Epilogue II
Tor
Usually if I wake up before Cassie, she doesn’t get to sleep for much longer because I can only lie here for so long looking at her without touching her, but I decide to let her sleep today.
Surprisingly, I slept like shit last night, so in case she did too, I want her to get more rest.
I step carefully as I make my way to her side of the bed to turn off her phone alarm. I know she set one to make sure she has enough time to get ready for this lemonade stand thing, but she gave the other girls the recipe. I’m sure they’ll make more than we need.
Just in case, though, I grab my phone off charge and message the group chat, “Cassie’s tired. Your girls have the lemonade covered if she doesn’t make any?”
“Wore her out last night, huh?” Hex responds unhelpfully.
“Brynn made enough to fill Boston Harbor,” Killian assures me. “We’re good.”
“Did she say yes or do you have her handcuffed to the bed?” Silvan asks. “If you tell me in an hour that you guys can’t make it, I’m coming over.”
I crack a smile. “Mind your business,” I tell him. Then, “Of course she said yes.”
We all tend to go for the same kind of girl, so I figured theirs would have it covered, but I know Cassie. If there wasn’t enough lemonade and she didn’t bring any, she would feel terrible, so I had to make sure.
After I finish texting the guys, I tuck my phone away in the pocket of my sweats and slip out of the bedroom, careful not to disturb her.
I head to the kitchen for a cold bottle of water and frown slightly as my gaze hits the island—the very cluttered island.
When we went to bed last night, the island was clear except for the flowers and candle Cassie always has there, but now I see notebooks scattered, a binder with a stack of sheet protectors next to it, scissors, glue, a stack of bridal magazines, even gold glitter paper.
Well, now I see why I slept like shit. Cassie must have slipped out of the bedroom after I fell asleep.
As I look over the scattered items, though, I can’t help but smile when I realize what it’s all for.
She started working on her wedding binder.
I guess I can handle being a little tired today because she was too excited to sleep last night thinking about marrying me.
I’ll have to fill her in on some of the details.
Or, more realistically, I’ll probably let her think she’s deciding on them herself, but I already have the venue booked.
It’s a place I know she likes. I needed to book it to make sure we got it, but also because I needed a firm date so I could work on my wedding surprise for her.
I don’t expect it will be a problem. I always manage to get Cassie where I need her.
My gaze lingers on the notebook I recognize that is decidedly not part of the wedding binder. Her journal. She must have updated that, too.
I admit, I’m tempted to take a peek and see what she wrote about it, but I restrain myself. Cassie knows I track every move she makes without me, but I respect the privacy of her journal.
Well, this one.
I had to read the old journal, of course.
I wanted to read about all the ways she dreamed up to kill me, and my Cassie is a wonderful writer, so it was a real page-turner.
My favorite pages weren’t her murder fantasies, though.
While those filled most of the book, there was a small section of just a few pages where she described what I did to her that night from her own perspective and in vivid detail.
My blood heats as I remember some of those passages. I don’t want to wake Cassie, so I probably shouldn’t think about that right now.
Leaving her mess on the counter, I go to change into my workout clothes, then I go for a run to get my day started—and to work out some tension without bothering Cassie.
Tim and I used to run together just about every morning.
It started as part of our training routine for football, but we kept it going in the summers, even after graduation.
I don’t run as much without him. Too tempting to stay in bed with the girl we both wanted to fuck now that I get to whenever I want.
Besides, I can always work out with the guys later, after I’ve made my future wife come all over my cock to get both of our days started right.
I smile as I hit the last mile. Life’s pretty fucking good here, but it would be just as good anywhere else—as long as I have Cassie with me.
Tim doesn’t cross my mind very often anymore, but I guess it’s only natural that he would today.
I’m officially engaged, and I never imagined I’d get married and he wouldn’t be standing up there behind me when I took my vows.
Before I realized my sweet little wife had the capacity to put a bullet in his chest, I figured I’d rib him about being the one to get to spend the rest of my life with her.
Not that he would have wanted to. Tim always viewed Cassie as something disposable, and that reminder makes it easier not to concern myself with the fact that he’ll never get to do any of this with me.
Really, it’s Tim’s own fault that he’s dead.
