Chapter 10 - Where the Feet Follow
The fog cleared completely, revealing the vast, shimmering expanse of the Atlantic stretching toward the horizon.
Matteo reached out, his large, scarred hand resting gently over hers on the brass railing.
His touch was not demanding. It wasn't the controlling grip of a man trying to claim an asset, or the performative romance of a financier playing a role for a ballroom full of photographers.
It was the quiet, immovable anchor she had needed all along.
“Your father told you to look where you’re going,” Matteo said softly, quoting the memory she had carried down that cathedral aisle. “Because your feet will follow.”
Victoria looked at their hands joined on the railing, then up into the rugged, honest planes of his face.
“Where are we going, Matteo?” she asked, a gentle, playful curve touching her lips.
Matteo smiled—a rare, brilliant expression that softened the hard lines of his jaw and made him look ten years younger under the morning sun.
“Wherever you decide to steer the ship, Captain,” he answered.
The ship’s horn sounded across the harbor, a deep, resonant blast that signaled clear waters ahead.
From the docks below, longshoremen and harbor pilots waved up at the bridge deck, their voices carrying across the water in a chorus of genuine, working-class cheer.
Victoria drew a deep breath of the cold, clean sea air, feeling the vibrations of the massive engines hum through the deck beneath her boots.
She had escaped the altar of deceit.
She had survived the storm that stole her father, dismantled the empire of lies that tried to bury her, and reclaimed the legacy that was rightfully hers.
May you like
She tightened her fingers around Matteo’s hand, leaning her shoulder lightly against his arm as the vessel surged past the outer harbor buoy into the deep, open sea.
The past was anchored in the deep, the debts were paid in full, and for Victoria Kensington, the horizon ahead was finally, beautifully clear.
