Epilogue
DEAN
FOUR MONTHS LATER
“I'm still convinced you copied me.”
I look across the kitchen island at Walker, who has been nursing the same glass of bourbon for the last twenty minutes while somehow managing to eat half the food Aubrey put out before everyone arrived.
“I copied you?” I ask.
“Obviously,” he replies quickly.
He gestures toward Liana, who is currently sitting on the floor a few feet away surrounded by enough toys to entertain an entire daycare.
“Baby unexpectedly enters your life. You have absolutely no idea what the hell you're doing. Beautiful woman comes along and saves your ass. You fall in love with her.”
Sawyer lifts his glass from where he's leaning against the opposite side of the island. “He's got a point.”
“I hired a nanny,” I point out.
Walker nods thoughtfully. “Right. You outsourced the part where I had to beg for help.”
A laugh escapes me as I shake my head. He is unbelievable.
“You two should've paid more attention in sex ed,” Roman mutters.
“Thank you.” Sawyer points at him. “I've been saying this for months.”
“I didn't miss sex ed,” I argue.
Colton raises an eyebrow. “I'm a doctor, and even I'm struggling to figure out what part of your situation you're trying to defend right now.”
That earns another round of laughter.
I lean back against the counter and look around my kitchen at the five men who have somehow taken over the space despite the fact that there are twice as many people scattered throughout the rest of the penthouse.
Lincoln is standing near the windows with his drink, watching the conversation with the amused expression of someone who has learned that contributing only encourages the rest of us.
Roman is beside Sawyer, half-listening while checking something Eva sent him on his phone.
Walker has made himself entirely too comfortable with my food.
And Colton is still wearing the sweater Melissa apparently picked out for him, despite the amount of shit Sawyer gave him about it when they arrived.
There was a time when getting all six of us in the same room meant business. We would talk money, investments, and deals.
Or the occasional poker game that somehow became more competitive than any corporate negotiation I'd ever been part of.
Now my place is filled with kids and women's laughter coming from somewhere down the hallway, and Sawyer just spent ten minutes showing Roman pictures Kayla took because apparently the dog did something particularly interesting this morning.
I don't know when the hell this became our lives.
Stranger still, I don't know when I started loving it.
Liana lets out an excited squeal, pulling my attention toward her.
Lincoln has now joined Liana on the floor with her blocks that are now all over the floor while the other kids are scattered throughout the room playing.
“That's the third time she's done that,” Lincoln says.
“Maybe stop rebuilding it,” Sawyer shouts.
Lincoln looks offended. “She likes it.”
“She likes destroying your work,” Roman adds.
“She's a Ledger,” Sawyer says. “Probably evaluating structural weaknesses.”
I laugh and push away from the island, crossing the room to scoop my daughter off the floor.
She immediately grabs my face with both hands. “Hello to you too.”
I kiss her cheek, earning another squeal as she twists in my arms to look toward the hallway.
I know what she's looking for before she finds her.
Aubrey.
She comes around the corner with all the women behind her, laughing at something one of them said, and my attention immediately locks onto her.
It still happens every fucking time.
Four months of waking up beside her, of watching her walk through that door after work, and seeing her barefoot in my kitchen, curled against me on the couch, asleep beside me in bed.
And somehow my body still reacts like I haven't seen her in weeks.
Her eyes find mine from across the room. The smile that spreads over her face belongs entirely to me.
There was a time when that would have terrified me. Sometimes, if I'm being truthful, it still does.
Therapy hasn't magically erased almost twenty years of fear. There are still moments when Aubrey is late and I feel that familiar pressure building beneath my ribs. There are still unanswered calls that make my mind want to go places it has no business going.
The difference is that now I know what it is.
I know how to stop and breathe before the fifteen-year-old boy inside me takes over.
I know that fear is not intuition. An unanswered phone isn't a death sentence. And loving someone doesn't mean I have to spend every second preparing to lose them.
Aubrey walks toward me, and Liana practically launches herself from my arms.
Aubrey laughs as I transfer Liana to her even though one arm has paper bags balancing on it. “Someone missed me.”
I narrow my eyes. “You were gone for ten minutes.”
