Epilogue. Sloane
EPILOGUE
SLOANE
SIX MONTHS LATER
Slam!
Lucas came in from outside with Olivia trailing behind. My niece stopped short when she got a look at Wilder lying on the couch—with a mud mask on his face and cucumber slices over his eyes.
“What the heck are you doing?”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “That’s just one of his beauty treatments.”
Olivia chuckled, and the two of them disappeared up the stairs.
“Door open!” I yelled after them.
Wilder sat up, removing the vegetables from his face. “Do we still need that rule? They’re kind of related now, aren’t they?”
“Not by blood. Would it have stopped you if my aunt had married your brother?”
“Good point.” Wilder cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled up the stairs. “If I catch it shut, it comes off the hinges.”
I smiled and sat down on the other end of the couch, lifting my feet onto Wilder’s lap. “Rub, Mr. Hayes.”
“Yes, Mrs. Hayes.”
Wilder and I had gotten married a few days ago in England. It was the wedding I’d never dreamed of that turned out to be everything I ever wanted. We’d decided to do it before the baby was born, but I no longer had the desire for a big, lavish affair. Turned out, when I finally found true love, looking into each other’s eyes and committing to spend the rest of our lives together was all the fairy tale I needed. Being somewhere special with our family around us was more than enough. We married at St. Dunstan in the East, the park Wilder had taken me to when I first went to visit him in London. Not only was it beautiful, but what it represented felt right—it was a place of hope, a place people had attempted to destroy so many times, yet it had never fallen.
The ceremony was short and the guest list small—only our dads, our brothers, Olivia, Andrew, and Elijah. But today we were having a party at Carrick’s to celebrate. I couldn’t imagine now why that hadn’t always been my first choice of venues.
Wilder finished rubbing my feet and tugged me down onto the couch at his side. “Come here, wife.”
I smiled. “I like the sound of that.”
He cupped a hand at the back of my neck. “And I like the sound you make when I stick my cock in you. Let’s go upstairs.”
“First of all, I can’t take you seriously when you’re wearing a mud mask. But more importantly, we have to leave in a little while.”
He rubbed his muddy nose with mine. “I’ll be fast.”
“You’re getting mud on me.” I laughed.
“Yeah, wait till you see where else I spread this stuff…” Wilder pressed his lips to mine. As usual, the kiss grew heated quickly. Luckily, the moment was interrupted by Lucas and Olivia stomping back down the stairs.
“Ugh,” Lucas said. “Get a room.”
“This is a room,” Wilder noted. “A room in my house. Maybe you should go somewhere else.”
Lucas shook his head. “I can’t even look at you with that crap on your face.”
“Yet another reason you should be elsewhere.”
I smiled and stood. “Liv, why don’t you go next door and get dressed? We’re going to leave for Carrick’s soon.”
“That’s where I was going.”
Wilder lifted his chin to his brother. “And where do you think you’re going?”
“With her.”
He shook his head. “Wrong answer. Olivia doesn’t need help dressing. But Harry wants to move some furniture around. I told him you’d stop over. Why don’t you go do that next door before we leave?”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
A few seconds later there was another slam!
“Why can’t they shut that door without making the house shake?” I asked.
“I have no damn clue.” Wilder reached for my face. “But where were we?”
I put a hand on his chest. “ You were just about to get in the shower and wash that mud off. I’m going to attempt to fit into the dress I bought.”
He pouted. “Fine. But I have something I want to give you after I get out of the shower.”
“We really don’t have time, Wilder.”
He smiled. “I meant an actual gift.”
“Oh.” I laughed. “Okay.”
A little while later, I’d just put my new dress on when Wilder came into the bedroom dressed and clean-shaven.
“Can you zip me?” I stood in front of the mirror while my husband went behind me and pulled the zipper up. When he got to the top, the dress was pretty snug. “God, I tried this on a week ago when you bought it, and it wasn’t this tight.”
He reached around and pulled the material against my belly. It looked like I was hiding a basketball. “My little boy is growing. He’s going to be big and strong, just like his old man.”
I turned in his arms. “I hope he has your eyes.”
“I hope he has your everything else. Except maybe height and shoulders.”
Two months ago, we’d found out we were having a boy. Wilder had said he didn’t care about the sex of the baby, but I knew he was secretly happy to have the first member of his future rugby team.
“I don’t think I ever asked you, what did you weigh when you were born?”
He met my eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
“Oh Jesus. You were big?”
He bent and kissed my belly. “Your mother scares easily, so we’re going to keep that info to ourselves.” Wilder stood and kissed my lips. “Come on. I want to give you something.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, and Wilder slipped a manila envelope from his nightstand. “This is only a proof. I wanted you to see it before it goes to print on Monday.”
“Print? What is it?”
“Open it and see.”
I unfastened the metal closure and reached inside, pulling out a magazine. It was upside down and backward, so I flipped it over. My heart stopped when I saw the cover.
“Oh my God. Is this real?”
Wilder smiled. “There’s a six-page spread inside, too.”
A photo from our wedding was on the cover of Bride magazine. Wilder was dipping me for a kiss in front of one of the stone archways of St. Dunstan. It looked even more magical than I remembered.
“It’s the last wedding in the series,” he said.
“How did you do this so fast? We only got home two days ago.”
“I had a lot of help from Elijah, and the art department at the magazine was on alert, waiting for the photos to come in. I’d already given them all the details to draft the article.”
“I can’t believe you did this.”
Wilder lifted his chin. “The spread starts on page thirty-three.”
I flipped, anxious to read the article and see what other photos were included. My eyes jumped around the pages—photos of the venue, the cake, my dress, the small restaurant where we all went to dinner after the ceremony. A photo of Wilder holding my hand, displaying what had been his mom’s engagement ring but now adorned my finger, a photo of us walking down the aisle at Piper and Aiden’s wedding, only a few minutes after we’d met—there had to be twenty different photos on the six pages. I covered my mouth as I turned to the one at the very end. Wilder had snapped it the night of our wedding. It was taken from the back, and I was looking over my shoulder with a flirty smile. I wore only his old rugby jersey, with nothing underneath, but you couldn’t tell that since it hung to my knees.
“Oh my God. I can’t believe you included this.”
“If you don’t like it, we can use a different one. But I love that picture of you smiling with my name on your back.”
“It’s actually perfect—the perfect ending to our love story.”
“No, sweetheart. It’s not the ending; it’s only the beginning. And this story will last a lifetime.”