Epilogue
Cassie
I wake up to sunlight streaming through the windows and the smell of coffee drifting up from downstairs.
For a moment, I just lie there, appreciating the warmth of the bed, the softness of the sheets, the simple pleasure of a lazy Sunday morning. Then I reach out to the other side of the bed and find it empty, the sheets cool to the touch.
Elliot is already up. The man has never slept past seven in his life.
I pull on a robe and pad downstairs, following the coffee smell to the kitchen. Elliot is standing at the counter, scrolling through something on his tablet, looking unfairly handsome in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt.
“Good morning, Mrs. Beaumont,” he says without looking up.
“Good morning, Mr. Beaumont.” I wrap my arms around him from behind, pressing my cheek against his back. “How long have you been up?”
“About an hour. Wanted to let you sleep.” He turns in my arms and kisses my forehead. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
He pours me a cup, prepared exactly the way I like it, and we settle on the couch together. Outside, the city is waking up, but in here, it’s peaceful. Quiet. Ours.
“Any plans for today?” I ask.
“I thought we might go to that farmer’s market you like. Maybe have lunch at that Italian place.” He pauses. “Unless you have work.”
“It’s Sunday. Even workaholic CEO types get Sundays off.” I grin at him. “Speaking of which, I got some interesting numbers from my team on Friday.”
“Oh?”
“The client relations division hit record revenue last quarter. We’re up thirty percent from the year before.” I try to keep my voice casual, but I can’t quite hide my pride. “Turns out I’m pretty good at this running-my-own-division thing.”
“I never doubted it for a second.” Elliot pulls me closer. “You’ve built something incredible, Cassie. All on your own.”
“Well, I had some help. A certain handsome billionaire gave me the opportunity.”
“The opportunity, yes. But you did the work. You built the team. You developed the strategy. You turned a vague concept into a thriving business unit.” He tips my chin up so I’m looking at him. “Your success is your own. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
I kiss him, soft and sweet, feeling a warmth in my chest that has nothing to do with the coffee.
“I saw something interesting yesterday,” Elliot says when we break apart. “Charles’s company filed for bankruptcy.”
I absorb this news without surprise. I’d heard rumors that things weren’t going well for him. After everything that happened, his clients abandoned him completely. Without my connections, without the relationships I’d built and maintained for years, he had nothing to fall back on.
“How do you feel about that?” Elliot asks.
I actually think about it before answering. A year ago, this news would have filled me with vindictive satisfaction. Charles destroyed, brought low, paying for what he did to me. It’s what I wanted, what I worked for, what I dreamed about in my darkest moments.
But now? Now I just feel distant from it. Like it’s happening to someone else, in a life I used to live.
“I feel like it doesn’t have anything to do with me anymore,” I say finally. “Charles is part of my past. You’re my present. You’re my future.”
Elliot smiles and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Good answer.”
“And Celine?”
“Last I heard, she’s working at a boutique in her hometown. Living with her parents.” He shrugs. “Pretty far cry from the life she was trying to steal.”
“I almost feel sorry for her.” Almost. Not quite. “She threw away everything for a man who was never going to give her what she wanted.”
“She threw away everything because she couldn’t accept what she had.” Elliot’s voice is thoughtful. “We were never going to be happy together. But we could have parted amicably. She didn’t have to burn everything down.”
“No. She didn’t.”
We sit in comfortable silence, letting the past settle where it belongs. Behind us. Finished. Over.
“Cassie,” Elliot says after a while.
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” I snuggle deeper into his side. “What brought that on?”
“Nothing in particular. I just like saying it.” He strokes my hair. “I spent so many years keeping everyone at arm’s length. Refusing to let anyone close. And now I have you, and I never want to stop telling you how grateful I am.”
“You’re getting soft in your old age.”
“I prefer ‘emotionally mature.’”
I laugh and tilt my face up to kiss him. The kiss deepens, and soon we’re tangled together on the couch, his hands in my hair, my fingers working at the buttons of his shirt.
“We should probably take this upstairs,” I murmur against his mouth.
“Why? The couch is perfectly comfortable.”
“Because your housekeeper is coming at ten, and I don’t think she needs to see her employer’s bare ass.”
“Fair point.” He scoops me up and carries me toward the stairs. “Upstairs it is.”
Later, lying tangled in the sheets with the morning sun warm on our skin, I trace patterns on Elliot’s chest and think about everything that’s happened since that terrible day I walked into Charles’s office.
The betrayal. The rage. The desperate need for revenge that consumed me for weeks.
And then, after all of that, love. Real love, the sort I’d stopped believing existed.
“What are you thinking about?” Elliot asks.
“How lucky I am.” I prop myself up to look at him. “Not just because I have you, though that’s a big part of it. But because I finally know who I am. What I want. What I’m worth.”
“And what are you worth?”
“Everything.” I say it without hesitation, and I mean it completely. “I’m worth everything, Elliot. And I’m never going to settle for less again.”
“Good.” He pulls me down for another kiss. “Because you deserve everything. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure you get it.”
We stay in bed until noon, ignoring our phones, ignoring the outside world, existing only for each other. It’s indulgent and impractical and absolutely perfect.
When we finally emerge, showered and dressed and ready to face the day, I pause at the window and look out at the city spread below.
A year ago, I stood at a different window in a different life, feeling invisible and alone.
Now I’m standing in my home, with my husband, looking at a future that’s entirely my own. A future I built with my own hands, my own choices, my own strength.
I chose this life. I built this life. And I’m going to enjoy every single moment of it.
“Ready?” Elliot asks, holding out his hand.
“Ready.” I take his hand and smile. “Let’s go.”
We walk out into the sunshine together, and I don’t look back.
The past is done. The revenge is over. The new beginning is here.
And it’s better than anything I could have imagined.
THE END