Epilogue One #2
“You have seen me when I was trying hardest to disappear. You remember my coffee, how I take my tea, my deadlines, my silences, and every sentence I immediately wished I could take back. You make me feel both wanted and included. And for once, needing that doesn’t feel like weakness.
“I promise never to ask you to become quieter, smaller, or easier for the world to understand.
I promise to make room for all of you in my life.
To notice when the man who takes care of everyone else needs care himself.
To stand beside you, tell you the truth when sarcasm would be safer, and let myself be happy with you even when it terrifies me.
“I choose you recklessly, right here in this lifetime, because we only get one. You are my favorite bad idea. My favorite man. The only husband I want.
“And I love you.”
Tears streamed down both of our faces by the time I finished, and he closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against mine, voice rough.
“Say that last part again.”
My laugh broke through the tears.
“No. You heard me.”
“I want it entered into the official record.”
“I love you, Dominic,” I whispered. “I choose you.”
His hands tightened around mine.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’m never going to let you pretend you didn’t mean that.”
“Ends of the earth,” I whispered.
“Ends of the earth.”
Then I kissed him before the officiant could finish telling us we were married . . .
I blink the mist out of my eyes, the memory of our Tokyo vows dissolving back into the crisp, golden October light of the Whitman estate.
A rogue drop of moisture threatens to breach my carefully applied mascara, and I discreetly swipe it from my cheekbone with the pad of my index finger.
I lock my posture back into place just as the officiant’s voice booms across the lawn.
“It is my great honor to pronounce you husband and wife. Logan, Audrey—you may kiss.”
Logan doesn’t hesitate, completely abandoning his usual awkwardness.
He pulls Audrey in, and the kiss is so genuine and entirely uncalculated that a ripple of collective sighs moves through the gathered guests.
The string quartet immediately strikes up a triumphant, upbeat sci-fi march—the grand finale of Audrey’s meticulously curated playlist.
The newlyweds turn, radiating a joy so bright it practically disrupts the atmospheric pressure, and begin their brisk walk back up the aisle.
It’s my cue. I step forward from the bridesmaid line just as Dominic steps out from the groomsmen. We meet in the center of the aisle. He offers his arm, the charcoal fabric of his tailored suit brushing against the deep burgundy silk of my dress.
“You were crying, Pemberton-Cruz,” he murmurs, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that goes straight to my core as I loop my arm through his.
“It was a localized allergic reaction to excessive sentimentality,” I reply smoothly, keeping my gaze fixed straight ahead as we follow Logan and Audrey. “And the wind off the lake.”
“Right. The wind.” His thumb strokes the bare skin of my inner wrist, a deliberate, entirely unfair tactic designed to short-circuit my nervous system. “It definitely had nothing to do with how big your love for me is.”
“Your ego is a logistical nightmare, Dominic.”
He chuckles. “You love my ego. Almost as much as I love this dress. Though, for the record, I’m calculating exactly how efficiently I can remove it once we’re off duty.”
“You are currently on duty as best man,” I remind him, unable to suppress my smile. “And I promised Audrey I’d help keep today moving. We’re thirty seconds behind schedule.”
“I’ll handle the caterers,” he says, pulling me just a fraction closer as we clear the seating area and step onto the stone patio.
His dark eyes drop to my mouth, the teasing edge melting into that devastating, territorial intensity.
“Give me a task, partner. Let me optimize your timeline, so I get you to myself sooner.”
I pause, looking up at my husband. The man who has finally learned to ask what I need—and stand beside me while we make it happen. I raise a single eyebrow. “Secure the champagne. Intercept Layla before she starts weeping on the appetizers. And Dominic?”
He pauses, halfway turning toward the bar. “Yeah?”
“I was remembering our vows.”
He grins. “That’s what had you teary-eyed?”
I nod, and his grin gets even wider.
“Put it in the official record, Pemberton-Cruz,” he murmurs, closing the remaining inch between us until I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. The scent of him—clean cedar and something uniquely, devastatingly Dominic—scrambles my already chaotic thoughts.
“The record already reflects my temporary lapse in emotional regulation,” I say, my voice dropping an octave. “Now, go secure the champagne like I asked, husband.”
