Epilogue
SLOANE
"Why are you getting a tattoo if you're scared of needles?" I'd asked my last client of the day two hours into the session.
She just blinked at me, with no logical answer.
A piece that usually took forty-five minutes stretched into three brutal hours. My lower back ached, my patience was gone, and all I wanted was to strip off my work clothes, collapse onto the mattress, and ignore the world until sunrise.
I pushed through the front door.
The house was pitch black.
I stood in the foyer and dropped my keys into the bowl.
Xavier was supposed to be here. We'd moved in together a few months ago after he made New York permanent, and he'd promised to wrap up at the clinic early.
It was past eight. The place was empty, except for a faint glow spilling in from the backyard.
I crossed to the patio door.
Through the glass, the yard was transformed. Dozens of candles lined the edge of the pool, their flames steady in the night air. Rose petals blanketed the path down to the lawn, floral arrangements anchored the steps, and the underwater pool lights threw a soft glow against the cedar fence.
It was usually a beautiful yard, but tonight every square inch had been curated.
The sight rooted me to the floor.
I slid the glass door open.
Xavier stepped out from the far side of the pool, walking toward me through the candlelight.
He wore a tailored black suit. I had no idea why he'd chosen formalwear for our backyard, but the effort undid me: the crisp collar, the fitted jacket, the reality that he'd dressed for a moment that mattered.
He stopped right in front of me.
Then—just as he'd done years ago—he dropped to both knees.
That detail wrecked me. One knee was a question. Both knees were a declaration and a surrender at once. He wasn't asking out of casual expectation. He was asking as a man whose whole world hinged on the answer.
He popped open the velvet box. The sapphire and oval diamond sparkled against the dark lining.
It was the same ring he'd proposed with years ago.
The one I'd mailed back. The one he'd smuggled to Hawaii in his suit jacket while I wasted a week rearranging seating charts and telling myself I was over him.
The ring I'd spent eight years pretending I didn't care about.
"I've spent months trying to draft the perfect speech for this," he murmured. "The truth is, words fall short."
His dark eyes locked onto mine. "Loving you stopped being a conscious choice a long time ago. It's the first thought I wake up to and the last thing I carry to sleep. You're the foundation of every plan I make and every future I bother to imagine."
My vision blurred. I was standing in my ink-stained work clothes after the worst client of the month, weeping in the backyard.
"You aren't just the love of my life," he said, his voice rough.
"You're the life in it. I want every complicated version of you.
The happy one, the stubborn one, the woman who thinks she has to shoulder the world alone.
I want every ordinary day with you. I want the privilege of standing beside you until one lifetime feels too short.
"I'm going to spend the rest of my days loving you with the same devotion I have right now.
You're my greatest certainty, Sloane. You're the one person I could never let go of. So stay with me. Stay when life is easy, and stay when it all goes to hell. Give me the rest of your years, and let me spend every one of them making this up to you.”
He paused, heaving a deep breath. "Sloane… Will you marry me?"
"Yes!" I replied, biting my lip, desperately trying to swallow my tears but failing.
He slid the cool metal onto my finger, and I hauled him up by his lapels and crashed my mouth against his. He wrapped both arms around my waist, lifting my feet off the patio, and a breathless laugh escaped my throat.
The sapphire was back where it belonged. Same ring, same man, but a wildly different version of us both.
I was never taking this ring off again.
"I love you," I whispered against his jaw. "I'm going to love you for the rest of my life."
He smiled, the tension finally leaving his shoulders.
We walked inside hand in hand. I glanced around our home, the lights flickering on as we moved through the hallway.
"How did you manage all of that out there? By yourself?"
He chuckled. "I outsourced a little."
"Obviously. But still, you killed it. I'm impressed."
"I plan on spending the next fifty years impressing you."
I pointed a warning finger at his chest. "The romantic cheese ends now. We had the candles, the speech, the whole production. You're cut off."
"I will never cut it out. And you're legally bound to tolerate it now."
I rolled my eyes and headed for the stairs.
"Sloane."
"Goodnight, Xavier."
He hit the hallway switch, his deep laugh trailing after me.
Upstairs, I peeled off my sticky clothes, started the bathwater, and sat on the edge of the tub. I held my left hand under the vanity bulbs, watching the sapphire. It looked right. It had always belonged there.
Xavier's muffled voice drifted up from the kitchen. He was on the phone, his tone dropping into the fond register he saved for Violet. He was delivering the news. He'd call his parents next, and they'd be thrilled. They'd slowly been learning how to prioritize the right things.
After that explosive brunch, they'd relocated to the city to close the gap. They called. Then they started dropping by. They came to dinners, overstayed their welcome, and eventually the awkward friction smoothed into a functional rhythm.
It wasn't a perfect family yet, but it was healing.
Violet was the glue holding it together. She showed up with her boundaries enforced and her grace intact, forcing their parents to meet her halfway.
Watching from the sidelines, I was grateful they'd all survived the wreckage and found a new kind of normal.
I stared at the ring, then up at the ceiling before I dried my hands and grabbed my phone. I snapped a quick photo of my left hand, the ring sparkling under the bulbs, the edge of my tattoo creeping into the frame. Before I could think twice, I pulled up my father's contact and hit send.
I wasn't expecting a reply.
Our last interaction was months ago, when I walked out of his office and left the door cracked for an apology that never came.
He retreated into radio silence. I had no idea if he was doing the work or just running his usual playbook, waiting out the storm until the conflict resolved itself without him having to concede.
I was willing to wait him out. I'd spent years learning to sit with the things that scarred me without clawing at them, and I wasn't about to start chasing him now, not for an apology he still hadn't earned. He knew where to find me when he was ready to hand it over.
My screen lit up with a message notification.
Mr. Ty
Congratulations.
That was it. One word, no punctuation, no demands, no manipulative follow-up. It was the smallest sliver of an olive branch from a broken man.
I read the screen twice and the ancient knot in my chest finally came loose.
With pursed lips, I left the bathwater running and jogged downstairs.
Xavier was still pacing the kitchen with his phone pressed to his ear.
I grabbed his arm to spin him around, and pressed kisses across his jaw, his cheek, his mouth.
He let out a startled laugh, trying to finish his sentence before he surrendered.
"Violet, I've got to call you back," he said, ending the call, looking at me. "What brought that on?"
I shoved my screen against his chest. He read the single word.
"Sloane..."
"Don't ruin it by talking."
He hauled me against his chest and wrapped his arms tight around my shoulders. I buried my face in his shirt, grounding myself in his warmth, and the quiet hum of our house. My eyes burned, and I squeezed them shut.
It took eight years of detours, fear, and mistakes to find our way back to this kitchen. The journey was brutal, but it was worth the toll. Because every misstep had paved the road back to him.
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