Epilogue - Lily #2
“Lily’s precious cargo,” Declan tells him. “I don’t need a drink, especially if it means making sure she’s extra safe.”
Julie and I both sigh, but Dad pretends to heave over the side of his chair. Julie swats at him, and he dodges away from her. He looks at me, eyes bright as he asks, “So, Declan’s got good news! Has he told you yet?”
“What?” My stare bounces between them, Declan’s expression a mixture of amused and chagrined, Dad’s mischievous. “What’s going on? What news?”
“Grant,” Declan says warningly, but the twinkle in Dad’s eyes doesn’t fade.
“Oh, don’t be shy now, Dec.” His grin is so wide, it’s splitting his face. “Declan got a promotion!”
“He did?” I swing back to Declan. “You did? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Yep,” Dad cuts in before Declan can say anything. “He’s now a paid intern.”
There’s a disbelieving silence, but it’s broken when Julie giggles, clearly amused by my dumbstruck expression as I gape at Dad.
“Paid intern…? He’s been working six months unpaid. As in, you haven’t been paying him? Anything? For over six months?” Finally, I turn to face Declan head on, glaring at him. “He hasn’t been paying you?
“I think she’s stuck in a loop,” Julie mutters to my father.
“Like watching Groundhog Day up close,” Dad agrees. “Anyway, after what he did, he’s lucky he even got a job. But there is a reason for the promotion.”
Declan drops his head back, staring at the ceiling. “I thought we weren’t doing this.”
“I lied,” Dad says cheerfully, turning back to me. “Julie and I have decided to go traveling.”
Unsure about the connection between the two things, I just smile. “That’s awesome. What brought that on?”
“Well, Julie’s never been out of the country, and it's been years since I traveled for anything but work. We’ll be gone for about three months to start off with, and then see what we want to do from there.”
“Three months.” I lift my brows. “That’s a long time to leave Hi-Tech. Well, longer than you’ve ever left it before.”
Declan clears his throat and I glance at him, but Dad pulls my attention back when he says, “I’ve got someone lined up to be interim CEO, just until I get back.
” He cocks his head to the side, that secretive smile still playing on his lips.
“Although Julie and I are talking about me stepping away permanently.”
Suspicious now, I don’t answer, just staring at him until he giggles and looks away. Giggles .
Julie huffs. “Stop drawing it out, and just tell her.”
He looks put-out at his fun being over, but announces, “Declan’s graciously agreed to accept the position, but of course, he’ll stay on the same wages that he’s on now.”
There’s a huff of amusement next to me. “Couldn’t leave that detail out, could you?”
Dad pastes on an innocent expression. “Not sure what you mean,” he says. “I’m just being forthright and honest.”
“Let me see if I got this right…” I say slowly.
“Groundhog Day,” Dad mutters, but buttons his lip when I shoot him a glare.
“You’ve promoted Declan to a paid intern, from unpaid, and his duties now include acting as interim CEO while you and Julie travel the world.” A pause. “For three months.”
Dad shoots a finger gun at me. “Got it! Great plan, hey?”
Declan grabs my hand, tangling our fingers together, and I look at him, finding him smiling. “This is a good thing, baby,” he murmurs.
“Is it?” I ask, unsure.
“Yes.” He presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth, eyes happy. “Grant gets to step away from the company, and I get to continue to prove myself, using everything he’s spent the last half a year teaching me.”
“As an intern,” I add in, unable to help myself.
“Hey, I’m the best intern that Hi-Tech has ever seen. ”
From his chair, Dad scoffs rudely, “Well, I don’t know if I’d say that.”
Declan
Every day that we spend together is filled with a series of victories, some big, more small, showing us that we’re making progress to a new normal. It’s in the tiny details, like her fingers brushing against mine or the way she looks at me and just smiles, like I make her day just by being there.
It was the way she stopped pulling away when I would take her hand, letting me tangle our fingers tightly as we strolled through a Sunday market. Or how she let me carry her bag of new books, her giggle sweet and high when I hunched over, acting like the weight of them made my knees buckle.
