Epilogue 2
LINCOLN
Eleven months later …
Honestly, I hated the BrightMark account. Sure, it was a huge financial asset, and it had solidified Clean Slate’s position as an exceptional independent firm. But man, it was a boring pitch.
The conference room lights bounced off the glass table, washing every glossy printout and projection slide in that sterile glow I used to live for.
Not anymore. These days, I lived for the seven-month-old baby strapped to my chest, drooling on my light crimson button-down and kicking her chubby feet against my hips.
And for the raven-haired woman watching me from across the table.
Sometimes, I still woke up beside her, fixated on the motion of her breathing beneath her ribs, unable to believe she’d found it in her to give me a second chance.
She might’ve been regretting it right now, though—her brow was furrowed as she forced a professional smile.
Probably still pissed that I’d told Eleanor, one of the execs, that her grandkid was ugly.
Nellie, my daughter, made a soft coo as I clicked to the next slide, her tiny fingers curling around my lanyard and shoving it, along with half her fist, into her mouth—the most fascinating thing in the room.
“And as you can see,” I said evenly, “the graphics around the Earth Day campaign emphasize continuity and regeneration—”
I wrestled the lanyard free. Nellie let out a squeal of protest that turned to delight when I handed her the purple silicone teether attached to it.
“These are concepts that align with BrightMark’s sustainability promise,” I continued, voice smooth, professional—even as I swayed lightly to keep Nellie entertained. “Concepts your audience can actually grasp.”
Under Priya’s unamused stare, I couldn’t resist adding, “That means fewer plastic-looking models and more actual impact.”
Eleanor shifted. Annelisa coughed. Across the table, Nina propped her chin on her hand, eyes narrowing—a silent Behave. I smirked.
The slide behind me shifted to the logo. “Mirrored geometry: two arcs that never quite touch, forming a continuous loop. Every decision ripples outward—like sound waves or impact echoing back.”
Nellie’s tiny fist found my thumb, squeezing tight before swapping it for the teether. I’m also bored as hell, baby girl.
“We anchored the palette in clay and slate tones, layered with muted moss and off white,” I said. “Everything evokes organic textures. The typography’s humanist and tactile. You feel the brand.”
The slides rotated through packaging mock-ups, subway ads, motion spots where the arcs pulsed outward. “Because at BrightMark, you don’t just save the planet, you belong to something worth saving.”
A few execs murmured approval, nodding toward Nina as they launched into questions about strategy and brand loyalty.
She handled it effortlessly, eyes flicking back to me once while I offered Nellie my palm for a high-five.
She ignored it, nuzzling her face into my chest instead. My heart was so full it stuttered.
I met Nina’s gaze, unable to hide the grin tugging at my mouth. I’d pulled it off. She’d wanted to leave Nellie with the nanny, but I wasn’t having it. She’d be two before I let her out of my sight.
Nina and I took a stroll downtown, hand in hand, while Nellie napped in the harness. The air carried a soft warmth that didn’t belong to February, sunlight flashing off the river’s teal surface as we walked the Riverwalk.
“Told you she’d be fine,” I said, knowing she was still upset I’d brought Nellie to the meeting. Hey, being your own boss should have some perks. Mine was that every day was bring-your-daughter-to-work day.
“It’s unprofessional, Lincoln. It’d be good for her to get to know more people.”
I scoffed. “She knows all our clients.”
Nina tugged on my arm until I faced her. “You looked really hot presenting with our daughter, you know?”
This woman could crack my chest open in the best way. She stood on her toes, and I leaned down to kiss her—just as I was about to swipe my tongue into her mouth, Nellie stirred and whimpered. Nina smiled against my lips and settled back on her feet.
“She’s about to be hungry.”
“I’m always hungry,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows.
By the time we made it to a restaurant and I helped Nina into a booth, Nellie was on the verge of a meltdown.
Nina unstrapped her from the harness, positioned her to nurse, and she latched with ease.
There were fewer things more beautiful than watching the woman I loved breastfeed the tiny person we’d made.
Which was exactly why nobody else should be seeing it. I tossed the nursing cover at her.
She threw it right back. “She hates that, Lincoln.”
I harrumphed.
“Hello, what can I get you guys today?” A chipper server stood to my right. His gaze dipped. Lingering too long, swallowing too slow.
“Your head on a platter so you stop looking at my wife’s tits,” I said before I could stop myself.
The server stammered an apology and muttered something about getting us another waiter.
“Just give me the cover, Lincoln. Also, I’m not your wife.”
“Semantics. You’re just holding out on me. We’ll get there.”
I stood to hand her the cover, but she caught my sleeve and pulled me toward her lips. I might’ve deepened it, shown her just how persuasive I could be—but then a tiny hand smacked my cheek.
When I looked down, Nellie was smiling, milk-drunk and dimpled, her russet eyes catching the light as she stared straight into my soul. Reflecting everything I didn’t deserve.
