Epilogue
Charlotte
T hree months later
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying to calm the anxiety coursing through my entire body.
The woman looking back at me was polished and put-together—soft auburn waves cascading over her shoulders, a pretty sundress in sage green that brought out her eyes, delicate gold jewelry that caught the light.
She looked like someone who had her life together. Someone confident and calm.
She was lying. Inside, I was a mess of nerves, my stomach doing somersaults at the thought of what lay ahead.
This evening, I was meeting Kane’s parents. The people who had raised him, loved him, and shaped him into the man I’d fallen so completely in love with.
What if they didn’t like me? What if they blamed me, even subconsciously, for everything that had happened with Kohen? What if—
“You’re spiraling,” Angelica said from her perch on the edge of my bed. “I can literally see the anxiety radiating off you.”
I turned away from the mirror with a grimace. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to someone who knows you.” She tilted her head, studying me with the practiced eye of a best friend. “You look gorgeous, by the way. That dress is perfect.”
“It’s not too casual? Too formal? Too—”
“It’s perfect ,” Angelica repeated firmly. “Stop second-guessing yourself. They’re going to love you.”
I sank down onto the bed beside her, my hands twisting in my lap. “You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually. Because Kane loves you, and any parent worth their salt can see when their child is happy.” She bumped her shoulder against mine. “And that man is ridiculously happy. It’s almost disgusting, honestly.”
A reluctant smile tugged at my lips. She wasn’t wrong.
The past three months with Kane had been... extraordinary. After everything we’d survived—Calloway, the kidnapping, the years of separation built on lies and betrayal—I’d half-expected reality to come crashing down. For the connection we’d forged in crisis to crumble once the danger passed.
Instead, it had only grown stronger.
We’d moved in together within weeks, neither of us able to stand being apart.
Our evenings were filled with lazy dinners and long conversations, with poker games that inevitably devolved into a far more interesting kind of competition.
We spent nights at the Players Club, with me wrapped in his red ropes, my body suspended while he took me apart with agonizing patience and rebuilt me with pleasure so intense it bordered on transcendent.
I’d discovered things about myself in those sessions—depths of trust I hadn’t known I possessed, a capacity for vulnerability that would have terrified me with anyone else. But with Kane, surrender wasn’t weakness. It was freedom.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I’d fallen completely, irrevocably in love with him.
He was still working at Noble and Associates, but there had been a noticeable shift in him since Calloway’s arrest. He didn’t hold himself apart from the others anymore.
I’d watched him gradually open up to the guys, accepting their invitations for drinks, joining their weekend basketball games, and letting himself be part of their group instead of standing on the outside looking in.
I’d found my own place in their circle too.
Andrea, Violet, and Stella had welcomed me with open arms, pulling me into their group texts and girls’ nights and the easy intimacy of women who genuinely liked each other.
It was strange, being part of such a close-knit friendship circle after years of keeping people at arm’s length.
Strange, but wonderful. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been until I wasn’t anymore.
But as much as I loved our expanding world, my favorite moments were still the quiet ones. Just Kane and me, tangled together on the couch or lying in bed in the early morning light, talking about everything and nothing.
I couldn’t imagine my life without him. Didn’t want to.
“Charlotte.” Angelica’s voice pulled me back to the present. “What’s really going on in that head of yours?”
I let out a slow breath. “I just... I feel terrible about Kohen. About all of it. Kane’s parents lost a son.
Not to death, but to something almost worse.
They found out he’d been corrupt for years, that he’d framed his own brother, that he’d been working for a monster.
And now he’s in prison, and they’re dealing with all of that grief and betrayal, and here I come waltzing in—”
“ Stop .” Angelica held up a hand. “Kohen being corrupt is not your fault. You didn’t make him take bribes. You didn’t make him frame Kane. You didn’t make him kidnap you and deliver you to a sex trafficker.” Her voice softened. “None of that is on you.”
“Logically, I know that.” I pressed my hand to my chest, where the guilt still lived despite all logic. “But Kane still struggles with it. I can see it sometimes, when he thinks I’m not looking. This weight he carries.”
“And you being in his life makes that weight lighter,” Angelica said gently. “Trust me. That man looks at you like you hung the moon.”
