Epilogue
Love Brought Weight — Old Sea Brigade
“ T hat’s the last of it,” Elliot declared, walking in the front door with a box. “Well,” he clicked his tongue, “the last of it that will fit in this house before Rowan is done with the expansion.”
“He’ll be done in record time,” I assured him from where I was, working on my computer.
I’d been forbidden from doing any heavy lifting even though it had been weeks since I’d been discharged.
I was fully recovered, yet I didn’t protest because I really didn’t want to haul boxes of shit from Elliot’s truck.
“I’m in no rush. You can wear my shirts for the rest of time.” Elliot was watching me with that intense look of his that hadn’t dimmed since I woke in the hospital. Like I might’ve died in his arms or something. I guessed I kind of had.
I tipped my lips upward, pretending that look didn’t hurt my insides. “Even down the aisle?” I teased.
He nodded. “I’d be happy with that.”
I snapped my laptop shut. “I would not. I’ve got a reputation to maintain, after all.”
“I thought your reputation was crafted from your oath to never walk down an aisle unless it was to the Supreme Court,” Elliot stated somberly.
I scowled. “I hate that you’re so close with my family.”
A lie.
I loved it. All of my family welcomed him with open arms. Who wouldn’t? He’d already taken my father out fishing, same with my brother. My sister adored him, my mother baked him cookies regularly, and my nieces and nephews idolized him.
Everyone was sufficiently surprised and delighted that I was not only getting married to someone so nice but that I was moving in with him, therefore settling in Jupiter for the foreseeable future.
My apartment in New York had sold for a bomb.
I’d bought a brownstone in the Village instead.
I still planned on traveling there, working for a bit longer.
I hadn’t become a completely new person because I’d fallen in love, almost died, killed my childhood sweetheart, been poisoned and almost drowned.
A small-town girl I’d never be.
“You’re going to be happy here?” It was like Elliot could read my mind. I looked around the house, at my books on his cluttered shelves, my martini glasses on his small bar. Elliot seated across from me.
“As long as a double sink and walk-in closet are installed in a timely manner,” I joked.
Elliot didn’t smile.
He was truly worried. It was rare to see a lapse in Elliot’s trademark confidence, but it was there.
He happily took me when I reached out to climb onto his lap.
“Elliot Shaw, the man who orders me to my knees, who fucks me like a stallion, who got me on a boat, who makes a mean lobster roll—better than his brother’s,” I winked.
“You make me happier than I thought I was capable of. So yes, I think I’m going to be happy as your wife.
As long as you promise to fuck me like a stallion till the end of my days. ”
His grip tightened as he ground me against his rapidly hardening cock.
“Oh, I think I can do that.” His lips claimed mine.
Even though it took great effort, I pulled myself back. “Are you going to be happy with me? I’ll never be a traditional wife. The only time I’ll submit to you is when I get an orgasm out of it, I don’t cook, I can’t bear you children.”
Although I had little reason to doubt Elliot’s feelings toward me, I couldn’t help the sliver that crept in. As it often did when I thought too hard about how I’d marred Elliot’s life with my sins, my barren womb, sharp tongue, and my U-Haul of emotional baggage.
“Calliope Derrick.” His hand bit into my hip, the other cupping my jaw.
“You’re the most powerful person I know.
You get on your knees for me, you rescue kittens, you are fierce, you love like no one else I’ve known, your smile is rare but worth a trillion dollars.
Yes, fuck I’ll be happy with you till my dying days. ” He stood, holding both of us.
I’d anticipated wrapping my legs around him, but he set me down.
“Now get on your fucking knees,” he growled.
I licked my lips.
He’d just said a lot of wonderful things.
Who was I to argue?
I got on my fucking knees.
Happy endings, I found, were much too simple. Tied everything off in a neat little bow. They created unrealistic expectations for everyone involved, especially women. The only end in life that served to be final and concrete was death.
Everything else was followed by unpredictable messiness afterward.
I was happy. As much as someone like me could be. But I wasn’t under any illusions that it would stay that way. I self-sabotaged by nature. But I also knew Elliot wasn’t going to let me sabotage us.
He’d fight for me. With me. For us. To the end.
And I’d been so sure the whole ‘till death do us part’ thing was a load of shit. But I wouldn’t accept the grave unless I was still wearing Elliot’s ring, unless my life had been filled with him.
“Do you, Calliope Derrick, take Elliot Shaw to be your lawfully wedded husband, from this day forward, as long as you both shall live?” Kip asked, a smile on his handsome face.
I ignored him and looked into the endless eyes of the man I’d come to love. Who was my anchor to a life I was starting to believe I deserved.
“I do,” I whispered.
ELLIOT
“She wore white.” Beau sucked at the cigar we were sharing on the balcony.
Below us, the party raged on, music thumping, children running around, Clara hand in hand with Calliope— my wife —both grinning from ear to ear.
Calliope would not even schedule the wedding until she was sure Clara’s immune system was strong enough to handle being out and around so many people.
Then she’d got second and third opinions on that, offending countless Ivy League-educated doctors.
I’d waited for Beau to get annoyed at Calliope—my fucking wife —for interfering with Clara’s care.
But to my immense surprise, he’d let Calliope make the calls.
He’d even gone to the appointments, letting Calliope foot the bills.
Though I shouldn’t have been surprised, Beau’s main priority was his daughter’s health. And to my immense surprise, my brother and my wife had almost become … friends?
“It’s a wedding,” I reminded my brother. “It’s her wedding. Why wouldn’t she wear white?”
My brother took a long inhale of his cigar before turning to give me a pointed look.
I laughed. Maybe it surprised my brother and everyone else at the ceremony that Calliope wore white, that she was even getting fucking married, but not me.
