Epilogue

Beth dusts her hands on her jeans and surveys her new office. The desk and shelves are still in cardboard flat packs leaning against the walls of the room. But once they’re assembled, she knows she’s going to love working from home.

Well, technically, Adrian’s home. No. Technically, their home.

Once her contract at Triad Technologies was over, Beth had started looking for a job at a magazine. While she’d loved her job at Triad Technologies, she knew her passion lay in telling stories that made people feel. It was the reason she’d switched majors to journalism in college. But at some point, while working for 'Buzz', she’d lost sight of her dream. She isn’t going to let that happen again.

Like he’d promised, Adrian had been with her every step of the way even though she’d limited his contribution to emotional support and simply speaking to his contacts in big-name publishing companies on her behalf. By the end of the week, she’d gotten several voicemails with possible job prospects and interview requests.

Eventually, she’d accepted a job at 'Roosevelt' magazine, which had presented her with a generous salary and investment plan, plus the opportunity to work from home three days a week. She’s settled on that particular magazine because reading their monthly pieces on an array of women’s issues had made a very significant impact on her during her most formative years, and she’d felt incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work for them and maybe help change even one other girl’s life.

Adrian comes up behind her, linking his arms around her waist. “Hi,” he murmurs into her ear, kissing her lobe. He pulls her against him, all hard, warm muscles.

“Who’s going to put all this stuff together?” he asks.

She brings her hands up, lacing her fingers between his. “The movers?”

He nuzzles her neck and puts an open mouthed kiss over her now-racing pulse.

“Hmm-mm. They’re gone.”

“I guess that leaves you,” she breathes.

He backs away from her neck and kisses her hair. “Bummer.”

She turns in his arms, missing his mouth already. Linking her arms around his neck, she kisses him, nearly overpowered by how much she loves him.

Adrian wasted no time asking her to move in. She’d suspected that step was coming. They were always together, whether it was her coming here to stretch out on his ginormous bed, or it was him taking up most of her queen-size lace duvet.

And things have been good. Better than good, great. Adrian is healing a little more every day. He talks about his past without much prompting on her part, and without bitterness on his. And he’s gotten really good at telling her how he feels. And how much he loves her, which she’s never tired of hearing.

“There’s a box in the living room,” he says, pulling away from her lips. “I need you to tell me where it goes."

She sighs. She had no idea how much stuff she had until she’d packed it all into boxes. Even after a generous donation, she’d still filled a moving truck. Adrian had assured her there was plenty of room for all of it, but she’d insisted on paring down. Even so, it hadn’t made the task of unpacking any less dreadful.

“One more box,” she says. “Then I’m taking a nap.”

With one arm still around her waist, he slides the other beneath her shirt as they walk down the hall. “Me, too.”

She presses his palm against her rib cage, stopping what is sure to be a slow, distracting exploration she’ll be helpless to stop. “Your idea of a nap and mine are two entirely different concepts.”

He laughs lightly in agreement and slips his hands away.

In the living room, boxes line each wall, stacked two or three high. “Which one?” she asks, her shoulders sagging.

“This one,” Adrian says from behind her.

She turns to find him on the floor. Knee bent, a little velvet box in his hand.

“Adrian… Oh, my gosh,” she breathes through her fingers.

He grins. “I thought you might say that.”

She opens her mouth to speak but can’t. Tears streak her face as she blinks them away and focuses on the man she loves. The man who loves her.

“From partners in business,” he says, opening the lid, “to partners in life.”

He pulls the ring from the box, but she doesn’t take her eyes off his. “All I do these days is fantasize about you, and us and the life we’re going to have together. You make me want to be a better man, and the best father in the world. For all the ways you’ve changed my life, and all the happiness you’ve brought me, you deserve nothing short of that.”

Her knees are weak and she can barely see through her tears.

She looks down at his beautiful face—at all those perfectly sculpted features that, once upon a time, rarely bothered to move. She flings herself at him, knocking his breath from his lungs and nearly toppling him onto the carpet in the process, mashing her lips against his. Then she covers every inch of his face with kisses…wet ones, since her eyes were leaking uncontrollably.

Adrian lies on the floor beneath her, his blue eyes glimmering when they look at hers. He reaches up and wipes the tears and damp curls from her cheeks, the engagement ring, her engagement ring, resting on the tip of his index finger.

She brings her wet eyes to their hands as he slides the most beautiful ring she’s ever seen onto her finger. His face lights up just as much as hers as they watch it slide perfectly in place.

He cradles her face in his hands, and her body presses against his. “Making you happy has been by far my proudest achievement, Beth. And I’ll never stop working to keep that smile on your face,” he murmurs, his lips spreading in a grin as she lets out one more sob. “So marry me. I’ve been waiting for a while to call you my wife.”

She nods, blinking back another barrage of emotion.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” she whispers.

“I love you, Beth,” he said, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’ll never let you down again.”

“Shut up and kiss me,” she laughs into his mouth as she kisses him with all the bursting, aching love in her heart, arching closer to him, holding him tightly to her.