Epilogue - Phae
“O hmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh! You’re never going to believe this.” Salma, Edie’s assistant, fanned herself with her hands. “I heard a rumour that Polly got engaged to Damon. Her parents are going to lose their minds.”
I stared blankly. Polly? Damon? I had no idea who these people were.
This was the first time I’d been out with Marc in semi-public, and by “semi-public,” I meant dinner with his friends in London.
He’d been spending more and more time there, he said, because he’d finally found a place he could be himself.
Friends who treated him like a human being and not a big-name star.
Friends who would celebrate his successes because they were genuinely happy for him and not because they thought he could get them a part in some movie.
And tonight was a celebration. Shooting—not literal shooting, not this time—had just finished on the Whispers in Willowbrook summer special, filmed on Malati with appropriate security plus a crew of conservationists on set.
Heath had led the security team, so at least I’d been able to sleep at night.
As for Malati, now the builders would be moving in.
No, not those kinds of builders. When the locals agreed to sell their homes, they’d been swayed by a promise of investment on the island—solar power for the town, a new jetty, a mini desalination plant, and a dozen or so jobs taking care of the single-family home Lonnie McDonald had claimed he wanted to build.
Then the home morphed into a hotel, and the rest of the investment evaporated.
Emmy’s charitable foundation was funding the infrastructure, and the resort had been downgraded to a small eco-village—half a dozen buildings to accommodate tourist volunteers and the local employees who’d teach them about the ecology of the island.
Marc wanted to visit someday. And maybe… maybe I’d go with him.
Lonnie McDonald had been quiet since his escapades in Thailand.
Echo was keeping an eye on him, and I knew Emmy’s team was doing the same.
Honestly, I didn’t care if he fucked up—paying him another visit would be fun.
Echo was monitoring Kamryn too, but so far, she’d stayed true to the promise she’d made to Marc and kept quiet about our connection.
After her release last week, she’d flown back to New York, and I hoped she stayed there.
As she travelled to New York, I’d been en route to Marseilles, where I’d terminated a businessman who kept sticking his fingers in the wrong pies.
The job had gone well—everyone thought it was an accident, and only his mistress seemed particularly upset by his death.
The wife and the family were too busy rubbing their hands together as they divided the spoils from his estate.
Since I was only a hop, skip, and jump from London, I didn’t have a great excuse when Marc asked me to come for dinner tonight.
A dry dinner because Janie was breastfeeding and Edie was three months pregnant, and damn, I needed a drink.
But here I was, complete with my “nice” persona, sipping orange juice and making excruciating small talk.
Which was even more awkward than it should have been because Serena and Heath had both seen me in Indonesia, and I was almost certain they’d mentioned my proclivities to their significant others.
Both Edie and Owen were more wary than I’d expect, given the circumstances.
I ignored that.
“Who are Polly and Damon?” I whispered to Marc.
“Polly is an old friend of Edie’s. Comes from one of those old-money, stiff-upper-lip families and had a very public breakup with her ex-fiancé earlier in the year. Damon is a porn star. Quite an impressive one, from what I’ve heard.”
“Good for her,” Marissa said. She was engaged to Serena’s other brother. They were getting hitched in April, and apparently, I was expected to show up for that too. “Everyone should marry for love.”
“And dick,” her sister said, coughing into her hand.
Heath chuckled. “I definitely didn’t marry for dick.”
Marriage wasn’t in the cards for me, period.
Not anymore. Marc said he understood, but that hadn’t stopped him from giving me back my old engagement ring.
A symbol, he called it. A reminder that he loved me.
I wore the platinum band on my other hand, and only the inscription told of its true meaning.
Become who you are and always be mine. M
The ring I’d bought for him all those years ago bore the same inscription with a P at the end. Damn, we were so adorable it made me want to puke.
But he’d taken the words to heart, and he’d even started painting again, his old easel set up in a new studio.
The studio in the house he’d bought in Las Vegas.
Okay, so he’d only spent a week there so far, but he said it already felt more like a home than his place in Malibu ever did.
And he hadn’t taken a single photo of his feet so far.
Feet he was still finding. He could easily land a gallery show now, but he wanted people to love his art because it spoke to them, not because of the name in the corner.