As we get into the car, Lily’s thrown by Grant’s announcements, but she holds her silence until we’ve pulled away from the house, her expression contemplative.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks quietly, and I reach out to grip her thigh.
“I should’ve,” I admit. “I promised no more secrets, but I was worried about getting in the middle of you and Grant. I didn’t want you to go after him for me, especially when it didn’t matter.”
“Didn’t matter?” she squawks. “You’ve basically been a glorified slave for him!”
I smirk at her dramatics. “I wouldn’t go that far. This was something that needed to happen, Lily. It went a long way to repairing my relationship with Grant.” I ease the car to a stop at a red light, sliding her a look. “He needed to learn to trust me again, just as much as you did.”
“But now you’ll effectively be the CEO, with all the responsibilities that come with that. You don’t think your pay should reflect that?”
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter.” And I’m not lying, the monthly interest from my invested trust fund is more than enough to support my family and Lily. It’s why she never noticed my lack of income, even after I moved in with her.
She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “You’re Declan Masters. Of course you’d say the money doesn’t matter.”
I eye her again, but the light goes green, so I face forward, pressing my foot down on the accelerator. “It doesn’t matter,” I insist, my tone turning cheeky. “I have a sugar momma at home to keep me fed and watered.”
There’s a moment of silence before she’s cackling, the sound bright and loud between us. “I can’t believe you just called me your sugar momma.”
“What?” I ask silkily. “Would you prefer I call you something else?” I slide my hand up her thigh, my pinky running dangerously close to the apex of her legs. She snaps her thighs closed around me, trapping my hand.
She doesn’t release my hand and I don’t fight her on it, my hand warm where it’s trapped between her denim-covered legs. The silence that falls on us is quiet, thoughtful.
About ten minutes later, she blinks, sitting straight and looking out the window. “This isn’t the way home.”
My heart thumps nervously, even as I smile.
Home . I love how the word sounds on her lips, especially when I know she’s not talking about a mausoleum pretending to be a house, or a clinically cold condo with no personality.
She’s talking about the space she owns, full of laughter and warmth.
It’s the place that she let me into, a home filled with memories that we add to each day.
It’s something I’ve never had before. Not until her.
Before our wedding, I didn’t truly understand everything she was giving me, but I knew now, and I wasn’t giving it up for anything.
“Declan?” she asks again, but I’m already pulling into the parking lot, edging the car into a space that faces out over the lake.
I kill the ignition, the lights fading and leaving us in darkness.
There’re no clouds tonight, and the moon shines brightly, its reflection rippling over the calm surface.
The car is quiet, the silence broken only by our breathing .
“Declan,” she whispers out one last time, turning to face me, her expression confused. “What’s going on? Why’re we here?”
Hands sweating, I fumble with my seatbelt, and then hers. “Let’s go for a walk.” She eyes me curiously but doesn’t push, following me out of the car and towards the gazebo. It’s not hard to find, the fairy lights lighting up the dark evening, and I reach out, snagging her hand in mine.
“Remember our first date?” I look at her just as she nods, eyes wide. “It was so easy that night, but then again, everything was always easier with you. There was no pressure or expectation. You just wanted me.”
“I still do,” she whispers.
I smile. “When we ended up here, it was the perfect end to a perfect night.” I look out over the lake. “It was one of the best nights of my life,” I confess in a whisper. “And then we came back here on another day, so you could tell me to go fuck myself.”
She huffs quietly and I look back at her, finding her eyes gleaming with sad amusement. “I did not tell you to go fuck yourself.”
My smile tells her it’s okay, even as I lift a shoulder casually. “It translated.”
She laughs softly, but it fades, her keen stare locking on my face. “Why’re we here, Dec?”
“Our first date, I knew. It might’ve been the way you slurped back spaghetti like an absolute queen, or the way the conversation just flowed between us.
It might have just been your smile, and the way your eyes shone so brightly, I couldn’t see anything else.
