Epilogue Two
“Ready, husband?”
“Almost,” Darius yells from the bedroom of our cottage.
Sunny stands at my side, her tail wagging as we wait for her other dad.
She joined our family shortly after our engagement and has been the best companion we could have asked for.
A few minutes later, Darius walks down the corridor, a small bag wheeling behind him. “Ready. Did you pack the padkos?”
I nod. “Already in the car.”
We had our honeymoon in Cape Town and it’s there that Darius learnt his new favourite word – padkos – simply put; food for travelling.
“You’re the best.” He kisses my cheek. “And you have paint in your hair.” He strokes his fingers through my curls.
“That’s because my husband is a menace with a paintbrush,” I reply, smacking his ass. Darius laughs, drops his hand and opens our barn-style front door.
A year after we got engaged, Darius decided to go back to school to extend his physiotherapy degree to allow him to work rehabilitating injured and post-surgery dogs.
It meant moving to Liverpool so he could attend the university there, which I was happy to do.
I left my job with Zander, but found another similar role in the city.
We rented a small garden flat, with space for Sunny, and spent our weekends and free time wrapped up in each other.
Ralph Thorne-Sutton was sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud and insider dealing. Darius has seen him a handful of times since he was sentenced, but they’ve never repaired their relationship. Not the way I know Ralph wished.
On the day of his graduation, Darius listed his penthouse for sale, and once that went through, we moved into a smaller place in London, close to Darcey.
A few months ago, we finally waved goodbye to the city and moved to Cardigan, West Wales, where we bought this place.
Neither of us had been here, but the building and area ticked all our boxes.
Darius ushers Sunny into the back of our car, then piles his suitcase on top of mine in the boot. I try to lock the front door, but the key won’t budge.
“Bloody door,” I mutter as Darius comes up behind me.
“We should probably replace it.” He takes the key from my hand and jangles the lock until it clicks.
“So much of this place needs replacing.” We both step back to look at our home.
It’s so far from perfect, while also being completely and utterly perfect for us.
With its stone exterior and working fireplace, it’s only 200m from the beach and has a large – currently overgrown – garden.
There’s two broken windows at the back of the house, a crack in the bathtub which has caused the bathroom floor to warp, and none of the cabinets in the kitchen have doors.
But, we spend every night drawing up plans and picking out paint samples and on the weekends; we work on the house together. Stripping wallpaper, sanding, painting. It’s hard and messy and I could not ask for a better life.
“We’ll deal with the door when we get back,” Darius says, squeezing my hand and pulling me towards the car. “We need to get on the road. I’ll drive first.”
Sliding into the passenger seat, I put on my sunglasses, then rest my hand on Darius’s knee.
“You okay?” he asks as he reverses out of our cobbled driveway. There’s a beautiful view of the coast from where our cottage sits tucked up on the hill.
“Yeah.”
I haven’t spoken to my mum since my father’s funeral, nor have I been anywhere near the town I once called home.
But this weekend, Caiden and Jamie are getting married in Devon, not far from where Caiden and I grew up.
Darius offered to go alone, but I wasn’t letting my past interfere with my present. Not any more.
“You know the deal. If you need to leave, we leave. Always your getaway driver, remember?”
I chuckle. “I remember, baby. But I really am okay.”
And I’m not lying. Seeing a therapist and opening up about what Alister did to me, and how that affected my life, has helped me immensely. I’ll never be fully over the trauma. There are still days where I struggle with my relationship with food, but those days are fewer now.
I’m in control of my life and I choose to be happy.
And I choose to do it all with the man next to me. The man I chose and who chose me back. Darius Cross. My best friend. My lover. My husband.
The End