He doesn’t immediately obey. Instead, he slides his hand around the nape of my neck, his fingers tracing the sensitive skin just below my hairline. “I love you,” he says, stripping away the banter. “And for the record, I was thinking about our vows, too.”
Before I can formulate a suitably witty response, he dips his head and kisses me. It’s not a polite, wedding-party-appropriate peck. It’s thorough, hungry, and highly distracting. My hands instinctively flatten against his chest, feeling the heavy, steady thud of his beautiful heart.
When he pulls back, my breathing is noticeably compromised.
“As soon as the cake is cut, you and I are getting out of here,” he whispers, his eyes dark with a promise that makes my pulse spike. Then he releases me, turning on his heel with that effortless, arrogant grace to go execute my orders.
I take exactly two seconds to recalibrate before following the wedding party toward the boathouse.
Dinner is served in the boathouse beneath strings of warm lights, and by the time the clinking of silverware gives way to the toasts, we’re back on schedule.
Layla stands up at the head table, her jewel-toned dress shimmering under the fairy lights. She is already clutching a fistful of tissues, her chest heaving with suppressed emotion.
“OK, hi,” Layla says into the microphone. “I promised myself I wouldn’t ugly cry until the cake, but apparently looking at Audrey and Logan has destroyed that plan.”
The boathouse laughs.
“Audrey has been my best friend since day one of Northwestern, which means she has been putting up with me for half my life. When Carmichael Innovations nearly went under, a lot of people sent sympathy. Audrey sent engineering. The device reaching children in hospitals tonight exists because she refused to stop believing in it through every setback, every rejection, and every boardroom that underestimated her. She changed actual lives with that beautiful brain. Mine first.”
Audrey’s eyes shine behind her glasses.
“And through every catastrophe this group has ever produced, Audrey showed up. Every time. With data, snacks, and love disguised as statistics. She taught us that being loved and being understood don’t have to be different things.”
Layla turns toward Logan.
“Then she met you and fled the country.”
The boathouse erupts. Audrey covers her face while Logan nods solemnly.
“But she came home, and you looked at her and saw her at full resolution on the first try. You love her mind the way I do and the rest of her the way she deserves. Watching her be seen like that has been one of the great joys of my life.”
Layla lifts her glass.
“To Audrey—the brains of this entire found family—and to Logan, who did his research. Take care of her forever, or Bennett and I will fold you into a napkin.”
Logan nods solemnly, entirely unfazed by the threat.
Audrey reaches up to squeeze Layla’s hand, her own eyes shining behind her glasses.
It’s a logistical nightmare of an emotional display, but looking at the radiant bride, it’s undeniably perfect.
Layla finishes to thunderous applause, practically collapsing into Bennett’s arms as Dominic takes the microphone for his best-man speech.
“Most of you know the story. Logan’s been telling it fifteen years. In his version, I’m the hero. Normally I’d nod along because I’m vain and it’s flattering.
“For those who haven’t heard it, this all started with Harvard.
A skinny twenty-year-old genius on his second PhD was running a grade-repair racket out of his dorm room.
Big-hearted Dominic Cruz swooped in, saved him from being found out, introduced him to sunlight and group dinners. The rescue of Logan Whitman.”
Laughter rolls through the boathouse.
“Tonight, he’s trapped at that table while I have the microphone. So, as his best man, I’d like to correct the record.”
Dominic sets down his notecards and turns to Logan.
“I caught him, yes. But I made him a deal because I was twenty-four, greedy, and already insufferable. I said I’d keep his secret if he let me invest the money and split the profits with me. It was a handshake deal over an empty ramen packet.”
He pauses for the laughter.
“Logan had every reason to tell me to go to hell. Instead, he studied me for all of ten seconds and then handed me every dollar he had, because ‘It’s just money. I can make more.’”
The room laughs again.
“Then the returns came in, and he doubled down on me—gave me his trust fund and said, ‘The model works. Scale it.’
“Every dollar I have ever made traces back to that first deal. Logan believed in me before there was enough evidence to make belief sensible. People love to say I made him rich—that I made all of us rich. Get the direction of the arrow right, Chicago. It ran the other way.”
The room goes silent.
“But the money is the smallest thing he gave us.