Epilogue
EPILOGUE
T he sketch came to life before my eyes, though the process had been slow. Progress was being made, and while it took some time, it was beyond satisfying that the image from my mind was able to slowly make its way onto the page.
It wasn’t a suit croquis this time, but the silhouette of a dress. It wasn’t my first time drawing one, but I still hadn’t executed it as I would’ve liked it to be.
“You ready for a break?”
I looked up from the table to find Sumner coming out of Nancy’s back door. He wore a dark pair of cotton pants and a loose shirt, with his golden hair loose over his forehead. He’d finally mastered business casual.
“Just about,” I said as he came around the patio table and kissed the top of my head. “Aaron finally hung up, huh?”
“He loves to talk and talk,” Sumner said with a little groan, wrapping his arms around me. “I was barely listening.”
“I doubt he noticed,” I said with a little snort, relaxing in his embrace. The tension in my shoulders from hunching over my paper loosened against Sumner’s chest. “He loves listening to himself talk, doesn’t he?”
“That he is.” Sumner pressed a soft kiss to my temple, lips a quick glance on my skin. His attention dropped to my sketch. “It’s looking really good.”
I regarded it with scrutinizing eyes, seeing my mistakes stand out as if with red ink. “It’s all right.”
“Are you actually going to have this one designed this time?”
“Mary-Ana wants me to do this one myself. Apparently, it’s vastly uncommon for a designer to have no skills in sewing. Go figure.”
I’d missed the deadline to sign up for the fall semester for fashion institutes, but because of Vivienne Astor’s generosity, she put me into contact with a few of her friends in New York City, just as she’d promised. Though it wouldn’t count toward credits, I’d been able to land an internship position at a small boutique. One that didn’t specialize in suits. Unfortunately. But as I built my portfolio, I learned to find sketching dresses fun, in a way. There was a lot of variety in the silhouettes, the patterns, fabrics. Whereas suits require more precision and structure, dresses had ample more opportunities for details and embellishments. It was fun to experiment with it.
The fact that I enjoyed sketching a dress design still made me chuckle.
He gave a soft chuckle that echoed in my ear. “Is that kind of like an architect that can’t build?”
I made a pout of an expression. “More like a cater-waiter who can’t hold a tray. ”
“You got me.” He kissed my temple again, even though I tried to lean away.
“The clothiers at Gilfman left me spoiled, doing it all for me. I’m excited to try designing something, though.” Even though I knew the outcome would be rough, ugly, and probably something I hated with a burning passion, it was an exciting thought that I was truly starting my career in fashion design now. I’d sketched all along, but the true designing, the true bringing something to life, was finally set into motion. “I know I’m starting off behind, only learning to sew now, but Mary-Ana promised to help me. And you’ve seen her designs.”
Sumner’s hands slipped firmer around me, tucking me closer. “I can’t wait until you design me something one day. A Margot Massey original.”
“We might start off small. Like a necktie.”
“Only if you put it on me.”
Sumner extracted his arms from me and came around the table to sit down, blue gaze focused on me. “How did the conversation with Mr. Franz go?”
Sumner and I had come back to Addison for the long weekend—partly because there were papers Mr. Franz needed me to sign, and partly because I missed Nancy’s house. I knew, at some point, I’d have to stop calling it that— Nancy’s house —but I doubted it’d ever stop feeling like her place, even though it technically was in my name. Or officially would be, once the probate case was closed.
The past two and a half months flew by. I couldn’t believe it was almost all over.
I sketched a line along the model’s hip, but with Sumner’s attention on me, I was far too distracted. The dress disappeared from my mind’s eye, quickly filled with the awareness of him . “He says that he thinks everything will clear probate within the next week or two. Said that things went even smoother than he’d hoped.”
“That’s a relief.” Sumner’s eyes dropped to my sketch for a moment. “Have your parents tried reaching out to you again?”
Before, the mere mention of my parents would cause my mood to plummet. Now, it just caused me to sigh in annoyance. “This morning marks the fourth time this week.” When they’d learned that probate would be completed soon, they’d started reaching out again. It’d started early in July, when the will became public knowledge once it entered probate. Once they learned that the daughter they’d disowned would soon inherit everything they’d ever wanted. “Apparently, they don’t know what the word wait means.”
“They should learn what the word no means,” Sumner muttered, his eyes tightening. “You’re more generous than I’d be.”
I regarded him fondly, mostly because his own annoyance on my behalf was so endearing. “I see it as I can finally be done with it all. I don’t want to hang onto it just for the sake of hanging onto it. I’d rather sell it and get them off my back.” I set my pencil down and leaned forward over the table. “But that doesn’t mean I have to give them a discount.”
Sumner grinned. “Of course not.”
Really, if my parents couldn’t inherit all of Nancy’s fortune, they wanted two things: the land Massey Suites sat on as well as the country club itself. Despite the fact that I was permanently banned from the Alderton-Du Ponte Country Club, I would inherit the land and building when the will came out of probate. Since it was a membership-run facility and not a privately owned company, the board of directors still could bar my entry—and they did. I’d gone back and forth with Mr. Franz and Sumner, and I decided that would be another thing I’d let go.
But not to the vultures at the Alderton-Du Ponte, though. No, I’d be donating it to a charity, just like Nancy always threatened she’d do.