He mishandled Cassie. She has a forgiving nature, but she also has self-respect.
If he had simply given her what she needed—what she deserved—I have little doubt she would have forgiven him.
All he had to do was tell one more lie, but Tim has always struggled with apologizing.
He took the blame for me, but he didn’t see it through.
He thought about the legal ramifications and the possibility of consequences to his reputation, of course, because that’s what he was raised to consider.
But he didn’t learn from Cassie the way I did.
He couldn’t bring himself to take real accountability for the person who was hurt in all this.
I would have committed. I would have apologized and made her believe I was sorry. I would still be alive—and I would still be fucking her every night and marrying her little ass, too. My ego isn’t as fragile as his was. I would have done what needed to be done.
But I accept my brother’s choices. With less competition, getting everything I ever wanted has proven much easier, so I guess he did me a bigger favor than he set out to.
Thanks, Tim. As you said so glibly about Cassie one night after the final verdict, your sacrifice was not in vain.
When I get back home, Cassie’s awake despite my interference with her alarm, standing at the counter with bags full of lemons and cartons of strawberries spread around her chopping board.
Removing my earbuds, I tell her, “You don’t have to do that. I checked with the guys. There’s plenty of lemonade.”
She glances at me over her shoulder—or she means to glance, but her gaze catches.
My gray workout shirt is sleeveless, and her gaze travels over my muscular arms, down my body, then back up to my face.
Her brown eyes are warm and inviting, and I’ve practiced enough restraint today, so I don’t stop myself from walking over and locking my arms around her.
“I’d ask how you slept, but I think I know the answer.”
She smiles, leaning back against me, and I kiss the side of her face. “I tried to fall asleep,” she tells me. “But my mind wouldn’t stop. I had all these ideas, and I was afraid if I waited until morning, they’d be gone.”
“You’ll have to show me later.”
“I will. All but the section with ideas for my dress,” she says. “You get no hints about that.”
“I’ll let you have your secrets—for now,” I tease. Giving her ass a squeeze, I add, “Why don’t you put some of this fruit away and I’ll make breakfast?”
She shakes her head as she reaches for lemons to put them back into the bag. “Every counter in this kitchen is covered with my messes. I’m sorry, I should have cleaned up.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re worth the mess.”
I let go, and she flashes me a smile over her shoulder. I work on breakfast while she makes some space, and as she’s tidying up her wedding prep area, she asks, “Do you think I should ask Tessa to be my maid of honor as a nice gesture?”
“If you want to, but you don’t have to. It’s your wedding, it should be what you want. Ask Shaley or Brynn. You’re closer to them. Tessa can be a bridesmaid.”
“I just don’t want her to be offended.”
“I don’t care who you offend,” I say as I crack an egg into a bowl.
“I know, but I do,” she mutters. “I’m thinking of asking your dad to walk me down the aisle,” she tells me, and I can hear the mild uncertainty in her tone. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I do. I think he’d like that.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to be a Walters,” she says. “That feels illegal.”
“Cassie Walters,” I say, the name bringing a swell of satisfaction with it. It’s not the first time I’ve thought about Cassie’s name attached to mine, but it’s the first time I’ve said it out loud.
“That will take some getting used to,” she says.
Not for me.
I smirk, my memory drifting back to the picture I drew of her in kindergarten. I’d never been to a wedding, but I’d seen my parents’ wedding photo enough times, so I drew us in the same poses.
But I don’t tell her about that.
___
When Cassie comes out of the bedroom, she’s looking very Stepford chic in a short white dress with oranges all over it, but it’s not a Stepford date night.
She and her friend Addison picked out these dresses for all the girls to wear when they hosted a larger-scale Stepford movie night that none of my friends complained about attending, but Cassie’s repurposing it today to work the lemonade stand.
“What do you think?” she asks, doing a little spin.
She knows what I think. “I’m a lucky man.”
She grins up at me, but knows my fingers are itching to grab her, so she moves away just as quickly. “We’ve gotta get out of here. If I miss Addison’s orientation, she’ll be so pissed.”
“You already know what to do.”
“Yeah, but you know Addison,” she says, shooting me a look over her shoulder as she grabs her purse. “She likes to make a production of things, and today, I’m in the ensemble.”