Epilogue
THREE WEEKS LATER
“Mrs. Pit Stop!”
The nickname makes my cheeks warm even before I look up from the espresso machine I’ve been cleaning for the third time this morning.
Jolie stands at the counter with that familiar grin, her worn copy of Wuthering Heights tucked under one arm like always, the dust jacket faded to the color of old parchment.
“Stop calling me that,” I say, but my smile gives me away.
How can I not smile? I’m standing in the café I helped design—warm cedar walls that still smell like fresh-cut wood, industrial espresso machine that hums like a living thing, windows overlooking the track where children’s laughter echoes between engine roars.
The apron I wear says “Pit Stop Coffee” in racing-stripe letters across my chest, and the ring on my left hand catches the Wyoming morning in fractured rainbows.
Twenty-four days married.
I still wake up reaching for him, needing to confirm he’s real.
“Can’t stop, won’t stop,” Jolie says, leaning against the counter the way she always does when she’s about to say something that will make me want to hide in the walk-in cooler.
“It’s too perfect. Plus, you’re literally running a pit stop.
Santino made you a café attached to a racing school.
If that’s not romance novel territory, I don’t know what is. ”
“It’s just coffee—”
“Semantics.” Jolie glances at her phone, and her dark eyes go wide in a way that makes her look younger than twenty-three. “Oh! I have to go. Today’s my first day.”
“First day of what?”
“The one-day racing experience course.” She’s already backing toward the door, clutching her book against her chest like a shield. “I signed up weeks ago. Remember? I told you at Bible study?”
Oh, right.
I did forget about that...but I have no time to wish he luck since she’s already out of the door.
I turn back to the espresso machine.
The café is empty. Most parents drop their children at the school and disappear for hours—skiing at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort or shopping in town or whatever wealthy people do with their free time.
I have the whole space to myself, which means I can finally tackle that inventory spreadsheet that makes me want to cry every time I open it.
The sound of the lock clicking makes me freeze.
I turn.
Santino stands at the door, one hand on the deadbolt, the other flipping the sign from OPEN to CLOSED with the kind of deliberate precision he brings to everything.
He wears dark jeans that fit him in ways that should probably be illegal and a charcoal sweater that makes his shoulders look even broader than they are, and when his eyes find mine across the café, something in my chest does that flutter-crash thing it always does.
Like my heart can’t decide whether to race toward him or protect itself.
“Why are we closing early?” My voice comes out softer than I mean it to.
He crosses the café without answering, his footsteps deliberate on the polished concrete floor, and I find myself counting them automatically.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven steps from the door to the counter, seven steps that feel like forever and not long enough, and then he’s right there, close enough that I can smell the coffee on his breath and the faint cedar scent of the racing school clinging to his clothes.
“Because,” he says, his accent turning the word into something dark and promising, “I have been counting.”
“Counting what?”
His lips curve. Not quite a smile. Something more dangerous. “Thirty-six.”
I blink. “Thirty-six...what?” I’m trying to do the math, my mind scrambling through dates. We’ve been married twenty-four days, which means he proposed—
“Thirty-six,” he says again, and this time there’s mockery in his tone, something teasing and possessive and entirely too smug for ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning.
“I don’t understand what you’re—”
“If you have built up enough stamina,” he murmurs, stepping closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body, “we can make it thirty-seven within an hour.”
My face goes red.
Oh.
Oh.
Understanding crashes through me like cold water, except the opposite of cold, more like fire, more like every nerve ending in my body suddenly waking up and paying attention.
A delicious little thrill runs down my spine even as embarrassment floods my cheeks, making me want to cover my face with my hands, except I can’t move because he’s looking at me like that—like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me and is enjoying every second of my mortification.
My husband is counting.
Not days or steps or the ceiling tiles I used to obsess over.
He’s counting the number of times he’s made me come apart in his arms.