The snobby termites that’d moved over the years in had ruined the beautiful place Nancy built; I didn’t want to hold on to rotted wood.
Nancy wasn’t there, anyway. We held onto her ashes long enough to bring in pond management specialists, and they took the once swampy pond in Nancy’s backyard and restored it back to its former glory. The pond Nancy spent her days looking out over, watching deteriorate, was almost a serene oasis now, with the algae cleared and new plants rooted along the edges. The pond specialist even went as far as stocking fish, which could be seen underneath the glittering blue surface.
“We probably won’t be back here for a little bit, huh?” I asked with a somewhat sad tone, glancing around the yard. The morning sunlight rose and shimmered beautifully on the pond. “We don’t have another long weekend until Thanksgiving.”
“We can still come back here and there,” Sumner assured. “It’s only an hour’s flight. We can be here and back in New York in a day.”
“Both of us will be tired with work.”
Though it’d been a lie before, Sumner truly did work at a small startup now, hired on as a project manager for a small marketing agency. It was a role he enjoyed—and sheepishly admitted he enjoyed it more than being a secretary. “ It wasn’t you, ” he’d insisted. “ I just feel like I’m doing something meaningful now. ”
“ And watching me wasn’t meaningful? ” I’d teased, to which he gave another small smile.
“ No ,” he’d replied, “ it was fun . ”
Sumner tipped his head at me now, his eyes soft. “I’ll never be too tired to visit Nancy.”
My chest ached, both with warmth at his words and sorrow. It was such a strange combination, but one I’d gotten used to navigating. So much had changed in just a few months. Even though Nancy’s absence left an ornery-lady-sized hole in my chest, moving forward hadn’t been nearly as impossible as I’d always imagined. I knew it was because I had a hand to hold now.
I’d once told Sumner that I was afraid of a life outside of my golden glitz and glamour, too afraid to lead a life without the comfort I’d always known.
What if it’s better? he’d asked. That other life.
And it was better. Of course it was. There were hardships and struggles, and the unknown felt a whole lot scarier, but it was better. I no longer felt like a little kid under the directions of her parents, but an adult. One who lived with her boyfriend in New York City, who rode the subway and ate street pizza and walked hand-in-hand with Sumner in Central Park. One who pulled all-nighters and woke up early to go to work .
Navigating this “other life” together with Sumner was far, far more amazing than I could’ve dreamed, and it felt like my life was truly beginning.
I pushed the metal chair away from the patio table and pushed to my feet, stretching. “What time is it?”
Sumner checked his clunky watch. “A little after ten.”
“And our reservation at Pierre’s isn’t until eleven-thirty, right?”
Sumner watched me approach, his eyes already growing more guarded. “Right.”
I laid my hands on his shoulders and looked down at him. His hands rose to rest on my waist, holding me in place. Even through the fabric of my shorts, my skin lit up with the touch. That, accompanied by the wide, tender way he looked up at me, obliterated my self-control.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to his awaiting ones, taking a second to memorize the moment. I always did, even unintentionally. The very first time I’d kissed Sumner, I hadn’t been paying attention at all. now, I made sure to mentally file the moment away each time. The scent of him, the sound of his small gasp, the feel as his lips adjusted to mine.
But then I’d melt into the moment, and I’d stop focusing on memorizing and start focusing on feeling . Sumner’s hand now slipped from my waist around my back, pressing me closer to him. Each pressure of his fingers sent a spark through me, and I combed my fingers through his hair, hoping to elicit the same feeling in him. And it worked, if the sharp breath in through his nose was any indication. Sumner kissed me eagerly, matching each tilt of my head and glance of my lips.
I broke away for a breath. “We could always skip our reservation,” I murmured, curling my fingers firmer into the hair at the back of his head. Feathery soft.
“No,” he answered at once, equally breathless, but didn’t release me from his arms. “I’ve been told not to keep you from your avocado toast.”
“This would be a good excuse.” I laid my free hand along his neck, feeling his pulse pound in his throat. “The only good excuse.”
“We don’t have to skip it.” With a firm and smooth tug, Sumner pulled me into his lap. My world was only unsteady for a moment before his arms came around me, and our faces were level now, inches apart. “We have enough time.”
A smile inched across my lips. “Do we, now? Enough time for what?”
Sumner’s eyes dropped to my mouth, a light illumination his blue gaze, the color as fluid as the pond behind us. Even after so long together, and so many shared smiles, Sumner never seemed to stop his habit of watching my lips lift—nor his habit of smiling in return. “Enough time for me to work on my technique.”
“Yours? I thought you said mine needed work.”
Sumner pressed a kiss to the middle of my forehead, to my nose, and then to each of my cheeks. “Trust me,” Sumner murmured, mouth brushing against mine as he spoke. The words were a whisper, and he barely could get them out. “It definitely doesn’t.”
I closed the distance between us once more. In moments like this, where there was nothing but the two of us and ample time in the world, it was as if I could physically feel the bond holding us together. Love. Something I once didn’t believe in, something I once didn’t want, now something I knew I couldn’t live without. To love, and to be loved by the same person, was better than any Gilfman or Malstoni.
Falling in love, contrary to what everyone had tried to tell me, wasn’t a fairytale. It wasn’t nonsense. It wasn’t a problem.
It truly was just champagne.