Epilogue One
? Isla ?
(Three Months Later)
The apartment is too quiet.
It always is during the evening when I get home before my boys. When I strip out of my coat and pad through our home alone.
I try to keep myself busy. I’ll start on supper or clean up. Little things to pacify that voice in my head telling me I’m a freeloader. It’s not true. I contribute. Not as drastically as Nick and Dom, but I pay for groceries when they’ll let me and I’ll clean, do the laundry and cook.
Dom tells me it’s not necessary. They have a sweet woman named Rosa who comes in once a week to clean and do laundry.
But I don’t mind keeping up the tasks until her visit.
It gives me something to do after I leave Dom at the ad agency.
The looming spire of glass that thrusts up from a hilt of concrete where Dom works. .. and I guess, technically, I do, too.
Only temporarily, Dom says, but it’s been four weeks and he hasn’t even put up an ad for potential candidates.
Part of me thinks he felt sorry for me struggling to find work, but a slightly more confident part of me knows I’m doing a good job, which is why he hasn’t had a need to.
At the time of him offering me the position, he’d fired his last assistant for double charging clients behind his back and pocketing the rest. He asked if I wouldn’t mind tagging along on a few jobs, just until he found someone new and.
.. I like it. I like all the places and people he meets.
I like watching him in his element, so charming and sexy talking business.
I had to stop myself a few times from drooling while watching him.
I think part of that is the reason I’m not pressing him to find someone else.
I don’t like the idea of another woman seeing him like that.
But I get sent home early on meeting days, which is every Friday. That’s when all the leaders go into the boardroom — this unnecessarily large room with a massive oval table — and discuss strategy or whatever.
I hate Fridays. I hate coming home alone to an empty apartment.
Lately, I’ve been finding myself standing at the wide, wall to wall windows overlooking Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village and watching the people pass along the snow-lined streets.
It’s mid-March, but the white flakes continue to sprinkle from overhead in a swirl of glitter.
From our eighth-floor vantage point, it’s probably the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
New York has proven to be exactly what I’ve been looking for. Yes, it’s where my boys live, and being with them has given me a life and purpose I have ached for my entire life, but the city itself... there is just something about it.
The people.
The history.
The buildings.
The smells.
Of all the places I have lived, and there have been many, New York has my heart.
But even the view isn’t enough to calm the gnawing creature clawing at my chest. It twists and burrows, knotting up my stomach as I watch the orange tabby in the window across the way knock the potted plant off the sill for the sixth time since the owner brought the defenseless geranium home a week ago.
I suck in a breath, filling my lungs with the familiar scent of home. Of Dom’s subtle musk and sandalwood and Nick’s leather and spices. I cling to both as I try to find my footing.
It’s getting worse.
Whatever this feeling is, it’s starting to wake me up in the night.
It pops open my eyes, and I find myself staring at the ceiling, unable to move without waking the two wedged tight on either side of me.
It’s forcing me into bathrooms to wheeze and hyperventilate until my ears ring and the urge to throw up has me scrambling for a toilet.
I keep wanting to tell them, but I don’t know how to explain these overwhelming surges of emotion that suddenly take me over.
I pace away from the window.
Barefoot across the plush carpet to the couch. Then back to the window. From the window to the kitchen. From the kitchen back to the couch.
The noose around my chest tightens with every step until I’m coated in sweat. My fingers bunch up into my palms, and I squeeze until I cut half moons into my heels.
“It’s because you want to run,” Mom’s voice hisses somewhere at the back of my head. “Things are going too well, you know eventually you’re going to fuck it up. You should just go.”
No.
No. I won’t listen. I’m happy. I’m finally happy. It’s okay to be happy. I’m allowed. I deserve it.
“Deep breath, Isla,” says my therapist’s calm murmur, overriding the shrill, bitter one. “Remember our steps.”
