EPILOGUE
Dublin
Sixteen Months Later
“Valor.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re acting weird.”
Cole looks over at me from where he stands at the edge of the infinity pool, all sun-warmed skin, damp hair, and feigned innocence.
“I’m not acting weird.”
“You absolutely are.”
He lifts his drink to his mouth. “Maybe Bali makes me weird.”
“Bali is supposed to make you relaxed. This”—I wave a hand toward him— “is not relaxed. This is suspicious.”
He smirks. “You investigate for a living. Everything is suspicious to you.”
“Always.”
“I assure you when I don’t put the cap on the toothpaste that it isn’t some passive-aggressive way to tell you I secretly hate living with you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I laugh.
He lifts his eyebrows. “Might want to take some of your own advice, Locke.”
“You’re deflecting.” I pull my sunglasses down and peer over them at him. “That makes you suspicious and my prime suspect.”
He laughs low and easy. God, I love that sound and the way it rumbles over me.
Eighteen months ago, laughter from him felt like something hard-earned. Something I wanted to keep in my hands and protect from anything trying to steal it.
Now it comes easier. Not always, but it does.
Maybe that’s because he still sees Dr. Hawley, so processing all the shit he’s shoved down for years is easier. Maybe it’s that even now, when he’s overwhelmed the tremor returns, but he uses strategies so it no longer rattles him.
It hasn’t always been easy for him, but how can I not love a man who tries to better himself every damn day on the field, off the field, and in our relationship?
“You’re staring,” he says.
“I’m observing.”
“Same thing.”
“What if I said I was staring because I was just thinking about how much I love and adore you?”
“Well, in that case, you’re forgiven.” He chuckles and then motions to me. “Come over here.”
I narrow my eyes and say playfully, “Why?”
“Because we finally made it to Bali, Trouble. Because we finally escaped at a time when neither one of us has a plane to catch, a case to solve, or a game to win.”
“That sounds suspiciously reasonable.”
He tilts his head to the side and smiles. “I have my moments.”
I walk toward him, letting my bare feet skim over the warm stone surrounding our private villa’s deck. Our place is tucked away from everything but the ocean, the palms, and the most spectacular sunset that makes it look like the whole sky’s showing off.
Cole catches my hand and pulls me into him.
“There she is,” he murmurs.
I rest my palms on his shoulders. “You keep saying that like I go somewhere.”
“Sometimes you do.”
I smile. “But I always come back to you,” I say.
His gaze holds mine and for a second all the playfulness fades and my heart falters.
“Cole?”
He exhales slowly, and there it is again. The weirdness. The nerves. The look of a quarterback about to attempt a play he hasn’t practiced enough to trust yet.
“Oh my God.” I whisper. “Are you breaking up with me in Bali?”
His eyes shock wide. “What? No. How—”
“Because that would be rude to haul me all the way here and strand me with some hot islander so I could live off the grid and drink coconuts all day while skinny-dipping.”
His grin is a slow crawl on his lips. “You’re being ridiculous. I am not breaking up with you.”
“Whew,” I say dramatically.
His laugh is rough this time with emotion tingeing the edges. But it’s when his hand slides into the pocket of his board shorts, my heart stops.
Completely.
“Cole.”
“You know, I used to think love was something only other people got to share,” he says quietly.
Every sarcastic thought in my head disappears. What is happening right now?
His eyes stay locked on mine, but I can sense how damn nervous he is.
Now I am too.
“It was something I watched from the outside. Something I didn’t understand because every version of it I knew came with strings attached.
I feared I wouldn’t know how to love someone because I never saw that in my parents’ marriage.
” He reaches out and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear.
“I spent a lot of my life jealous of people who had it. Real love. Safe love. The selfless love where somebody stays when things get messy.” He pauses. “Then you happened.”
My tear slips free before I can stop it. He catches it with his thumb and then kisses the track it made on my cheek.
“And now?” he asks as he leans back, voice gruff.
He pulls a ring box from his pocket.
My hand flies to my mouth.
“Now it’s not enough just to have it. I need it. Need you. Want you.” He smiles. “Even when you drive me absolutely fucking insane.”
A broken laugh slips through my tears. He smiles but his eyes are glassy.
“Love is more than a word to me now. It’s need and want and choice.
It’s you giving me hell when I deserve it and holding on when I don’t know how to ask.
It’s waking up beside you, Dublin, and knowing I don’t have to earn the right to stay.
” He looks down at me linking my fingers with his free hand.
“It’s meeting a random girl in Cabo and knowing she’ll always stick with you in some way .
. . even when you have no idea how much. ”
He opens the box and my breath catches on a sob at the sparkling diamond. It’s gorgeous but no more so than the man in front of me.
“I want that for the rest of my life. I want you to live it with me. To feel it with me. To fight for it with me.”
He drops to one knee. Barefoot. The sunset’s glorious behind him, the stunning ring’s waiting for my hand, and his tremendous heart’s open and exposed in a way I don’t think he’s ever given to anyone else before.
Because this man once built himself on control. On performance. On surviving pressure.
And now he’s here before me with a nervous smile and a vulnerability that owns me.
“Dublin Locke,” he says, voice shaking. That undoes me completely. “Will you marry me?”
For one impossible second, I can’t speak. Not because I don’t know the answer but because the answer is so big it steals every word I’ve ever trusted.
It’s every late-night conversation. Every fight we’ve survived. Every fear we walked through. Every moment he looked at me and chose trust over the instinct he’s learned his whole life—to shut down. To not speak up for himself.
It’s him.
I can’t remember a time when it hasn’t been.
Cole’s expression shifts. “Trouble?”
I laugh. “You idiot,” I choke out.
His brows pull together. “That’s not usually the preferred response.”
“Yes.” I drop to my knees in front of him and grab his face. “Yes, Cole. Of course, yes.”
Relief crashes over his features so hard it nearly undoes me again before his mouth is on mine. The ring box gets trapped awkwardly between us, and I laugh against his lips because somehow that feels right too.
Us.
Messy. Emotional. Ridiculous. Perfect.
But real.
He slides the ring onto my finger with steady hands, then pulls me against his chest.
I stare down at the diamond catching the light while his lips brush softly against my neck.
“You’re stuck with me now, Trouble.”
I thread my fingers through his hair and press my forehead to his. “Good.”
His thumb brushes over the ring. “Walk through the fire with me?”
The words settle deep because they mean something entirely different now than they once did.
Not survive it.
Not endure it.
Choose it.
Together.
I smile against his mouth. “Any day. Any time. Any place.”