“Santino—”
But he’s already reaching for me, his hands spanning my waist with that confidence that still makes me dizzy, lifting me like I weigh nothing, and then I’m on the counter with my legs dangling and my heart hammering against my ribs and my face burning hot enough to brew espresso.
My husband is just so—
The thought cuts off when he kisses me.
His mouth captures mine with the kind of possession that has nothing to do with asking and everything to do with claiming, his hands framing my face, thumbs pressing against my jaw in a way that makes me open for him, makes me surrender before I’ve even thought about fighting.
The kiss tastes like morning coffee and something darker, something that makes heat pool low in my belly and my thighs press together instinctively.
I try to protest when he pulls back just enough to breathe against my mouth. “Santino, wait.” The words come out breathless, desperate. “Today might not be a school day, but what if someone wanted to—”
His mouth moves to my throat.
Ooooh no.
Because Santino is kissing parts of my body that he alone has ever seen and touched, his lips trailing down the side of my neck while his hands—oh dear—his hands are reaching for the hem of my dress, fingers skimming up my thighs in a way that makes me forget how words work.
I try to think. Try to remember why this is a bad idea. Something about the café. Something about being visible through the windows. Something about—
His thumb brushes against the inside of my thigh, and thinking becomes impossible.
I can no longer form coherent thoughts.
Can no longer do anything but feel—the warmth of his mouth against my pulse point, the strength of his hands spreading my thighs wider, the counter solid beneath me, the morning air cool against my heated skin, and oh, oh, the way he’s touching me now, like he has every right to my body, like I’m his to claim in broad daylight in a café we built together.
And maybe I am.
Maybe I’ve been his since day thirty-six in that corner booth, when I first looked up and saw him and forgot the specials.
“Thirty-six,” he murmurs against my skin, and I feel him smile. “But I think we can do better.”
JOLIE MADE IT TO THE track with three minutes to spare, her heart doing something complicated in her chest that had nothing to do with the brisk walk across the property.
The outdoor course stretched before her like something from a dream—smooth asphalt painted with bright racing lines, curves that looked gentle from a distance but would probably feel terrifying at speed, safety barriers that gleamed in the late morning sun.
Other participants were already gathered near the starting point, mostly men in expensive athletic wear, laughing and joking with the easy confidence of people who’d never questioned whether they belonged somewhere.
Her instructor was supposed to meet her here.
But she didn’t see anyone who looked particularly instructor-like.
Just a man standing with his back to her, tall and unnaturally still, studying something on his phone with the kind of focus that made the air around him feel different. Heavier. Like he carried his own gravity.
Something about him felt familiar.
Not familiar like she’d met him before. Familiar like she’d studied him. Like she’d memorized the line of his shoulders and the way he held himself—braced for impact even when standing perfectly still, like someone who’d learned a long time ago that relaxation was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
Jolie’s breath caught.
No.
It couldn’t be—
He must have heard her footsteps, because he turned.
And Jolie’s jaw dropped.
The man standing in front of her was agonizingly beautiful.
Not beautiful in the way movie stars were beautiful, all symmetrical features and professional grooming.
Beautiful in the way fallen angels were beautiful—sharp cheekbones that could cut glass, dark hair that looked like he’d been running his hands through it in frustration, eyes the color of winter storms over Paris.
A real-life Heathcliff pulled straight from the moors and given breath and bone and devastating, dangerous reality.
Séraphin Fureur.
The book slipped from her hands.
She lunged for it, panic making her clumsy because he was also bending down at the same time, albeit with more grace.
“No, it’s fine, I’ve got it—”
Unfortunately...he was able to beat her to it, his fingers closing around the spine at the exact moment the dust jacket—the Wuthering Heights dust jacket she’d been using as camouflage for three years—slipped off.
Time stopped.
The real book lay in his hand.
And on the cover, staring back at them both in black and white newsprint that had been handled so many times the edges were soft, was his face.
SéRAPHIN FUREUR: ANGEL OR KILLER?
The Murder Trial That Shocked Paris
The End