Epilogue
“Andrew, I love you with all my heart, but if you don’t slow the fuck down, I will stab you with my house key.”
I’m clutching the grab handle above the passenger-side window so hard my knuckles are turning white, refusing to let my eyes leave the road in front of us.
“I’m driving under the limit,” the fucking dickhead replies.
I let out a breath as he takes another turn too sharply. My hand automatically goes to my mouth.
“Andrew,” I say, warning in my voice.
The car finally slows to the crawl I have preferred for the last few weeks.
He sighs. “We’re going to be late.”
I relax into my seat and look over at him. “Would you rather arrive ten minutes late or in a car that smells like vomit?”
His nose scrunches slightly, but he doesn’t reply.
Farmland rolls past the window as a strange little ache of nostalgia moves through me. I remember sitting in Mom’s crappy car with my head out like a dog as these same fields blurred by.
I used to dream of escaping. Now I have, and I almost miss it.
I love living in the city, don’t get me wrong, but man, there’s something about the stillness out here. The fields. The sky. The way everything spreads out instead of stacking on top of itself.
It makes me feel like I can breathe.
Or it would, if my husband wasn’t trying to turn every country road into a Formula One qualifying lap.
“Is she still angry with me?”
I give him a confused look. “Why would she be—oh, you mean since you left her to die in Costa Rica?”
“I didn’t—”
“My mother is a proud woman,” I begin. “She does not admit weakness easily.”
Andrew groans.
“Yet she confided in you. Told you about her fear of the ocean. And you, somehow, convinced her to go snorkeling with you to”—I make air quotes—“‘get over her fear.’”
“Carly—”
“She trusted you. Went into the water with you. And what did you do? You abandoned her and climbed back onto your stupid yacht.”
“My snorkel had a hole in it. I had—”
“And there I am, eating a croissant and drinking a mimosa, thinking about what a lovely little family vacation we’re having, when suddenly I hear the screams of my mother.”
“It was one second.”
“When I look over the railing, I see her, all alone in shark-infested waters.”
“You always tell me not to say shark-infested, and it wasn’t even—”
“You left her to die there that day.”
That shuts him up.
I smile.
Four years ago, this man was my boss. My impossible, demanding, terrifyingly well-dressed boss. Now he is my husband, and he’s nervous about what my mom thinks of him.
A lot has changed.
I’m not his assistant anymore. I haven’t been for years.
Communications Coordinator turned into Communications Specialist, then Senior Communications Specialist, which still makes me sound more together than I actually am.
I have my own projects now. My own meetings.
My own inbox full of people asking for a few minutes of my time—something I’ll likely have less of soon.
“Of course she’s not angry anymore,” I say. “It was months ago.”
I stroke my slightly swollen belly.
“And even if she was, I bet she’ll forget the second we tell her our news.”