So he’d begun using a pseudonym, and the single painting he’d sold through his new website made him happier than any leading role ever had.
His soul seemed lighter now. More fulfilled.
He’d visited Casa del Gato once, where he’d had a few choice words for the friends who’d packaged me up like a mail-order girlfriend.
I couldn’t even be mad at them because (a) I’d ended up with Marc and (b) I’d probably have done the same thing in their position, but that didn’t stop him from ripping into them with vicious precision.
Then Butterball had broken the spell by running at him like the crazy beast she was, and he’d jumped onto the counter until Sin coaxed the turkey away with weed-laced sunflower seeds.
My pot plants were still looking mighty sorry for themselves, but Marc took the edge off my mood far better than any drug ever could, so I didn’t much care. He was never more than a phone call away.
And tonight, he’d be right by my side.
“So, do you think Polly’s parents will disown her?” Serena asked.
Edie shook her head. “They can’t. She’s the marketing genius who doubled the profits at their family business, remember? Either Polly and Damon will elope, or they’ll somehow try to rebrand him.”
“Hard when there are so many pictures of him on the internet.”
“Did you get all those words in the right order?” Marissa asked, not-quite innocently.
Edie’s eyes widened. “Oh my goodness, can you imagine what would happen if they had one of those video montages at the wedding reception?”
“Better have a defibrillator on standby,” Liam put in.
This was okay. Nobody appeared to be particularly interested in me. These folks had a sense of humour, and to most of them, I was just Marc’s boring girlfriend. Dinner wasn’t bad either—whoever was lurking in Edie’s kitchen cooked almost as well as Marcel did.
After dessert, people began to drift off—Salma and her girlfriend climbed into a cab, and Eisen headed back to Somerset with Janie because their two boys had school the next morning.
Marissa and Liam lived in the Cotswolds, and Liam had an early shift, so they left too.
Marc hugged Serena goodbye, and Owen too.
I’d been surprised to find out how well he and Owen got along—he’d even agreed to be a groomsman at their upcoming wedding, albeit reluctantly because he didn’t want to overshadow their day.
That left Marc and me with Heath and Edie, and we wouldn’t be going anywhere because they’d offered us a bed for the night.
Marc said he usually stayed there when he came to London—occasionally he went to Serena’s place, but rarely to a hotel.
He preferred privacy to pampering, and that suited me just fine.
But was Edie comfortable with the situation? She grew visibly more antsy after the others departed, even after Heath settled her onto the couch with a blanket and poured her a glass of orange juice.
“So, uh, Phae… Have you been to London before?”
“Once or twice.”
“Did you come for business or pleasure?”
Yes, Heath had definitely told her about me, enough that she was worried. Fuck it, I’d address this head-on.
“Business. But don’t worry; I left my gun at home this time.”
A lie, but she’d never know that, and at the edge of my vision, I saw the guilt that flashed across Heath’s face.
Because he’d spilled my secrets? Or because he regretted bringing an assassin into his home?
Guilt wasn’t something that troubled me often, but I’d learned to identify it in others.
Only Marc made me feel the full colour of emotions, and the past four months had been overwhelming in many ways.
But I was holding up.
Our relationship grew stronger every day.
If I wasn’t with Marc, I called him, and just hearing his voice grounded me.
Over a decade of avoidance, and we’d slotted back into each other’s lives so easily that I sometimes forgot we’d been apart.
I’d watched as he shed years of Hollywood stress, grew a beard, rediscovered jeans, and planned out his new yard with the landscaper.
After he wrapped up his final movie, he wanted us to get a dog.
I’d made the mistake of mentioning the dog thing to Sin, and now she was texting him pictures of shelter mutts every day.
This wasn’t the life I’d envisioned, but it was the one I’d realised I needed.
Edie’s eyes widened at the mention of my gun. “I’m glad to hear that. Getting arrested at the airport would be so awkward.”
“Edie’s worried about work, not you.” Heath took the direct approach as well. “She got a call after dessert—one of her clients has been admitted to hospital.”
“Her mum called me,” Edie explained. “Lorena took an overdose. The doctors pumped her stomach, and they’re hopeful she’ll make it, but nobody’s sure what she took yet.”
Was that all? Phew. Nice Dusk reached out and squeezed her hand, pleasantly surprised when she didn’t recoil.