But I knew you were it for me.” I swallow thickly, my throat bobbing, sweat gathering at my hairline.
“That night, I also knew I was making a mistake, letting Donald push me into a relationship out of some misguided sense of revenge.” My chuckle is weak and self-recriminating.
“I was arrogant, believing I could beat him at his own game and never lose anything. But then, we came back here, and I lost everything .”
Her eyes glimmer wetly, and I moisten my lips, nervously. “I made so many mistakes with you, Lily, but you didn’t make any with me. I want you to know that.”
She sniffles, her mouth pressed into a bemused frown. “I don’t understand.”
I turn and face her fully, tugging her hands into mine and brushing my thumbs over her knuckles.
“You pushed me into fixing what I’d broken, proving that my love for you surpassed Donald’s control of me and the world around me.
You made me better, even without meaning to.
” I bite back my emotions, even as my heart thumps hard in my chest. “The pain we went through…it wasn’t for nothing.
I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you that, making sure you never regret letting me back in. ”
I let go of one of her hands and pull the small box out of my pocket, sinking down to one knee. She watches me, eyes already gleaming with tears. When I don’t move fast enough, she waves her hand at me in a get on with it motion, making me chuckle.
“Lily,” I start solemnly, “we’ve done it before.
We got married with lies swirling between us, tainting what we were and our love.
I hate that I did that to you, ruining a memory that we should have spent years cherishing.
” I lower my lashes, my eyes burning. “I would take it back if I could, but looking at us now… Lily, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Not like we were before, but how we are now. No secrets, no pretenses, no lies. You’re the love of my life, my best friend?—”
“Can’t wait to tell Carter,” she mumbles, ignoring the chiding look I send her.
“But I also want to call you my wife.”
Her lashes flutter rapidly as she blinks, but a tear still escapes, anyway. “You do,” she says weakly. “You call me that all the time.”
I grin, because she’s not wrong. “But I want it to be real,” I whisper. “I want to call you my wife and know it’s real. I want to claim you in front of the world, knowing that you hold every thought in my head and every secret in my heart.”
I flick open the jewelry box and she looks down, gasping at the sight of the delicate silver band, sitting on a cushion of velvet. It has intricately woven vines dancing around the edges and in the center, a brilliant diamond gleams, surrounded by a cluster of soft sapphires.
“That’s not…” she breathes out. “That’s not my ring.” Her eyes flash up to my neck, and I press a hand against the rings, the metal warm against my chest.
“These are mine,” I tell her, the hurt of our past mingling with hope for our future.
“They’re a reminder of what we went through, our journey.
They ground me, keeping me focused on making sure I never make the same mistakes.
This—” I pull the ring out of the box, holding it up to her in offering.
“This is our fresh start. A new promise of forever, full of love, honesty and laughter.” With a crooked smile, I ask softly, “Marry me? One more time should do it.”
Her chin starts quivering as she holds out her left hand, silently telling me to slide the ring onto her finger, the sapphires sparkling as bright as her eyes.
She swallows thickly, her chin down as she stares at the ring. But then she lunges across the console, wrapping her arms around my neck in a stranglehold.
“Yes!” she cries out, and my own eyes sting with emotion as I wrap my arms around her, our chests pressed together. “Yes, I’ll do it again with you, Dec. One last time.”
I hug her back, quick and tight, and then pull away, pressing both my hands to her cheeks and slanting my lips over hers in a fierce kiss, overwhelmed with every single feeling surging through my chest—relief, desire, love, hope.
She clings back to me, her lips soft and responsive under mine, as the kiss slowly eases.
Finally, I whisper against her lips, “You’re my always.”
The words hang in the air between us, heavy with promise and hope, and she smiles, even as more tears stream down her cheeks. I wipe them away with my thumbs, searching her eyes, desperate to reassure myself that this is real, it’s happening, and she’s mine.
And then she whispers her promise, the words settling into my bones the way nothing else could. “And you’re my forever.”