I stop in the middle of the living room and press both palms over the clapping rampage of my heart. I will myself to take several calming breaths. Pushing down the rising nausea threatening to send me running for the bathroom.
“Name five things you can see.”
I open my eyes and scan the wide, open concept with the kitchen directly ahead, the windows warm at my back. The dining room is on my left. The bedrooms on my right.
I see the chrome fridge that is impossible to keep fingerprint-free.
The small pile of mail Nick brings up from the mailbox every morning and leaves on the island for later.
The four black seats tucked beneath the long marble.
Dom’s ridiculously expensive espresso machine in cherry red that Nick despises but won’t refuse a cup from.
The thick, square cut diamond fused to a platinum band they’d given me for Valentine’s Day.
“Four things you can feel.”
The thick, plush carpet beneath my feet. The soft wool of my sweater brushing my skin. The uncoiling tension along my shoulders. My pulse, slowing.
“Three things you can hear.”
The low buzz of the fridge. The whistle and honks of passing traffic a few streets down. My heart clapping in calm patters between my ears.
I should call her.
She always says I should whenever these feelings overwhelm me, but she’s also incredibly busy and doesn’t have time to put me together every time I fall apart. I know that’s my insecurities talking, and she’s assured me on multiple occasions that I should anyway, and I will... just not today.
Or maybe today is the day.
Maybe I should.
Uneasy, I pull my phone from my pocket. My tense expression stares back at me from the darkened screen. My thumb trembles as I unlock it. I’m scrolling through my contacts when I hear the faint jingle of keys at the door.
My heart immediately kicks up. A flood of excitement and dread that has me stuffing my phone away just as the door opens and both my men step over the threshold.
Windswept, rosy cheeked. Nick in his suit, long fingers yanking at his tie.
Dom in his dark jeans and long, wool coat.
Both are grinning, but Nick is talking. Something about the peanut lady around the corner — I haven’t been pelted by anything since arriving, but I’m always conscious of not being on my phone when I round that bend.
They are so beautiful.
Some days, it’s almost painful to look directly at them without wanting to giggle and kick my legs, happy-drunk on my own luck.
It makes absolutely no sense how I even got here.
A year ago, I was standing over my kitchen sink, slurping ramen from a cup, alone in a single bedroom shithole.
I didn’t have a soul alive who would care if I lived or died and my bags were always packed.
My bag is currently stuffed at the back of the closet.
Empty.
“Hey, baby.” Dom shoves his coat off and stuffs it down on the hook by the door.
Nick kicks his shoes off and drops his briefcase next to it. In three long strides, I’m swept up into his arms. His cold nose brushes my neck and I squeal.
“We should go away somewhere,” he breathes into my skin. “Somewhere we can get you in a bikini.”
My laugh rumbles up from my chest, momentarily unclenching the weight there as I cling to him.
“He’s had a lot of fantasies of you in that yellow two piece,” Dom teases, kicking the door shut and ambling towards us. “I jerked him off against the patio doors while we watched you sunbathe.”
“Those tiny fucking triangles barely covering your tits…” Nick growls against my pulse. “Your pussy.”
My giggles dissolve into a low moan as Dom rounds behind me and slips his surprisingly warm fingers beneath my top... straight to my breasts. Over the lace cups. They’re dragged down and my nipples are caught between his index and thumbs.
He pinches and tugs in that way that usually floods my core, but I flinch at the sharp sting.
“Gentle,” I pant. “They’re a little sensitive.”
His hold immediately loosens. “Were we too rough with them last night?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I think I need new bras. Mine have been a bit tight lately.”
Truthfully, everything feels tight and uncomfortable. Every outfit I pull on sits weird, or the fabric itches my skin. Tights and sweaters seem to be the only things I can wear that don’t drive me crazy.
But Dom softens his touch, rubbing the underside where the wire bites flesh. It feels nice, especially when he palms the mounds and lifts them.
Nick is sucking across my neck, paving a hot trail up my throat to my mouth.
