mind, simply impractical for a painter. Now she just tucked her hair behind her ears every morning, pulled on jeans and a paint-stained t-shirt and went straight to work. And no more contact lenses, only glasses, which she pushed up on her head when doing fine detail work, put on her face again when she was making her broad strokes. Short hair. Glasses. A wrist tattoo, no watch, and torn jeans. Regan felt seventeen again with her whole life ahead of her, even if it wasn’t a long life, she thought, maybe…it might be a happy one.
She made a few final touches to her painting and stood back, arms crossed, brush dangling from her right hand, heedlessly dripping paint on the floor.
She tilted her head left, then right, then took another step back. Was it done, really? Finally? Should she deepen the shading? Should she change the background color from grey to blue?
“It’s perfect.”
Regan jumped and spun around.
Arthur stood in the doorway of her studio.
She could only stare at him a moment, standing before her like an apparition. He’d changed, too, since she’d last seen him in early December. Almost six months had passed, and he already looked years older. Shorter hair, too. Taller? No, but he had on his army boots, which gave him more height. His camo fatigues were rolled up to his elbows, showing off his tanned and muscular forearms. He looked bigger, older, more powerful. He looked like a man who could protect her from any and everything.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m on leave,” he said. “One week.”
“How did you find me?”
“You had Zoot send you your things.”
“She wouldn’t give you my address.”
“No,” he said, smiling, “but she would sell it to me for five grand.”
Regan laughed, shook her head. “I’m going to fire that girl. She swore to me—”
“Everyone has a price, yes?”
She sighed.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t want me to find you,” he said. “You put the name ‘M. Regan Le Fay’ on your mailbox downstairs.”
“You caught that joke, did you?” Morgan Le Fay was King Arthur’s half-sister, his enemy and his lover.
“I’m the smart one in the family, remember?” He grinned and her blood temperature shot up to a steady boil. She’d been happy here in Montmartre, painting, living alone, being herself. Happy and lonely, which she never knew could go so well together until she’d started using her loneliness in her art.
“I’m a Godwick, too,” she said. “You’re not the smart one in the family anymore.”
“May I come in?” He was standing right on the threshold. She’d kept the door cracked for better ventilation. He hadn’t broken in, not really. He probably would have if it had come to that, she thought.
“Yes, you may come in.”
The urge to run into his arms and kiss him was nearly overwhelming but she held back. She’d left to heal, to escape the prison she’d made for herself. She’d also left to break whatever spell she’d cast over Arthur, so that he’d see they shouldn’t be together for more reasons than she could count. Six months had passed. That should have done it. He should have been long over her by now.
Well, she should have been over him, too, and yet here she was, heart stampeding through her chest like a horse that had escapes its pasture.
He came to her and stood before her.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
“Like it?”
“Love it. It’s you.”
“You cut your hair, too.”
“Had to. Like it?”
“Hmm…not bad. I liked it better longer.”
He laughed. “It’ll grow back when I get out.”
“So…are you in Paris for your leave? Taking a holiday?”
“Honeymoon.”
“Brat.” It wasn’t easy to sound annoyed while one’s heart was dancing, but she managed to do it. “Did I or did I not order you to never ask me to marry you?”
“You did say I couldn’t ask you to marry me. I’m not asking, though. I’m telling you—we’re getting married. Never give a Godwick a loophole.”
“Or any other hole, so I hear,” she said.
Ignoring her, he said, “I’ve made Charlie my heir. I’ve already told him. It’s as official as these things can be.”
She stared at him. He meant it. She could tell he meant it. His voice was serious, his eyes earnest.
“You did?” Her voice came out strangely hoarse. She cleared her throat. “That’s not…you can’t offer that to someone, then take it back.”
“I won’t take it back. Best thing I’ve ever done. It’s changed his life,” Arthur said. “You were right about him feeling worthless since he was the ‘spare.’