AGE TWENTY-EIGHT
Chaos works in unpredictable patterns.
When I first met it after being kidnapped, I thought something was wrong with me and I needed to hide that something.
Until I walked to that park and saw it again.
Until I witnessed Silver in her truest, rawest form. It was a different type of chaos and I didn’t feel the need to hide.
Not from her.
Never from her.
She’s the one who saw my chaos and took it in both hands as if it was always hers to take.
She’s the one who grabbed me, pushed me onto that bench, and straddled my lap so I wouldn’t leave. Not that I could after that moment.
An invisible thread bound us together and there was no way in fuck anything could break it.
So what if we were siblings at one point? In my mind, she was mine before that even happened.
So what if she was engaged to that fucker Aiden first? It was never real. She and I are. In fact, we always were. It might have started when she cried her glitter tears on me or when she kissed my cheek for the first time or when she saved me all her firsts, just like I saved her mine.
“You didn’t save me all your firsts,” she told me the other day while we were lounging by the pool at her parents’ house.
She was wearing her bikini and I was distracted, thinking of ways to have her remove it, but at the same time, I didn’t want any of the staff to see her naked. I don’t even like them seeing her in her bikini.
I adjusted my shades and tilted my book, Calila e Dimna. It was a special edition paperback she got for me on my birthday after the fucker Ronan burnt my previous one in a fit of jealousy. “Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t.” She glared at me, and even though she was wearing huge Chanel shades, I could feel the maliciousness in her blue eyes. “After you kissed me when we were fourteen, you said I wasn’t bad compared to the others.”
I smiled. “You remember that.”
“Of course I do, you wanker. It was my first kiss.”
“It was my first kiss, too.”
“But you said —”
“I only said that because you had your first waltz with Aiden.” My blood still boiled thinking about that. The fucker will pay for it for the rest of his life.
Silver’s lips broke into a smile before she cleared her throat. “You…you’re unbelievable.”
“Is that supposed to be news, Butterfly?”
She removed her shades, revealing those deep blue eyes, then she abandoned her chair and straddled my lap, just like that day at the park. The view from beneath was the same — ethereal and breathtaking.
She slid my aviators away because, as she’s always told me, she likes seeing my eyes — or rather, seeing herself in my eyes.
“So I was your first kiss,” she murmured.
“You were.”
She lifted her chin. “And last.”
“And last.” Then I devoured her until Cynthia joined us and cockblocked me.
She does that occasionally, cockblocks me just to see my reaction, and I do it to her every chance I get whenever she wants alone time with Sebastian.
What? I do hold grudges sometimes.
That’s also why Aiden is my best man today. It’s not because of his skills — which are terrible, by the way — but because I want him to see that Silver is mine. He might have been her fake fiancé at one time, and I can’t erase that; however, I can make him watch me get married to her.
Not that he cares since he has Elsa, but this is a point I need to cement. During those years I thought she was his, I suffered in silence, and I don’t want to ever have those feelings again. The feelings of being pushed into a corner until I couldn’t sleep at night.
My thoughts come to a halt when Silver appears down the aisle, her gloved hand tucked into Sebastian’s arm.
I admire how her wedding dress moulds to her curves as the sand shifts underneath her feet, leaving trails in their wake. My gaze ascends from the bottom to the top until I’m captured by bright eyes. She smiles at me in that shy yet determined way, like she used to do when we were young.
Our wedding is set on a small beach in the same French town where I first kissed her, held her hand, and walked with my palm on her back in front of people.
The first time where we were free, even though we’d suffered the loss of our unborn baby. The first time Silver kissed me without holding back. It was also when we got our tattoos together.
Now, we’re commemorating those moments to memory once again. Only, now, it’s in front of the world. We’ve been public for some time, but the marriage seals the deal once and for all.
It’s been ten years. Ten fucking years since she became mine, and twenty years since I saw her at that park and decided she’d be my chaos.
But that’s the thing about Silver, not only is she my chaos, but she’s also my peace. The home I go back to every day.
We had to keep our relationship a secret for a long time, and while I enjoyed stealing her from the middle of people, tying her up or fucking her in dark corners, I need the world to know the truth I’ve known since I was bloody eight years old.
Silver belongs to me as much as I belong to her.
The fact that I can finally shout it to the world fills me with a strange feeling I’ve never experienced before.
Giddiness? Nervousness?
Or maybe it’s…happiness.
Before Silver, I didn’t know what that word meant. After her, it simply means…my Butterfly. My chaos. My world.
She understands when I need a challenge and she doesn’t shy away from meeting me head-on. That’s what I love the most about Silver. The fact that she never backs away and never gives up. Actually, she needs the challenge as much as I do, and that’s why she’s the perfect woman for me.
And because she is, I intend to live the rest of our lives proving that fact.
Sebastian kisses his daughter on the cheek before he gives her to me. Her smile is still shy, but those blue eyes? Fuck, how they look at me.
I’m the one who’s obsessed with seeing myself in her eyes, not the other way around. I’m the one who can’t get enough of how they look at me.
“Notice something?” she whispers.
“What?”
“Nothing?” Her lips pull into an adorable pout.
“You should know by now that I notice everything about you.” I motion at her dress’s ribbon with the butterfly brooch on it. “Fucking butterflies.”
“If you call them cockroaches with wings, I’ll kill you.”
I chuckle, tugging her to me because the distance between us is blasphemy. “They’re bright and beautiful and make people happy, just like you, my Butterfly.”
Her cheeks turn a deep shade of red. “Then you’re more important than them, because you make me happy, Cole. You make me so happy.”
“And I will continue to.”
“Are we really getting married?” she whispers. “I still think it’s a dream.”
“Let’s tie the knot here and I’ll show you later whether or not it’s a dream, Mrs Nash.”
Her lips part and the urge to devour her hits me, so I do just that. I tie our own knot before anyone else can do it.
I’m hers.
She’s mine.