His hands hook into the elastic waistband of my tights and he shoves the material down my hips.
Dom follows suit by tearing my top off. My bra follows the wool to the floor.
His strong arms band around my middle and I’m drawn down into his lap in the armchair.
My tights are torn free by Nick and cast over his shoulder.
Then, fully dressed with his coat still buttoned up, Nick drops between the knees Dom pulls open for him and dives between them.
The first sweep of his tongue has my toes curling. My breath hitches and I breathe a moan into Dom’s mouth as he cradles my breasts. Runs his thumbs over the peak.
“You taste different.”
The sweet haze evaporates with Nick’s quiet murmur.
My head jerks up and I peer down to where he’s still licking as if testing the change.
“What?” I blurt, mortification crawling up my cheeks. “What do you mean?”
His hands close around my hips, stilling my attempts to get free.
“Sweeter, but... earthy.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Is that bad?” I croak.
All I get is a shake of his head and a deep delve of his tongue into my opening like he needs the rest of it.
At my chest, Dom’s hands roam over my breasts, cupping and cradling. Lifting and stroking. He thumbs the nipples and gives the lightest pinches.
“Your breasts are different, too,” he murmurs quietly. “Fuller.”
Suddenly insecure about everything, I try to push up, but Nick growls against my mound like a dog being deprived of his steak and Dom’s hold around my middle tightens.
“Easy,” he says gently into my ear. “It’s not a bad thing.”
I scowl up at him, cheeks hot, eyes wet. “You’re telling me I taste weird and I’m getting fat.”
Both men stop and stare at me like I just cursed at them.
“No one said you taste weird,” Nick snaps.
“And I did not call you fat,” Dom retorts with equal outrage.
Nick takes what he probably thinks is a deep, calming breath. “I will eat your pussy until you suffocate me. Nothing will change that. I love your taste. It’s just sweeter than normal. That’s it. Sweet is good.”
I bite my lip, unsure of how to respond to that.
“And your tits are fucking perfect no matter what size. Bigger just means more to hold onto and I have big hands, so not complaining.”
Their sweet assurance triggers something deep in my chest, a strange bubble that seems to have been waiting for this exact moment because I burst into tears.
It’s so sudden and unexpected that even I’m surprised, and the fact that I can’t stop it only makes me cry harder.
“Jesus.”
Nick scrambles up, reaching for me, but Dom has already pulled me back against his chest. Both look terrified, which would, under normal circumstances, be hilarious but only adds to my misery.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I blubber in between choked sobs.
“I don’t... I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
I’m such a mess. Everything is off. I can’t think and when I do, I can’t focus.
I’m uncomfortable and achy, and everything hurts.
” I wheeze in a breath that comes out in a heaving cough.
“Now, I’m lumpy and everything smells weird, and I can’t sleep. ”
“Whoa, baby, slow down.” Dom cups my face and wipes my cheeks. “It’s okay. Take a breath. Slow. Slower. Easy. That’s a good girl. Now, what’s wrong?”
“Look at me!” I snap at him, anger rolling over me. “I’m... this! Don’t look at me. I don’t want you to see me—”
Great. Now I sound crazy.
“Isla.” Nick captures my chin and forces me to face him. “When was the last time you got your period?”
I stare at him... outraged.
The fucking audacity.
“You think I’m upset because I’m getting my period?” I snarl at him. “Not every woman is moody when they’re bleeding, Nicolas. That is a disgusting—”
“Oh!” Dom exclaims suddenly, eyes going big and round, and I’m ready to go off on him, too, when he breaks into a smile. “That’s not why he’s asking, baby.”
I’m stuck in the whirlwind of my own emotions and can’t process anything, except that everything is wrong and I’m naked and feeling stupid and vulnerable and they are both looking at me with such expectancy and I don’t understand what’s happening.
A fresh well of tears rise and I shove at Dom’s arms.
“Let go!”