Epilogue
The men—Luca Bernardi, Max Diatras, Prince Rylan Al-Sintra, Crown Prince Zayn Al-Sintra, and Salvatore Romeo, head of the Chicago family—sat at a long table nursing their drinks with the air of men who had seen each other at their worst, had carried each other through the wild years of youth, and had lived to tell the tales.
Badly.
“Do you remember that summer in Italy?” Max asked, swirling his whiskey lazily. “The time Luca swore he could outdrink a local fisherman and ended up singing opera in the middle of the street?”
Luca scoffed, setting his glass down with a deliberate clink. “First of all, it was not opera—it was a dramatic retelling of my heartbreak at losing a poker game.”
Ava chuckled from beside him. “You lost a poker game?” she asked, truly astonished.
Luca pointed at her. “You don’t understand how much that fisherman can drink,” he grumbled, lacing his fingers through hers.
Prince Zayn smirked. “Unlike Max, who, if I recall correctly, spent the entire trip fighting off a tenacious countess.”
Max sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “She was like a pitbull!” he snarled, taking a sip of his scotch.
Prince Rylan rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair. “I warned you about her.”
Max shuddered. “Not emphatically enough.”
Lexie nudged him, arching a brow. “A countess?”
“You knew what you were getting into,” Max murmured, pressing a quick kiss to her temple. They looked to Dimitri and Giselle, both of them too wrapped up with each other to bother following the conversation.
The men chuckled as all eyes turned to the one among them who had yet to be caught by love’s web.
Salvatore Romano, a bastard with a black heart and colder eyes, leaned back in his chair, swirling the dark amber liquid in his glass. He was the quietest of the group, the one who observed more than he spoke, but when he did speak, every word carried weight.
“I seem to remember a time,” he drawled, his dark eyes sparkling with amusement, “when we all sat around a cheap apartment in college, swearing we would never fall in love.”
The laughter that followed was immediate.
“Ahh, the glorious stupidity of youth,” Prince Rylan sighed dramatically, shaking his head.
Luca smirked. “We were idiots.”
“Some of us still are,” Prince Zayn murmured, side-eyeing Sal.
Sal merely smiled, slow and knowing. “Maybe. Or maybe I was the only one smart enough to keep my vow.”
Dimitri raised a brow. “Still holding out?”
Sal’s smile didn’t waver, but there was something unreadable in his gaze, something coldly determined that made Giselle shiver slightly.
“Let’s just say,” Sal mused, taking a slow sip of his drink, “that love and I have a complicated history.”
A moment of silence passed, a flicker of something unspoken between the men.
It wasn’t just that Sal was single.
There was something else.
Something left unsaid.
Giselle, seated beside Natalie, caught Ava’s eye, who leaned in to whisper, “They all know what that means. But none of them ever say it out loud.”
Giselle filed that little mystery away for later.
Before anyone could pry further, Sal smoothly stood, lifting his glass.
“I have to say that I was stunned when I received the invitation to celebrate your engagement,” he said, tilting his head toward Dimitri and Giselle.
“But she’s lovely, my friend. I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but I’m happy that you’ve found someone to fill the void inside your black heart. ”
The candlelight flickered over his sharp features, the intensity in his dark eyes softening just a little as he looked between Dimitri and Giselle.
“To Dimitri and Giselle,” Sal announced. “We may joke about the past, about the fools we were when we thought we were immune to love. But we were wrong. Love—true love—has a way of finding us, whether we want it to or not.”
His gaze landed on Dimitri. “A man who once ruled his world with steel and fire, now ruled by something far greater.”
Then, to Giselle. “A woman who has spent her life giving to others, finally standing beside a man who will give her everything.”
Giselle swallowed hard, emotion tightening her throat.
Sal’s lips quirked at the edges, and then he raised his glass a little higher. “To love—the one vow we all broke.”
The men groaned in protest, glasses clinking loudly as the women laughed at their mates’ dramatics.
As the toast faded into conversations and teasing, Giselle felt warmth surrounding her—not just from Dimitri, who was watching her with that devastatingly intense look that made her knees feel weak, but from the women now within the circle.
She hadn’t known them for long, only a few days as they’d all arrived for this celebration.
But instantly, she’d been surrounded by these women who had enfolded her into their friendship.
Like she had always been a part of their world.
Ava looped her arm through Giselle’s and Ava grinned at her. “You’re officially one of us now.”
Lexie smirked. “There are no refunds.”
Natalie leaned in, her voice gentler. “From the stories I’ve heard, you’ve spent so much of your life taking care of everyone else. Let us take care of you now.”
Azlyn squeezed her hand. “Starting with making sure you have plenty of lemonade.”
Giselle laughed, feeling something light and unfamiliar settle in her chest.
She had never had this before.
This easy, warm camaraderie. Friendships that felt natural, as if they had been waiting for her all along.
She turned to Dimitri, her heart full, and found him watching her, the corner of his mouth tugging up.
“You okay, mia cara?” he murmured, his hand warm against her back.
She exhaled, nodding. “More than okay.”
For the first time in her life, she wasn’t standing on the outside looking in.
She belonged.
And it all started with him.
As the night continued, filled with laughter, stories of old misdeeds, and the promise of new beginnings, Giselle knew one thing for certain—
This was the life she was always meant to have.
And it was only just beginning.
A note from Elizabeth:
I love Giselle’s evolution from timidity to powerful, from being her family’s fix-it master, to a stronger version of herself.
This story was cathartic for me as well.
Every time I write a story about a woman finding her strength, it forces me to evaluate my life and I question if there are areas in which I need to be strong.
I hope that you found this transition as powerful while reveling in the love story as well.
There are so many more in this series, more steamy romances, more evolutions, more powerful scenes that make you want to sigh with happiness and hope. Before you dive into the next excerpt, would you mind leaving a quick review?