Crown of a Prince (Finn Shelby)

50.

He smiled at the memory, how terrified they had been they would get caught and how Ailbhe had dove behind the sofa to hide. He remembered how proud John had been of him, how good it felt to be John's partner in crime and how happy John had been.

"I miss him" Finn admitted, his voice quiet.

"Me too" Ailbhe replied, sinking further into Finn's arms, feeling them tighten around her.

Ailbhe couldn't see his face but she felt his emotions, his grief and loss that sat in the air for a moment. And then he let it pass, just like Ailbhe did for Séan.

"I missed you today too" He nudged her, turning her around to face him.

She smiled, sliding her hands up around his neck and wrapping her arms around his shoulders as she leaned up on her toes.

"Did you?" She asked rhetorically, already knowing he was telling the truth. Finn didn't lie to her, nor did she ever lie to him.

"What about us?" He asked her, raising an eyebrow at her as she tried not to completely melt under his hands that held her against him.

"What about us?" She asked, confused and trying not to get lost in his eyes.

He was getting more and more handsome to her every day to the point it was starting to irritate her. She barely felt able to look away from him now, felt herself constantly drawn to him and always crave his touch.

"What will our wedding be like?" He asked her, as if it was the obvious thing in the world.

He noticed her eyes widen slightly and how her mouth fell open a little.

"What the fuck Finn?" she whispered, the laugh on her lips spilling out and making Finn start grinning like an idiot too.

"Is that a proposal?" She joked, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his lips for just a second.

He was drunk and she was well on her way to being drunk too but she loved him more for it. In all honesty, she hadn't thought of their wedding at all. She had always imagined their future, their life together but she hadn't thought of the specifics of the wedding. A wedding seemed almost something too plain and ordinary for the extraordinary lives of the Shelby Kennedy family. But it was a normal thing for people to do when people were in love.

"No" He replied pushing her back gently in the direction of the book case until her back was against it and Finn stood in front of her, his hands on her hips.

"You'll know when I'm proposing don't you worry" He promised her, his face still smiling and happy but his tone more serious.

He looked at her, hoping he hadn't shocked her or frightened her off but she was still there. She stood there, still smiling at him and looking at him like she always did, like a girl who loved him.

"One day" He promised her, knowing that Ailbhe wasn't even thinking about marriage yet. In truth, neither was he but it was in his mind as a certainty that one day he would marry her and she would be his wife. It had never really appealed to him, the whole pomp and ceremony but the aftermath did. The idea that Ailbhe and he were bound together, committed to no one but each other.

The alternative seemed quite unbearable. To think of being married to another woman or to think of Ailbhe with another man's hands on her, another man in her bed or kissing her was enough to make his grip on her waist tighten.

"One day" she whispered back, her forehead against his. Knowing that one day he would be her husband was a little frightening and yet comforting to have such a certainty.

Nobody could tell the future, not even Polly with all the tea leaves in the world. But Ailbhe knew that she couldn't be with anyone else. While Finn walked the Earth, she would never be happy with anyone else. The mere idea of being with another man or another woman with Finn made her so jealous she wanted to put a ring on his finger right then and there. But she trusted Finn.