Epilogue
I love you.
New phone, who dis?
I love you, too.
Even though you forgot to pick up tampons for me.
I went back to the store! You’re the only one I would do that for.
I know
“Didi! You won’t believe what your husband has done.”
I followed Samira off the elevator and through my apartment.
She made a beeline for the kitchen where Naina was singing out loud—another 90s boy band—but there was no music this time.
When Sami and I came through into the kitchen, Naina removed her wireless ear phones.
“All good?” Her eyes bounced between us.
I waved my hand at Samira as I walked around the counter to give my wife a quick kiss.
“Kash got me a bodyguard,” Samira said in disgust. “A bodyguard! For school!”
Naina sighed.
The two of us already had this argument at length over the last week.
Naina was fine with having security at the Windfield and at the house because that’s where we lived most of the time.
If she needed to go anywhere, she had someone to drive her. She just wasn’t convinced Samira needed to have security on campus.
“Trust me, I’ve had this argument with him over and over again,” Naina said.
“What nineteen-year-old has a bodyguard?” Samira demanded.
“One whose family is important and prominent,” I said. “Your sister is a Sutherland which makes you a Sutherland by marriage, kiddo. Jenkins is there to make sure you’re safe. Nothing more.”
Samira let out a frustrated groan, turning around, and walking away. She was returning to UC Berkley in two days, and we were staying in San Francisco during the transition.
Things were getting a little crazy.
There were little trinkets around the apartment, throws and scented candles, books that I hadn’t bought, and would never read.
Random items showed up every few days.
I used this apartment as a place to live, same with the house in Carmel.
A placed I needed to existence when I wasn’t at the office. Naina had filled it with warmth and turned it into a home.
I wrapped my arms around her from the back, resting my chin on her shoulder.
Naina patted her arm.
“Sami will get used to having security,” she comforted.
Speaking of, Samira came bounding down, her purse thrown over her shoulder.
“I’m going to see Ayana!”
“Take Jenkins!” I called after her.
“Ow, my ear, babe.” Naina laughed, rubbing her ear.
“Sorry, but your sister just doesn’t listen.”
Naina stirred the sauce in the pan.
“Hey, if I can accept your family, you can accept mine.”
I hummed, slipping a hand under her shirt and up to cup a tit through her bra, squeezing it and plucking at her nipple with my thumb and forefinger as I sucked on the curve of her neck.
Naina moaned softly, twisting in my arms.
“Kash, I have to cook dinner.”
“We can order out. Better yet, have Marissa make it. You should do nothing but relax, and live a life of leisure.”
Naina turned off the stove and turned to face me, throwing her arms over my shoulders.
“I’m flattered you think I can sit still for that long,” she said. “Did you notice?”
“Notice what?”
“The throw. I finished it!”
Naina waved one hand over towards the living room, where a throw in the lightest shade of blue was resting on the back of the leather couch.
Naina and Kat had decided to take up crochet last month. I was surprised she finished this quickly.
“The pattern was really easy and we’re picking something a little fancier next time,” Naina said.
I took her to the couch, sitting down and pulling her onto my lap. Grabbing the throw off the back, I wrapped it around us.
The last couple of months had been busy.
I was dealing with the aftermath of removing my father as the head of the family and CEO of SFV.
The Ford-Vanderbilts had not taken the transition easily.
And Naina had been busy dealing with the renovations at the Windfield, which wrapped up just last week.
They were already booked all the way through the next year and a half.
It didn’t leave much time for us to just be.
“I was thinking, do you want to come work for SFV?” I asked, brushing back her hair.
Naina looked taken aback. “As a lawyer?”
“Yes,” I laughed.
“Me, work for SFV as a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“The woman who cost you millions in a lawsuit?”
“But that’s the best part. It’ll be our little secret. And I’m hoping when I get everything under control, there won’t be any more lawsuits.”
Naina chewed on her lip, looking unsure.
“I don’t know. I mean, I would love to practice again but I didn’t practice long enough to be a lawyer for SFV. Don’t you have a firm on retainer?”
“I do. But I trust you more than I can trust anyone else.”
Naina’s eyes softened.
“How about this? You can start small, take the work load you need, and the bigger things can be handled by our lawyers until you’re ready to create and head the legal department.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this for me.”
“Baby, you should know by now everything I do for you is for entirely selfish reasons. If you work for SFV, we can go to work together, and I can keep you close to me.”
“You should really talk to someone about your obsession with me,” she said.
“I do, I talk to you. I don’t need anyone else.”
“What about your therapist? Shouldn’t you be talking to him about it as well?”
Naina and I decided a month ago that we both needed to see a therapist. There was a lot of trauma in our pasts that neither wanted to carry into our relationship.
“I love my wife. What’s the big deal? He already knows about you.”
Naina’s eyes glowed. “You talk about me in therapy?”
“You’re the love of my life. Of course, I talk about you in therapy.”
“Do you complain about the time I didn’t answer your message because I was in the shower?” Naina pursed her lips.
“I waited for twenty minutes before barging in. I apologized.”
My desperation for my wife seemed to be growing every day. I was worried I was going to scare her off one day, but Naina seemed to love every second of it.
I turned, pushing her flat on the couch as I rested above her, her legs around my waist. I ground my cock against her and she arched her back, releasing a soft moan.
“Wait, I haven’t even shown you what else I bought for the apartment.”
As if it mattered. I could come back to a whole new apartment and it wouldn’t matter. Wherever Naina was, that was my home.
I pushed up onto my elbows, experiencing that same gravitational pull I did every time I looked her.
She was the only thing keeping me steady.
“I love you,” I said.
Naina smiled widely. “I love you, too. But that is not going to get you out of finalizing the wedding guest list.”
I groaned, letting my head fall against her shoulder.
Once her grandmother learned of our wedding, she insisted that we have a wedding according to traditional Hindu customs.
Naina was fine with a small wedding. Then my mother had the brilliant idea that there should be a grand wedding because I was her only son, and she missed my first one.
Now, we were having two weddings, just like Naina’s parents had. A Catholic one to satisfy my mother, and a Hindu one to satisfy her grandmother.
“Why did you agree to this?”
“Me?!” Naina was incredulous. “You’re the one who researched Hindu wedding customs and insisted on having one because you found out that the rituals bind the couple together for seven lifetimes.”
Oh yes, now I remembered. I leaned up to look at her.
“You’re telling me you don’t want to be with me for seven lifetimes?”
Naina shifted beneath me, her mouth tilting up into a devastating smile.
“Baby, just try getting rid of me.”
I swooped down to kiss her. Maybe people would say that we met by luck and they would be wrong.
What Naina and I had wasn’t luck.
It was desperation and hunger, tenderness and safety.
A love so great it surrounded us every day, keeping us tethered to each other, right where we always wanted to be.