Epilogue #2
While in Tokyo, we drop off gifts from our nation. The Japanese execs showed us much of Japan, it is time to show them some of America.
We then thank the executives who helped make the international side possible, and especially the Asian expansion work.
We stay a night in the same Tokyo hotel suite where we fell deeper in love and where we screwed like rabbits. The night we destroyed half the hotel suite.
We fly back towards New York, and we stop off in New Zealand and Tahiti. They are small, pure, and green islands, and the people are gentle.
We ski, we sail, we dive, and we ride horses.
We also fall deeper in love, share more adventures, and build a deeper connection.
By the time we get home and back to the estate, we find the chateau is now a combination of very old money and less old money. Or maybe it is now more us.
We pepper a few new things around, and items we bought on our travels. White sheep skin rugs, Pacific conch shells, books, printed photos, and several antique swords. Plus a couple of Italian motorcycles Harrison fell in love with in Rome.
Guys!
Tusk and Jessie are excited to see us home, and they yap and squirm as we carry them through the chateau to explore the fresh designs.
Our dream to create a loving and lasting family is really happening, and it is happening now.
The growing dogs start to sleep on the end of our bed, and it is cute, unless Grumpy is claiming me, marking me, or commanding me to do very wicked things.
Then the dogs are quickly ushered out the door and into the oak and carpeted hall.
There is no way they can hear mommy scream or hear her come and shatter.
Harry and I enjoy our time together, and when not on the estate building it out, planting trees, including an orchard, and me making a vegetable garden, we travel, we make love, and we spend time together on our other projects.
I find and turn a large unused room downstairs into an office. Three local coordinators then arrive twice a week. Harry has always loved my nutrition support model, and finally, I agreed to him putting money in, if I controlled everything.
He is already commanding me in the bedroom, and even if that is his domain, I run the estate.
I also run my business.
Harry’s investment of ten million dollars per quarter, or forty million a year, makes it possible for me to have our team run a bigger team.
They travel the states and secure more and more locations.
We soon have thousands eating happier, and just as importantly, eating healthier.
As I work downstairs and expand my project, upstairs, Grumpy does the same at his desk. He does, however, do it more casually and calmly.
It is the same desk I fucked him on, and that was to show him I am actually the boss.
Harry is a completely different person from before, even if he is in a navy suit in a meeting or on a Zoom call and commanding his staff in NY, London, Tokyo, or Rome.
He is more patient, more calm, more relaxed, and less of a corporate brute. Much of his time is spent watching his movies and selecting media and movie scripts.
One evening, fireside, Harry and I talk about Tusk, the tiger, and the life he lived. My feet are on Harry’s lap, and the dogs are around us playing.
There and then, we decide to contact zoos up and down the East Coast and the Midwest.
The next day, we act, and we tell them if they have aging animals that require a place to retire, we are the ones to call.
We don’t expect much to happen, but within a month, we have a dear old giraffe and an old lioness.
We agree the massive giraffe cannot be caged and should not be caged. The cost to increase the estate’s wall height is not cheap, but once done, we are able to re-home him.
The giraffe is apparently very gentle with humans, and we find out that he likes to be fed by hand. Also, that he can be fed from the second story window.
Each day, we feed him from a basket as the sunrises near the lake front.
The lioness settles in, too, and she enjoys the peace and quiet of Tusk’s massive enclosure.
She has plenty of areas to stroll, run, roam, and sleep, and she often watches the sunsets from high up on a knoll.
If we have kids, they will one day have stories to tell. Very strange stories.
Three months later, we find I’m carrying twins. A girl and a boy, and we are over the moon.
Many months later, on a calm spring evening, I give birth at home.
With two nurses, two doctors, and two dogs with big eyes in the corner.
As I scream, the dogs howl, and I yell louder. I then tell Grumpy it’s his fault as my body is wracked with strange intense pain.
I also crush his strong hand as I push, and then finally, the pain stops. As I lie panting in a pile, Harry looks down at me again.
But this time, we are all big-eyed.
Harrison, me, our two new babies, our two dogs, and the giraffe at the window double-blink in silence. I cannot believe it.
We are a family.
Having two darling babies to go with our two chocolate-colored labs provides balance and, oddly, I have what I want in life.
I’m at a place in my life that is far, far from what I imagined two years back. In saying that, like Harry, I’ve learned that change is the only constant in life.
We are currently starting new traditions in the chateau, and it feels good. And one day, our kids will have their own.
Harry is now the perfect man and partner. He has also become a darling of a husband, and he is becoming the perfect father.
I could not be happier, and things have turned out far different than I could have ever imagined. I adore the new Harry, but old Harry still visits me.
And he is still wicked, and still welcome. Commanding Harry, aka sexy bossy Harry, still gets to me.
Especially when he bosses me around and tells me where and when he wants me to come. I don’t want that to ever stop. In fact, I don’t want any of it to stop.
I have found perfection, or has it found me?
THE END
Flip the page to start reading a section from Claiming the King.
Super-agent Chris Remington meets the one, while battling the world’s biggest talent agency, alone.
Thanks to Katie