Epilogue

Eliza finished the last few scenes of Walking Dogs without bursting from happiness. But it was hard. Once she let herself fully invest in her relationship with Joaquin, the oddest thing happened. Nothing changed. And that was exactly what she’d hoped for.

If she craved his physical presence, she never had to go very far. If she wanted to spill her thoughts out via chat, he was more than willing to do so despite their relative proximity. It was like having the best of all worlds, and like a dummy, she’d been resisting it this whole time.

After the movie wrapped and the production staff left to go back to Hollywood, she’d steeled herself for Joaquin to pull her aside to say it was time for him to return to the land of hot tubs and movie stars as well, but instead he told her to spend the day at Relâcher with her friends because he was taking her on a date that night.

No one had to ask her twice. She could use a long massage and some down time with Lilith and Carolina. Katie, Shiloh and Nomi had all taken a rain check in favor of spending time with their fiancés and/or husbands, which didn’t turn Eliza green with envy for the first time ever.

While they waited on paying customers to finish up, Carolina and Eliza hung out near the reception desk with Lilith, which gave Eliza a long overdue chance to ask a burning question.

“What gives with the new live broadcast format?”

Carolina shrugged. “Charlie’s doing it. Figured I should keep up.”

That made total sense. Carolina acted like she couldn’t care less about what her ex-husband did, but in reality, she tracked him pretty carefully. Most people didn’t have a clue she had an ex in her rearview, let alone that he was her main rival.

“Pretty slick how you decided to let Joaquin be your first call-in guest,” Eliza said casually. “That was interesting timing.”

“Someone needed to get you guys on the right page since you weren’t doing it yourselves,” she said with an eyebrow waggle that spoke volumes. “Never let it be said that I’m not an advocate of true love.”

“Just not for yourself, right?” Lilith threw in as she reached for the ringing phone. “Relâcher. How can I relax you today?”

“True love isn’t in the cards for everyone.” Carolina stuck her hands in the back pockets of her mint green jeans that should have clashed with her purple Converse high tops yet somehow didn’t. “I’m just doing my part to make sure people have the right hand when the cards are dealt.”

“Maybe you should give Hugo a shot, then,” Eliza advised mildly, not that her friend had ever said one way or the other whether Hugo had asked for one. “He’s a sweet guy.”

“Maybe I will,” she said and then did the most un-Carolina thing possible by clamming up, not speaking another word for the entirety of their massages. Something was up there, and Eliza would bet the bank it had everything to do with the billionaire in residence.

When Eliza got home, she hadn’t been inside the door more than two minutes when a courier knocked to deliver her a dress in a bag that didn’t need any explanation—Joaquin delighted in sending her extravagant gifts and he thought nothing of buying her a dress that cost more than her car. She’d long given up arguing with him and when he picked her up later for their date, the expression on his face was worth it.

“What did I do to deserve you?” he murmured and swept her into his arms for a long kiss that melted her bones.

“If I recall correctly, you pretended to be a lowly artist until you could lure me into your clutches, and then made me fall in love with you.”

“Oh that’s right. Lucky me.” His gaze warmed as he drank her in, still as shockingly intimate as it had always been, like he had every right to slide right inside her with nothing more than a glance. Someday maybe she’d get used to it. “I was going to wait until the end of the night to do this, but I can’t stand the weight of this in my pocket any longer.”

And then as if by magic, a ring box appeared in his hand and Joaquin Cortez knelt at her feet, popped open the hinged lid and plucked out a diamond the size of Texas that had grown suspiciously blurry the longer she stared at it.

“I had a long-drawn-out proposal drafted in my head, but I figured I’d forget it all the second I got here,” he confessed. “Which is exactly what happened. So I’ll cut to the chase. Marry me so I can call you Z-Squared.”

“Deal.” She held out her hand and let him slip the ring onto her third finger, not even caring that the makeup she’d spent thirty minutes applying was probably running down her face along with all the happy tears. “As long as you promise your mother isn’t going to eat me alive.”

“Done. After all, it’s the least I can do after you volunteered to go to Madrid with me for Christmas.”

And neither of them minded that they didn’t make it to dinner after all. Because when it was just the two of them, they could be one hundred percent themselves. Just the way they liked it best.