Epilogue
Six months later
The patent boots refused to fit into the small space I’d allocated them to on the top shelf. “Jack, I need to borrow some of your space.”
He poked his head around the door. “At this point, I don’t even know why you’re asking. My clothes are going to end up in the basement.”
I poked my tongue out and shoved his trainers onto the shelf below. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve left you the hall closet.”
When Mr. Anderson’s lawyer had read his will two days after the funeral, it had named me the sole beneficiary of his estate. All twenty-two million dollars of it. I’d tumbled off the lawyer’s blue studded chair and disrupted a stack of folders.
“What the fuck do I do with it?” I’d asked him, incredulous.
“We can talk you through various different options,” the white-haired gentleman with the monopoly moustache had replied, ignoring my cursing. “However, Mr. Anderson did list a suggestion for how the money should be spent.”
I’d laughed. “It’s a rabbit charity or something, isn’t it? He had a fucked-up sense of humor.”
That curse word had elicited a scowl. “It states, ‘Scarlett Munroe, being the receiver of my estate, should use the proceeds to purchase her dream home: a brownstone on the West Side that if I’m forced to hear about one more time, I’d fake a heart attack. If you’re reading this, I’m dead, so I guess it got me for real. Take the money and enjoy your life, Tiny. Love, Gerry.’”
At the word “Tiny,” I’d crumpled into a little ball. He’d given me the ironic nickname because the first time we’d met, I’d been wearing six-inch heels and towered over him like a skyscraper.
After leaving the lawyer’s office, I’d spent a week dithering back and forth, talking to Hailey, Jack, and Viv, both individually and together, until I’d decided how to honor a gift of this magnitude.
Using the proceeds from Mr. Anderson’s estate, I’d bought the brownstone where Jack and I had first met. Despite tons of showings, it had sat on the market since that day with zero offers. “Because it’s overpriced,” I’d preached in bed one night, and he’d slapped me on the ass.
When I’d put in the offer, the seller had bitten my hand off, and ten days later, I’d become the owner of something I’d been told I could never have. A home no one could take me from. Jack had sublet his apartment and agreed to move in with me on the condition he covered all the bills.
Slotting the key into the lock and turning it had marked the single proudest moment of my life. But standing in the empty living room, a tiny trickle of doubt had set in. Jack had noticed it right away and dropped a kiss on the top of my head.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You’re thinking you didn’t earn it because you used Mr. Anderson’s money, but with The Crystal commission, you would still have done it.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” I’d nuzzled into his chest, picking out paint samples in my head so I could quickly cover the disgusting brown walls.
“The old guy gave you a hell of a gift, and he wanted you to have it. Put it this way: Now you can use the money for something else, maybe help some kid like you.”
I’d squeezed him around the waist. “You’re a nice guy.”
He’d squeezed me back. “You can thank my mom for that. Patricia knows her stuff.”
“I’ll tell her that next month,” I promised.
His mom had decided to stay where they were to keep his niece in the same school with her friends, so, using some of his commission money, Jack had bought them a bigger house and furnished it from top to bottom. Next, he’d opened a college fund for his niece and made her the beneficiary of his estate, knowing how quick life could change.
We travelled down once a month for a visit, which had been awkward as hell to start with, but I’d graduated from Scarlett to “Auntie Scarlett” by the fourth one. I’d painted a spare bedroom turquoise, Francesca’s favorite color, for when they came to visit us.
My shoe reorganization was interrupted by my cell ringing to the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”
“Viv, what’s up? And also, stop changing my ringtone.”
“Where are you?” she asked with the sound of honking horns and garbage trucks in the background. “The Milling open house is in twenty minutes. Will I get you inside?”
I inhaled Jack’s aftershave on a hanging shirt. “I’m taking the day off.”
“Is this a Taken situation? Has someone kidnapped you?” A cab honked, and I could picture her flipping the driver off.
“No, I’m doing what you always told me to. Delegating. You’ve got your license now. You can preview it for me and let me know if it will be a good fit for the Partridges.”
“You sure?”
I wiped my nose and straightened Jack’s hangers. “Hey, if you couldn’t handle it, you wouldn’t work at the best real estate agency in the city.”
“I hear the boss is a crazzzyyy bitch.”
“They would be right.”
After she’d been physically ejected from the office, Clarissa had gone into hiding. Rumor had it, her family had got her a job at a firm in Texas where she hated the dust and begged daily to come home and return to the fold. They’d refused and labelled her a disgrace, according to Aria, who’d read out the pitiful email she’d received from Clarissa before marking it as junk.
“So you’re taking the day off?” Viv muttered a thank you to someone on her end.
“I am,” I said. “Hailey, Mike, and my nephews are coming for dinner.” A tradition I’d started six months ago and stuck to religiously, no matter what event or meeting I had to move. Life had given me a hard fucking shake this year, and I would be an idiot not to learn from it. The people I loved deserved all of me, not a tiny sliver here and there when I had a spare minute.
“Where’s my invite?” Viv pouted through the phone.
“Take Jamie out for sushi and charge it to the company.”
Despite the drama of how they’d started, Viv and Jamie were working out. She’d met Connor, who loved that she knew all about baseball, and Viv loved that she no longer needed to go to baseball games. With her recent bump in salary, she’d also managed to move her dad to a nicer facility closer to home. A huge burden lifted from her petite shoulders.
“Munroe Anderson bringing in the big bucks already?” she tittered.
“It will be,” I confirmed, hanging up a jacket that had slipped from the hanger.
Given how everything had played out that day, I’d turned down Lacey’s offer to reinstate me as managing partner. I’d given her all I could, and now I needed to go out on my own.
“No hard feelings,” I’d told her with a brisk handshake.
“None,” she’d agreed. “Good luck.”
The commission from The Crystal would allow me to build something that would be all mine from the ground up, and David Steel had kept his word about giving me his future business.
“We were all a start-up once,” he’d imparted when I’d explained I’d be leaving The Lacey Group. “I like you, kid. You’ve got spirit, so I’m sticking with you and your boyfriend. Agents are fucking nuts. I told you.”
The name Munroe Anderson had seemed a fitting tribute to the man who’d kicked it all off. Ten percent of our profit went straight to the Boys and Girls Club of America. Viv had managed to track down the local Girl Scout leader from the lobby, and I’d donated ten thousand dollars for their bus, plus committed to paying the rent on their clubhouse for the next year. Viv had also promised them my presence every three months to give talks on business. “You’re coaching the future generation,” she’d said, giggling when I’d chased her down the street after the meeting.
A pounding at the front door interrupted my pointers to Viv on what to look for in the bathrooms.
“I gotta go,” I told her. “Have a good night. See you tomorrow.”
Sliding down the banister felt even better than when I’d imagined it as a kid. It was my banister that I could fall off anytime I wanted.
Jack, my sister, and her family waved through the outer glass door as I ran toward them. My nephews’ faces were pressed against the glass, jostling the mountain of pizza boxes in Jack’s hands. Note to self: Clean the glass when they—no, life’s too short. Leave it. My brother-in-law, Mike, struggled to keep two brown bags of snacks in his arms, while Hailey held a bottle of wine and ignored the chaos.
“I forgot my key,” Jack shouted through the glass. A common habit I’d learned, but it didn’t matter. I’d found the man I would never walk away from, and with a dramatic flourish, I opened the door to let him in.
The End