Epilogue
Six months later
Their escape may have been the least meticulous job Jack had ever carried out, but he had landed in Tahiti with his accounts full of money and the woman he loved most in the world on his arm, still wearing her little red dress.
Well, it may have been a little torn from their shared . . . enthusiasm.
But that could hardly be considered his fault.
Now Ava was asleep beside him in their little beach condo, a place they paid for in cash, which he’d emptied from all his US-based accounts before they had the chance to be frozen.
After all the chaos of Clara being arrested at her airstrip and her fingerprints on the gun that killed her brother, it had taken law enforcement a while to catch up.
But they had, eventually, after Clara and her army of lawyers had given them enough footage of Jack and Ava in the mansion, footage that had gone as viral as Ava with her fist raised above Cale.
By then, Ava and Jack were settled in Tahiti.
Jack had grown the beard he’d promised, and Ava had cut her hair a little shorter.
He’d gotten a job driving a boat with a local tourism company, and Ava was waiting tables at a little restaurant by the water.
Back in the United States, the media was obsessed with the couple who had taken down an empire—the woman in the red dress and the man who protected her.
“Jack.” She sounded sleepy. Peaceful. He’d seen that here—that peace—more than he’d ever seen it before.
“Ava,” he responded.
“I like this game,” Ava said, rubbing her eyes and smiling up at him. “I should get dressed. My shift starts in about an hour.”
“Well, then,” Jack said, rolling over and pinning her beneath him, his hands wrapped around her wrists. “I’d say I have an hour, don’t I, Boss?”
She made a noise of protest but pressed against him eagerly, opening her mouth just slightly. “Green,” she said. “But I’m going to complain.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be complaining soon,” Jack said confidently.
In the six months they’d been here, he’d made it his focus to study just what his Ava liked best. They’d tried . . . well, everything.
“Maybe I’ll complain the whole time,” Ava said. “You don’t know—”
Her words ended in a moan of pleasure as Jack’s fingers found their place between her legs.
“That’s right,” Jack said softly. “That’s my Ava.”
If Ava was a little bit late for her shift and was walking stiffly, well, that just meant he’d given Ava the kind of time she’d wanted.
As he watched her go, dressed in a pair of short jean shorts and a loose flowing shirt, he didn’t miss the long, lonely years of working his contracts.
Murder may still be a meticulous business—but the love he shared with Ava was anything but.