“Give Villanelle to me, babe,” I murmured.
“She isn’t done, she—”
“I need to hold her.”
Nina’s gaze softened as she lifted our daughter and placed her against my chest. Nellie blinked up at me, fingers curling into my collar, her warmth soaking through my clothes. Nina’s arms also wrapped around me, holding us both. My whole messy, loud, undeserved world.
Our duplex was quiet, the kind of quiet that came after a long day of those small daily miracles that made a life worth living.
Nellie had finally gone down—fed, changed, her tiny fingers still clutching the corner of her blanket on the monitor’s grainy screen.
I’d have thought it was the soft static hum soothing me, it wasn’t.
It was this life I’d salvaged out of burned ashes of my own doing.
I leaned back into the couch, the low lamp casting a golden haze over the room, over the stack of folded laundry neither of us had the energy to put away.
Nina padded in barefoot, hair loose, face washed, wearing one of my shirts that hung halfway down her thighs. She glanced at the baby monitor on the coffee table, the faint flicker of Nellie’s chest rising and falling on the screen. I couldn’t look away from it.
“She’s out,” Nina muttered, curling onto my lap.
My hands found her hips without thinking, fingers tracing idle circles against the fabric. She grabbed her phone from the table and flashed the screen at me. “How did you pull this off?”
I stared at a picture of a barely recognizable clean-faced Natasha, wearing a blinding red jumpsuit, the exact color of her curls. Although her hair looked … destroyed. Salon locks long gone.
I grinned. “She’s in prison. They couldn’t turn down my very generous donation.” I lifted my brow. “Even if it came with … strings attached.”
Her laugh broke out, warm and low, her head dropping against my shoulder. “I shouldn’t laugh.”
“Babe—” I kissed her temple. “You should always laugh.”
I kissed her lips next, slow and steady, tasting mint and the faint sweetness of her lip balm. She sighed against my lips, and I took it as permission to deepen the kiss, hand slipping lower to the curve of her ass, pressing her closer into mine.
Her breath hitched. Mine did too.
Then she pulled back just enough to whisper, “How are you doing?”
The question hit harder than I expected.
I stared past her, out the window where the streetlights haloed the snowless February street, the branches casting crooked shadows against the glass.
I received a call from the county’s coroner last week.
My father had been found dead. Alcohol poisoning.
It hadn’t been unexpected, but it’d been a shock.
“You know I didn’t—” I exhaled. “I didn’t … have any love for the man. It’s just scary to think—how close I got to being him.”
She turned toward me, eyes soft in the dim light, thumb tracing the line of my jaw.
I tried for levity, an armor that used to fit better. “Guess now we’re both like orphan Annie. No parents, but at least business is going well.”
“Lincoln.” Her voice was gentle, but the look she gave me wasn’t. It was the kind that stripped the bullshit right off my tongue. “You still do that when you’re in pain. Make a mockery of everything that hurts.”
Her words still held the power to make my world stop, every time she called me out. I looked away, throat tight, guilt crawling through my chest. I’d promised her I wouldn’t hurt her again, and here I was, reaching for the same broken tools I’d used to punish her.
She must’ve seen it, whatever flash of panic crossed my face, because she cupped my cheeks and made me look at her. “Hey,” she murmured. “It’s okay. You’re allowed to feel pain however you need to. Just don’t make it smaller. Yours or mine.”
“I’m sorry. Sometimes—”
She quieted my apology with her lips. Slowly opening her mouth to me so I could dive my tongue into her mouth and dance with hers. When she broke away from the kiss, her pupils were blown, a sliver of her dark-brown irises fixed on mine.
“Babe,” she whispered against my lips. “Marry me?”
My breath faltered, and I pulled back so I could see her vulnerable trembling smile, lighting catching her eyes, glowing with tenderness.
“You’re serious? You want me?”
The vulnerability turned playful, a lopsided curve tugging at her mouth. “Very. I love you. Be my husband.”
I let out a slow sigh, pressed my forehead to hers. “I almost didn’t have this. Didn’t have you.”
She gave another featherlight stroke to my jaw with her thumb as she turned her head to the table. “I almost didn’t have this either.”
I followed her gaze—the soft light, the monitor blinking steady on the table, the faint sound of Nellie sighing in her sleep. The kind of peace I used to only get from false and missing memories.
“You’re forgetting the part where you say, ‘Yes, babe,’” she said into my ear.
I pulled her into me, sinking my fingers into her hips and kissed her again.
As I tightened my arms around her, holding her close enough that her heartbeat steadied against mine, I poured everything she’d given me into my touch.
I’d forgotten her pain once, and it turned out, the real pain was a life without her.
And I’d never allow myself to forget that.
No more pain, forgotten or otherwise, we’d moved past the hurt together.