Nothing surprised me when it came to Calliope because I knew she was capable of anything.
My eyes found her again, unable to leave her for more than a few moments. Even being up here, out of touching distance, was causing my fingers to itch. But a cigar with my brother was something I could manage on my wedding day. My father would’ve joined us had he not been on the dance floor.
That man loved to dance.
And he was currently doing it with my wife, twirling her around as she threw her head back in laughter.
Her chocolate hair falling in wild curls.
I’d had one request for my bride on our wedding day: that she wear her hair down. I’d been expecting an argument about that since the one and only place Calliope obeyed me was the bedroom.
But she just tilted her head and said, “Okay.”
And she’d walked down the aisle, forgoing a bouquet, her father’s arm around hers with her hair spilling over her exposed shoulders, framing and softening her face, wearing a white dress.
It was simple, hugging every one of her curves and ending below the knee. I didn’t know shit about dresses except that she looked fucking mesmerizing in it.
Her heels made her stand almost at the same height as her father, who was tall, a replica of his son except a little less scary.
He hadn’t given me any of the fatherly threats when I’d asked to marry his daughter.
He’d clapped me on the shoulder, laughing and promising not to tell Calliope I’d asked him for his permission to marry her.
“For what it’s worth, though, I’ve never seen my daughter smile like she has when she’s with you,” he said.
“Thought she’d be robbed of life’s simple happiness because she’s so wonderfully complicated.
I’m glad the right man came along who’s worthy of her and understands what a treasure she is,” he’d added with glassy eyes.
“I’m well aware of what a treasure your daughter is,” I nodded, speaking sincerely. “As much as she’d dress me down for referring to her as such.”
And she would. Calliope didn’t consider herself a treasure because she didn’t think she was something to be claimed or owned. And because she didn’t consider herself worthy, valuable.
That was something I’d spend the rest of my life proving to her.
I didn’t realize that my brother hadn’t answered my question, even if it was vaguely rhetorical because I was lost in thought about my wife.
It wasn’t until I’d stubbed out my cigar and looked at him that I found him gazing with a frown at the dance floor, something akin to longing in his eyes.
My gaze followed his to where Hannah had Clara on her hip and was spinning her around in a circle, both of them laughing.
I hadn’t missed the way my brother had looked at the nanny when he thought no one was watching. To the untrained eye, it would look like distaste, but I knew my brother a little bit better than that.
“She’s pretty,” I observed.
Beau jolted, realizing I was looking in the same direction. “It’s your fucking wedding day,” he chastised harshly.
I chuckled. “And dare I point out that your nanny is pretty, nice, and wonderful with your daughter?”
He gave me the full brunt of his fury. “And in her fucking twenties.”
I shrugged. “She’s legal. And seems older than that.”
It was true. Although Hannah was unmistakably young, she held herself and spoke better than a lot of adults I knew. And she had something in her eyes that hinted at a harder life than her face betrayed.
“Young enough to be my daughter,” Beau muttered, more to himself than me.
“Not by a long shot, brother.” I didn’t chuckle out loud that time. I knew my brother was doing everything he could to ensure that something he wanted was out of reach, and as much as I wanted to help him attain happiness, it was my wedding day.
“Go and ask her to dance.” I slapped him on the shoulder.
He flashed me another glower as if I’d suggested he bend her over in the middle of the dance floor. I held up my hands. “Or don’t. Stay up here and be a miserable bastard. I’m going to get my wife. Because I’m not a miserable bastard.” I winked at him then went looking for her.
Calliope was leaning against the bar, sipping a martini.
I came up behind her, wrapping my arms around her. She sank into me. I closed my eyes, reveling in her warmth and the gentle rise and fall of her breath telling me she was breathing. It calmed my heartbeat.
I still wasn’t free of the images of her lifeless on that dock. I didn’t think I would ever be.
Calliope put down her glass and leaned back against my shoulder, exposing the pale column of her throat and the dip of her dress leading to the exquisite breasts I was planning on burying my head in between in a handful of minutes.
“I know I paid a lot for the party, and it is excellent, but I’m ready to get back to the hotel room and consummate this marriage. How about you?” she purred.
My palm settled against her stomach, pressing her silk clad ass against my hard cock.
“How’s that for an answer, wife?” I murmured against her ear.
She turned in my arms, tipping her head upward, gifting me with a sly smile. “Answer enough for me, husband.”
She rose up to kiss me. And I did my job of lifting her over my shoulder and carrying her out of the party to hoots and hollers from our respective families.
Best day of my life.
And I knew there were many more to come.
BEAU
I sipped my whiskey.
I knew I’d had one too many.
But I needed the radiating sting of it, something to hold on to, something to distract me from her. In that fucking dress, skimming over every one of her delicate curves.
What the fuck did she think, dressing like that? It was a wedding.
I didn’t miss the men, too fucking old for her—my age, which was too fucking old—feasting on her with their eyes. The waiters, closer in age, ogling her ass. I wanted to pummel all of them for daring to look at what was mine.
But she wasn’t mine.
I tipped the last of the whiskey down my throat.
Not mine.
My daughter’s nanny. Years younger. Too good for me. That’s what she was.
Never mine.
Yet when her head tipped up and she directed her eyes to where I was sitting, our eyes locked and my cock twitched.
Mine , something deep inside me growled.
She smiled, hesitantly, softly, seeming to be uneasy as she often was around me. Everything about her was delicate, soft. More than anything, I wanted to calm her, make her feel relaxed around me.
I scowled at her, pushing my chair back so hard it tumbled to the ground before I stalked away.
I’d fire her.
Tomorrow.