Epilogue
Jessica
The spa smells like eucalyptus and expensive oils, the kind that promise transformation even if you don’t believe in it.
The entire top floor has been closed to the public for the day, a quiet luxury that still feels surreal when I remember the version of myself who used to count pennies and pray invoices would be paid on time.
I’m wrapped in a white robe, feet tucked under me on a heated lounger, a glass of champagne sweating slowly onto a marble side table.
Jasmine is across from me, bare-faced and glowing, her dark hair twisted up messily. Charlotte lounges beside her, legs stretched out, scrolling through something on her phone before snorting softly and locking the screen.
“This is officially the most excessive hen do I’ve ever attended,” I say. “But then it’s the only hen do I’ve ever attended.”
Jasmine smiles, eyes flicking to me. “You’re marrying Rurik. Excessive is now your baseline.”
I laugh, and it still surprises me how easily it comes.
A few weeks ago, I didn’t know if I was coming or going. My life felt like it had been split cleanly down the middle. Before him. After him. Before the mother stepped back into the world like she’d never left, and after.
Lena didn’t fall in a dramatic blaze.
She unraveled. Quietly. Methodically. Exactly the way Rurik said she would.
The marriage didn’t protect her. It exposed her. Financial investigations. Conflicts of interest. Michaelsson distancing himself so publicly it bordered on cruelty. By the time the story fully broke, she was already isolated, her influence stripped down to nothing.
Neutralized, he called it.
When I saw her name in print for the first time, paired with words like inquiry and irregularities, I expected to feel triumph. Or grief.
Instead, I felt clarity. I finally understood who she was, and who I wasn’t.
“You okay?” Charlotte asks gently, catching the shift in my expression.
I nod. “Yeah. Just… thinking.”
Charlotte grins. “Dangerous pastime, that.”
We all chuckle.
The hotel refurb was approved last week. Passed unanimously. Work begins in the fall, and with it came three more inquiries. Two domestic. One overseas. The word travel doesn’t feel out of my reach anymore. It excites me.
Being with Rurik didn’t close doors as I feared it might, it opened them.
The spa doors open quietly, and something in my chest tightens before I even look.
I know him that well now.
Rurik steps inside like the space belongs to him, dark suit tailored perfectly, presence bending the room without effort. His gaze finds me immediately, sharp and possessive and soft all at once.
Jasmine sighs dramatically. “He’s doing that thing again.”
Charlotte raises an eyebrow. “The hovering?”
“The claiming,” Jasmine corrects.
“Well, it’s not like our will be far behind,” Charlotte says with a mock sigh, sitting up and finishing her orange juice.
Rurik ignores them both and stops in front of me. His eyes flick briefly to the champagne, the robe, the faint flush in my cheeks.
“You were gone too long,” he says simply.
I tilt my head. “I’m at my hen do.”
“I know,” he replies. “But now it’s time to come back with me.”
Something warm spreads through my chest, steady and sure.
Jasmine waves a hand. “Take her. We’ve already finished embarrassing her.”
Charlotte smirks, rubbing a hand absent mindedly over her round belly. “For now.”
Rurik offers his hand. I take it. He leads me out, fingers laced with mine, past the soft music and the steam and the laughter, until we’re alone in the quiet corridor beyond.
“You okay?” he asks, voice low.
I nod. “I am. Really.”
He studies me for a moment, like he’s checking for cracks only he would notice.
“You’ve settled,” he says.
“I’ve arrived,” I correct gently.
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Good.”
He pulls me into him, forehead resting briefly against mine, a rare moment of stillness. Power hums beneath his skin, always. But so does something else now. Something anchored.
“I don’t regret any of it,” I say softly. “Even the chaos.”
“I do,” he admits. “I regret not meeting you sooner.”
I smile faintly. “Maybe you could make up for it tonight.”
He kisses my temple, then my cheek, then my mouth. Slow. Certain. Like a promise that doesn’t need repeating.
As he draws me back toward the elevators, toward the life we’re building, I realize something with absolute certainty.
Rurik didn’t just end a cycle, he gave me the space to choose a different one, and now I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.