret look with him. As if the fates had blessed their union, she’d conceived on their wedding night. But with a man like Grayson Prentiss in her bed, she should have expected nothing else.

He laughed down at her. “Thinking of the babe?”

She gave him a sly grin. “I was thinking what we’d tell him or her when they ask how we met.”

“And?” he played along.

She tossed her head up at him, letting the breeze catch her curls. “I will say, ‘let me tell you the story of the seduction of Grayson Prentiss’.”

Grayson tapped her on the nose. “That, my dear, is a story still in progress. Promise me it will never end.”

THE END