“I’m sorry to hear it. I’ll say a prayer and keep her in my thoughts.” People expected Americans to say shit like that. “It can’t be easy when a tragedy like that happens.”
“It’s the inevitability that I find the most difficult. Lorena’s been on our books for almost a year, and I just knew something like this would happen. It was like being a passenger on a plane with no engines, heading for the ground and having no way to stop the disaster.”
“If an aircraft is heading for the ground with no engines, a skilled pilot can glide it to the nearest airfield. They don’t just fall out of the sky,” I said, and Marc elbowed me in the side. Oh, right. Oops. “I mean, yes, that sounds terrible.”
“Lorena’s left her asshole of a boyfriend four times, but he fucks with her head, so she always goes back to him sooner or later. Honestly, I wish I could drop him off a bridge.”
Hmm, it seemed little Edie wore a mask too. Not as fancy as mine, but I hadn’t heard her speak this way before.
“Do you have any preference on the bridge?” I added a giggle at the end so I could pass the offer off as a joke if necessary.
Heath and Edie looked at each other.
“Uh, I shouldn’t have said anything.” Edie turned apologetic. “I don’t want to ruin your evening, and it’s late, and…”
“Phae prefers dropping people off bridges to making small talk,” Marc told her, also not quite joking. “She came because I asked her to, but dinner parties aren’t her thing.”
I didn’t totally hate them. Spending time with regular people taught me to mask better.
“One day, he’s going to be responsible for her death,” Edie whispered as the evening took a far more interesting turn. “I’ve seen it too many times before.”
And here, in this space Marc assured me was safe, I let down my guard a smidgen.
“My father did the same thing to my mom, and I lived in the middle of it. Believe me when I say I understand what she’s going through.”
This time, Edie reached out for my hand, and unlike my compassion, I was ninety-nine percent sure hers was genuine. The woman bled empathy.
“I’m so sorry for your loss. For the difficulties you went through.”
Her unspoken question: Is that why you turned out the way you did?
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t, because I didn’t know what to say. I thought that maybe I’d been born this way, but my childhood sure hadn’t helped. For years, I’d tried to be a good girl to please my mom, but once she was gone, all bets were off.
“Just give me a name.”
For a long moment, Edie studied me, looking into my eyes as if she might discover my secrets. She wouldn’t. They were buried too deep. I resisted the urge to blink because I was Dusk and I never backed down, and eventually, she lowered her gaze.
“If you drop him off a bridge, he might die, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“Then how about I just have a little chat with him?”
“A chat?”
“I can be very persuasive.”
“Are you serious?”
“Always.”
She didn’t answer for a full minute, but finally, she nodded. “His name is Richard Ashcroft. Uh, I’ll look up the address. It’s on the system somewhere—he lives in Hammersmith.”
“Thanks, that’ll save me ten minutes.”
And I wouldn’t have to get Echo out of bed. Although I was tempted to do that anyway because there was no way she hadn’t known about the gift-wrapping stunt.
“I’ll write it down.”
“Don’t. I’ll memorise it.”
“Uh, do you need a hand?” Heath asked.
I shook my head. “Go make Edie a nightcap. A non-alcoholic one, obviously.”
Marc followed me to the bedroom when I went to change into more suitable attire.
Sneakers, a sports bra, dark-coloured clothing that said “late night at the office” rather than “wannabe gang member.” The weather was on my side—the London drizzle would help to wash away any evidence as well as letting me use an umbrella to hide my face.
Marc wrapped his arms around me and nuzzled my neck. “Stay safe.”
“Of course.”
“You sure you’re okay with this?”
“I find it cathartic.”
“Booker once told me his greatest regret was not killing your father before your mom passed.”
“I tried once.”
“You did?”
“On a hunting trip. I was eleven or twelve, maybe?”
Marc sucked in a breath. “But you backed out?”
“No, I tripped over a tree root, and my shot missed.” I pressed my lips to his. “Don’t worry; I’m a lot more careful now.”
“I’ll never stop worrying, and I’ll never stop loving you either.”
“In spite of who I became?”
“ Because of who you became.”
“Love you too, Mr. Hollywood.”
One last kiss, and I walked out into the darkness where I belonged.