I felt heat rise to my cheeks. “It’s just... we lost so much time. Two years that we could have had together, stolen by Calloway and Kohen and all of it. And now that we’re finally here, finally building something real...” I bit my lip, hesitating.
“What?”
“Is it crazy that I already see my future with him? Like, my whole future?”
Angelica’s eyebrows rose. “Go on.”
“I mean...” I twisted my fingers together and met my friend’s gaze. “Is it too early to think about wanting to... I don’t know...”
“Marry the guy?” Angelica supplied, a knowing smile spreading across her face.
My cheeks burned hotter. “Maybe.”
“Charlotte.” She grabbed my hands, squeezing them firmly. “I don’t think it’s crazy at all. You and Kane have been through more in a few months than most couples face in a lifetime. If you want to marry him, you damn well should.”
“Isn’t he the one who’s supposed to ask?”
Angelica snorted. “Says who? It’s the twenty-first century. Get a ring pop and ask him yourself.”
A laugh bubbled out of me despite my nerves. “Let’s see if his parents even like me first.”
“They will,” Angelica said with absolute certainty.
A short while later, after Angelica and I had settled comfortably on the couch in the living room to continue chatting, the front door opened and my heart lifted at the sight of Kane stepping inside.
He’d had an easy security assignment at Noble and Associates today—some corporate event that required more presence than action—and he looked relaxed in a way that still surprised me sometimes. Like the weight he’d carried for so long was finally starting to lift.
Angelica gathered her things with a knowing smile. “That’s my cue. Have fun tonight, you two.”
“Thanks for talking me off the ledge,” I told her.
“Anytime.” She paused at the door, pointing a finger at Kane. “Her nerves are at an eleven. Fix it.”
Kane raised an eyebrow as she left, then turned to me with a soft smile. “An eleven, huh?”
“Maybe a twelve,” I admitted.
He crossed the room and pulled me into his arms, and just like that, some of the tension drained out of my body. He had that effect on me, this ability to make me feel grounded simply by existing in my space.
“They’re going to love you,” he murmured against my hair.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it’s true.” He pulled back, his hands framing my face. “You ready to meet them?”
I took a deep breath. “As I’ll ever be.”
Judy and Kyle—as they immediately insisted I call them—lived in a lovely two-story home in the suburbs outside Vegas.
It was a classic family house, with a well-maintained lawn and flower beds bursting with color, where you could picture kids playing in the backyard and homework being done at the kitchen table.
A home where two boys had grown up, loved and supported, before one of them had made choices that shattered everything.
After introductions were made—Judy pulling me into a warm hug and Kyle shaking my hand with a genuine smile—Judy gave me the grand tour of the place with the guys following behind.
“These are my watercolors,” she said, gesturing to a series of desert landscapes lining the hallway and reminding me of when Kane had told me about his parent’s hobbies, which seemed a lifetime ago. “Kyle thinks I should sell them, but I’m not sure they’re good enough.”
“They’re beautiful,” I said honestly. The colors were vibrant but soft, capturing something essential about the Nevada landscape.
“And these are Kyle’s bonsai trees.” She led me to a sunlit room where a dozen miniature trees sat in careful arrangements. “He’s been cultivating some of them for twenty years.”
“They require patience,” Kyle said from behind us, a hint of a smile on his handsome face. “Something I had to learn.”
It was adorable, this glimpse into the quiet, creative lives Kane’s parents had built together. I found myself relaxing despite my nerves, charmed by their warmth and the obvious love that filled this house.
Then we passed a closed door at the end of the upstairs hallway, and I felt Kane tense beside me. Kohen’s childhood room. Shut tight, like a wound no one was ready to examine.
My heart ached for Kane, for these two lovely people who had welcomed me so generously, for the family that had been fractured by choices none of them could undo.
I hoped, for their sake if nothing else, that Kohen would eventually apologize.
That he’d find some way to make amends, even from behind bars.
Dinner was wonderful. Judy had made her famous pot roast boasting it was “Kane’s favorite”, and the conversation flowed more easily than I’d dared to hope.
Kane didn’t look like either of his parents physically because he’d been adopted, but I could see pieces of him in them nonetheless.
The deliberate, thoughtful way Kyle spoke.
The warmth and kindness that radiated from Judy’s every gesture.