She grins and shakes her head.
The women had gone downstairs to pick up the desserts that arrived while we were hanging out after dinner.
Aubrey walks to the island where she begins to put out more dessert than any of us can eat while simultaneously holding Liana on her hip.
Pride spreads through me as I watch her. She’s been doing great at work and I love seeing how happy it makes her.
She got the job six weeks after everything happened between us.
Not through me—that part had mattered to her.
I offered contacts, introductions, and very connection I'd accumulated over more than a decade in business.
She thanked me and promptly informed me she wanted to do it herself… so she did.
She interviewed at seven companies, turned down two offers, and accepted a position at an advertising agency only fifteen minutes from my office.
We hired a nanny for Liana. Aubrey cried on the woman's first day then called me from work three times to check on them.
I enjoyed pointing out the irony far more than I should have that I’m not the only one who worries.
Now we both leave for work in the morning. We both come home. And somewhere along the way, this stopped feeling like my penthouse.
It's ours.
“I love you.” I slide my arm around her waist and pull her against me.
She tilts her face toward mine expectantly and I kiss her.
“Geez,” Sawyer complains behind us. “There are people here.”
I break the kiss just enough to look over Aubrey's shoulder.
“You're welcome to leave.”
“You're both insufferable,” Kayla says as she joins him.
Sawyer immediately slides an arm around her. The automatic nature of the gesture catches my attention.
So does the way Roman's hand finds Eva when she walks past him.
The way Walker looks toward Jessie when she laughs.
Lincoln pulling out a chair for Kylie without interrupting the conversation he's having with Colton.
Melissa reaching over to straighten Colton's collar before walking away.
Tiny things. Things I probably wouldn't have noticed a year ago.
Now they're everywhere.
I look around the room at the men I've known through different seasons of my life, and something strange settles over me.
Every single one of us fought this… love … in different ways, for different reasons.
We had money, careers, and homes most people could only dream of. Every material thing we could possibly want.
And somehow every one of us had convinced ourselves we didn't need the one thing money couldn't guarantee.
Lincoln. Roman. Walker. Colton. Sawyer. Me.
Six men who could control companies employing thousands of people or save hundreds of lives… and somehow became completely fucking helpless when the right woman walked into our lives.
I smile to myself.
“What?” Aubrey asks.
I look down at her. “What?”
“You're smiling.”
“I smile.”
“Not like that.” Her eyes narrow playfully. “You're having one of your deep-thinking moments.”
“I don't have deep-thinking moments.”
Sawyer overhears me. “That's true.”
“Fuck off,” I say under my breath.
Aubrey laughs. “What were you thinking about?”
I glance around the room again at the life filling every corner of the home I once preferred quiet.
“Just how different everything is.”
Aubrey's expression softens. “Good different?”
I tighten my arm around her waist. “The best kind.”
She rests her head against my shoulder while Liana reaches between us and grabs a fistful of my shirt.
I kiss the top of my daughter's head.
For most of my adult life, I thought success was something I could measure in revenue or in numbers moving in the right direction.
I thought I need control over every variable.
Then Aubrey walked into my home and systematically destroyed every definition I'd built.
She made me want things that couldn't be measured.
Sunday dinners. Christmas mornings. A woman stealing my side of the bed. A little girl calling for us from down the hallway.
Years I can't predict and a future I can't control.
I look down at Aubrey as she laughs at something Liana does, and that old fear flickers somewhere deep inside me.
It may always exist.
Maybe loving this much means there will always be something to lose, but I’m finally okay with that.
Because my father was right. The possibility of losing love someday could never outweigh the privilege of having it today.
I spent twenty years gripping life so tightly that I nearly missed the best part of it.
Then Aubrey taught me to let go and to accept the uncertainty. To stop demanding guarantees life was never going to give me and to choose love anyway.
My arm tightens around the two people who have become my entire world as laughter fills the room around us.
This life isn't something I conquered. It isn't something I controlled.
It's something I finally allowed myself to have.
My surrender.
And standing here surrounded by five men who somehow found their own version of the same thing, I realize surrender was never about losing at all.
It was how every one of us finally won.