Epilogue
“ I t can’t be real. Right?”
I glanced at Monroe’s horrified and infuriated expression, then let my stare shift back to the paper in front of us that may as well have offended her, and her entire family line from the way she’d woken me up with an impressive slap that’d made my head scream in protest.
That also could’ve been the hangover.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I willed the pounding of my head to subside, then tried focusing on the wording and signatures filling out the paper.
But no matter how many times I read it, I kept coming back to the same conclusion.
The paper signed by us and an officiant, plus waking up in bed next to the woman I’d spent over a decade loving, equaled we’d eloped.
In Aruba.
“Looks real,” I said on a sigh, and was a second too slow when she swung at me.
Her fingers just barely clipped the side of my head, but with the sudden movement exasperating my head’s relentless pounding, I would’ve sworn I’d just taken a punch from an MMA fighter.
“What’d you do?” she snapped.
“Me?” I shot back as I gripped her forearm, stopping her next hit. “Your signature’s on there too.”
“But I—” A panicked sound left her. “I would’ve never. I mean, I don’t even remember—and it’s you .”
“Wow, thanks, Princess,” I muttered sarcastically, dropping her arm. “Tell me how you really feel.”
Her eyes narrowed accusatorily. “How could you let this happen?”
“ I didn’t,” I informed her. “Last thing I remember is being at the reception.” Which was actually pretty sad considering Briggs and Lainey had gotten married midday.
“No, we went to the bar when it ended,” she said as if I should’ve known.
I held out my arms, then stepped back to sit on the bed. Her bed because this wasn’t my hotel room I’d woken up in. “News to me.”
“Don’t do that,” she snapped, reaching for the strewn clothes covering the desk chair, and launching the first thing she touched at me. An infuriated sound left her when I caught it before it could hit my face. “Just once could you let something hit you?”
I was too caught on the object in my hand to respond—not her stiletto or my shirt from the wedding. I let those fall to the floor.
But the simple gold band . . .
Something about that ring made this all that much more real. My breathing turned shallow as I looked at Monroe, at her bare fingers, then quickly down at my own hand. But there was nothing there.
Twisting, I looked at the nightstand near where I’d woken, then hurried to look through the tangled sheets. My heart hammered and made my head beat that much fiercer as I tore apart the bed until I went achingly still when I found a second ring under one of the pillows.
Grabbing the ring, I dropped the pillow and sank back to the bed as all the oxygen fled from my lungs.
“What is that?” You would’ve thought we’d just stumbled upon an IED with how worried Monroe sounded.
But I just continued staring at the rings. Trying to figure out how and when , when I couldn’t remember anything at all.
Putting them side by side, I noted they were identical in size, then hesitated for so long before sliding one of them onto my ring finger. I would’ve thought the moment a ring went onto that finger would’ve felt like something more, something significant. But it just felt like I was pretending, or in some weird dream. Maybe because the ring didn’t fit me at all.
It was loose, so I couldn’t imagine how loose it’d been on Monroe. But that explained why one had been on the desk, and the other had fallen off in bed.
“When did all this happen?” she asked, sounding like she couldn’t imagine anything worse.
Not that I’d wanted this either—at least, not in this way—but my heart twisted at the umpteenth reminder that she wanted nothing to do with me romantically. Then again, I’d never even truly tried anything with her because she’d made it clear how she felt from day one.
My favorites were: “If we were the last two people on earth, you’d die lonely,” and “I’ll become an old cat lady before ever considering you.”
She was insanely allergic to cats.
Clearly, she loved me. And she did...really. Just not in the way I’d always loved her. And now, we were married.
“I dunno,” I finally said just as two different chimes sounded in the room. One that was distinctly my phone.
I stood with a sigh, then glanced over at where she was staring at the floor, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable.
Mallory Monroe was all fierce words, brave actions, and impenetrable walls around her heart. But this Mallory Monroe? She looked terrified in a way I’d never expected to see from her.
“We’ll figure this out,” I told her.
“Reverse it,” she choked out, then cut another accusatory look at me. “Cancel it. Annul it—whatever it’s called. Take it back.”
And that was why I’d never done anything other than jokingly flirt with her because I’d known I wouldn’t survive her.
Curling my hand around the rings, I just barely managed to keep from rubbing my hand over the ache in my chest as I went in search of my phone.
Once I fished it out of the pile of remaining clothes, I read the message that’d been sent to the group chat we had for the wedding—Briggs and Lainey not included.
Cameron Rush
Breakfast by the pool in thirty. Let’s see who’s paying up.
“Do you know what this means?” I asked, then twisted to find Monroe already looking at her own phone, her brow furrowed. When she shook her head, I gestured to where yesterday’s slacks were barely resting on my hips and said, “Well, I...I need to go change.”
“No one can know,” she said on a rush, the words dripping with fear.
I stared at her for long moments, then struggled to swallow when it felt like a jagged rock lodged in my throat. When I wasn’t sure I could speak, I just nodded and turned to search for the rest of my clothes.
Before I left, I dropped one of the rings on top of the signed paper stating we were husband and wife. The other, I clenched tightly in my fist, feeling the weight and pain of it until I let it clatter onto the nightstand in my own room.
After showering and changing, I hurried down to the area we’d all been meeting at ever since we arrived. My heart racing in equal amounts anticipation and dread of seeing Monroe again.
But when I got there, she was already seated, looking as unbothered and hardened as ever.
“So,” Rush began once Lainey’s younger sister, Wren, came dancing up to the table with a scowling Evans trailing behind her, “let’s find out who’s leaving a little richer.”
A bright laugh left Chloe as she looked adoringly at Thatch.
“We already know who it’s gonna be,” Wren said confidently, pointing at herself and ignoring the way Evans rolled his eyes.
Glancing at Thatch, Evans muttered, “Let’s see.”
From the tightness in my chest and the nagging feeling in the back of my mind, I was sure I knew what this was all about. But I was hungover, there was a paper saying I’d married Monroe yesterday, and she hated me, so I was having a difficult time focusing on anything else.
A quick glance at the way Monroe was subtly looking between everyone confirmed she was just as lost.
But then Chloe lifted her left hand, sporting the engagement ring she’d shown everyone when we’d arrived a few days before. And all at once, my stomach dropped and knotted because I knew exactly what everyone was waiting to see and why .
As if she’d just realized the same thing, Monroe choked on a gasp as her hand shot out, hitting me in the side. But the sound was drowned out by razzes and complaints because Thatch had just lifted his left hand as well, showing nothing other than the tattoos decorating his skin.
Glancing to the side, I met and held Monroe’s rattled blue stare as everything fell into place. We’d all been taking bets on if Thatch and Chloe would end up eloping in Aruba.
They hadn’t.
But Monroe and I had.