Defending Pacer, стр. 42

I join Pacer up at the control bridge and sink into his outstretched arm. One last glance out the back of the boat and I see the tall cliff tops that line Sydney become a small thin line. Looking ahead, there is nothing but the ocean, and our future together.

Reflecting back on our whirlwind romance that began just over a month ago, I find it so hard to believe just how far we’ve come in that short time. Under the circumstances that we were given, we had little choice in taking things slowly.

I never would’ve dreamed of doing the things I’ve done during the past month. I was raised on the values of having strong ethics, but Pacer’s world has shown me that ethics are subjective to each individual. Pacer was right—the only way to deal with someone like Jackson Reed was to fight fire with fire.

The moment I made a deal with the detectives to destroy evidence against Pacer, I knew I had crossed a line that I could never come back from—I had entered their world.

Even if I knew my parents weren’t going to accept Pacer and I no matter what I did, I would do it all over again.

It’s not just love; it’s the whole package. Security, self-worth and understanding—it’s what I feel every time I look at Pacer. There was no other choice in this. I had no alternative—love found me in the most unique of situations, and I accepted it with open arms. Maybe we were drawn to one another for a reason.

Our destination may be unknown, but as long as Pacer is beside me I don’t care where we land. Pacer is my island and his love is my life-vest.

EPILOGUE

The badly-damaged and capsized boat, Lady Maria, was located off the coast of the Cook Islands by the coast guard today. It is believed that the vessel met with rough seas a month after it set sail from Sydney Harbour. An extensive operation has spent the past two days salvaging the wreckage, which is believed to have spread across 100 metres of the South Pacific Ocean. There are no confirmed survivors of the wreckage. Dive teams have searched the waters for its occupants, but the bodies of Pacer Fratelli and Chelsea Tanner are yet to be recovered.

A nation watched on in wonder as both Fratelli and Tanner left aboard the vessel days after Fratelli was cleared of a charge of murder. The pair captured the interest of the country with their Shakespearean-style love story. True to a story that Shakespeare himself would have written, art has imitated life, and this too has resulted in a tragic outcome for a romance that embroiled two of the city’s most powerful families on opposing sides of the law.

Representatives from the Legano family—the prominent crime family that Pacer Fratelli was linked to—have requested that the public please respect the privacy of the Fratelli family while they grieve for the loss of their much-loved family member. This is the second tragedy for Maria Fratelli, after the death of her husband in 2010 while he was serving his prison sentence at Silverwater Correctional Facility.

The high-profile Tanner family has refused to make a public statement about the incident, but sources close to the family say they are understandably devastated about the news of their daughter.

EXTENDED EPILOGUE

Picking out a new postcard, I choose one with palm trees overlooking the white sands of Bahia Beach in Costa Rica. We have decided to stay here for the next few months. Chelsea comes out of the drug store with her purchase, wrapped in a paper bag.

Giving me a quick kiss on the cheek as she passes, she keeps on walking. “I just need to get back to the villa and change into something a little more appropriate than a bikini and a sarong. I told Lenni I’d help him sort out the trouble he’s having with his assault charge.”

I shake my head. I can’t help but love her that little bit more. “We’re meant to blend in, remember?”

“I promised him I’d help,” she calls out, walking fast along the sidewalk to our private villa on the beach.

She can’t help herself. Always has to be helping someone, wherever we go. Walking into the drug store to purchase my postcard for Ma, I rifle through my pocket for some coins. I haven’t sent her a new postcard for about six weeks now. She’ll be getting worried. I never write anything on them, but when Scott wired his last call through to Franco, he told me she loves them.

I never thought I’d see the day when I would step back from the family, but Chelsea changed everything. Wherever we’ve gone, the local gangs always know who I am, but because of my father’s legacy, I am usually respected. They’ve heard the stories of ‘The Sting’. So far, I haven’t had to prove myself. I don’t think I will either. No one should ever underestimate freedom, on any level. It’s something I’ll never take for granted again.

The round little Costa Rican lady behind the counter grins smugly at me as I approach her. “Two hundred colones.”

I hand over the coins. The lady wraps my postcard in a paper bag and hands it back to me. “So your wife, eh, she not feeling so well lately, eh?”

I frown and have no idea what she’s talking about. Shaking my head, I reply, “Not that I know of. Why? Is everything all right? What did she have to buy?”

The lady raises her eyebrow and smiles. “If you noticed how much she’s blossoming, eh, maybe you have the answer for yourself, young man. Here …” She turns and grabs a bottle of vitamins and puts them into the paper bag. “You’ll probably be needing these.” She winks.

I snatch the bag and race out the door. “Thank you,” I call out as I leave.

Opening the paper bag as I walk, I find a vitamin bottle with the word ‘prenatal’ written boldly across the front. I can’t believe my eyes. Staring for a moment, all the little signs sink in. She suddenly hates the cologne she bought me for our wedding day in the Bahamas. She feels sick at the sight of seafood when she normally scoffs it down, and she is bulging out of her bikini top a lot more than normal.

Is my wife pregnant?

Waiting for the break in the crazy traffic along the main beach, my adrenaline starts to send me crazy. I need to get to the villa, to my honeybee. With the break I’ve been anticipating, I race over the road and try to run as fast as I can towards our villa.

Flinging our door open, I find Chelsea pacing back and forth at the front of the huge open lounge room. My entrance surprises her, and she stares in complete bewilderment at me. Our eyes remain firmly fixed on one another for what feels like minutes, but is no doubt only seconds.

“Is it true?” I ask.

The smile slowly grows across her face as she looks down at the white plastic strip within her hands.

“Looks like we’ll be staying in Costa Rica for a while,” she says slowly.

I race to her, swaddling her in my arms, swinging her around in a circle. “I’m really going to be a Dad?”

She nods and kisses me just the same as she did when we fist kissed in the seaplane, more than a year ago. Since then we have fled our native country, faked our own death to avoid the constant cameras that never seemed to leave us, no matter how far away we went, got married, lived in eight different countries … and now we’re having a baby!

“I can’t wait to tell Logan about this. I want her to come over here to be with me through this. Can you get Scott to put a call through to her for me?” Her smile is serene.

I hope she isn’t missing her family too much. She tells me she wants nothing to do with them, but I could never have that. I wasn’t raised like that, and no matter what her family did to her she needed to stay in touch with Logan, at the very least.

“You sure you still don’t regret leaving our life behind like we did?” I search her eyes to know for certain that she’s okay to have a baby in foreign country.