Epilogue #2
We stop. I hear the whisper of a door opening, feel Drake's hands settle on my shoulders from behind.
"Open your eyes, little rose."
I open them, and the world falls away.
The space before me stretches vast and gleaming, two entire floors of Redthorne Holdings transformed into something that steals my breath and stops my heart.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line the walls, already half-filled with volumes I recognize from catalogs and wish lists I never expected anyone to see.
Reading nooks are tucked into corners, draped with soft throws and surrounded by lamps that cast warm pools of light.
A reception desk curves gracefully near the entrance, sleek and modern and topped with a vase of fresh roses.
And on the wall behind it, in letters that catch the fading sunlight like captured stars, a name.
Ember House.
The tears come before I can stop them, hot and silent, streaming down my cheeks as I struggle to comprehend what I am seeing. My dream. My impossible, buried, sacrificed dream, made real and solid and tangible in chrome and mahogany and thousands upon thousands of books.
"Drake." His name breaks on my lips. "What did you do?"
"I built you a publishing house. The bookshelves will eventually hold a copy or a hundred of every book you help an author publish, but for now, I put some of your favorites there to encourage you.
" His voice is rough against my ear, his arms wrapping around me from behind as I stand frozen in the doorway of my own impossible future.
"You’ll have the best editors. The most talented designers. A marketing team that knows fantasy and romance and every other genre you've ever wanted to champion. It's yours, Katriana. All of it."
I turn in his arms and find his face, cupping his jaw in my palms and searching his gray eyes for any sign that this is not real.
That I will wake up any moment in my cramped apartment with the leaky ceiling and the broken coffee maker and the crushing weight of Victor's debt pressing me into the mattress.
But Drake's eyes hold only love. Love and pride and a fierce determination that takes my breath away.
"Because stories are sparks," he says softly, quoting the words I confessed to him months ago in a moment of vulnerability I never expected him to remember. "And the right book can set your whole world on fire."
I kiss him. Hard and deep and desperate, pouring every ounce of gratitude and love and wonder into the press of my lips against his. He groans into my mouth and pulls me closer, his hands fisting in the fabric of my blouse, his body solid and warm and utterly mine.
When we finally break apart, we are both breathing hard.
"I can't believe you did this." I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand, smearing mascara, not caring in the slightest. "This must have cost a fortune."
"Worth every penny." He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "Worth everything I have, to see that look on your face."
I laugh, the sound wet and broken and full of joy. "You're insane. You know that, right? Completely, certifiably insane."
"About you." He kisses the tip of my nose. "Only about you."
I turn back to the space that is somehow, impossibly, mine. The bookshelves and the reading nooks and the name on the wall that represents everything I buried five years ago when survival became my only priority.
Ember House. My dream, resurrected by a man who saw me struggling and chose to lift me up instead of hold me down.
"There's one more thing." Drake reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small velvet box.
My heart stutters. "Drake, you already proposed. I already said yes. We're already engaged."
"This isn't that kind of box." He opens it, revealing not a ring but a key.
Simple. Silver. Threaded onto a delicate chain that catches the light.
"This is the key to your office. The corner one, with the floor-to-ceiling windows and the view of the city right next to mine.
You can work there or here on these floors.
The choice is yours. My kingdom is yours. "
I take the chain with trembling fingers. The metal is cool against my palm, solid proof that this is real. That I am standing in my own publishing house, holding the key to an office I never thought I would have.
"I don't know what to say." The words come out thick, clogged with emotions I cannot name.
"Say you'll love me until the day I die and beyond." Drake's voice drops to the rough velvet I love. "Say you'll build this empire and fill it with stories that matter. Say you'll come home to me every night and let me love you until we're both too old to remember why we fought it for so long."
"You want that kind of forever with me?"
"More than I can ever put into words, little rose." He pulls me against him, his forehead resting against mine. "Say you want this. Say you're ready."
I think about the life stretching before me. The publishing house with my name on the wall. The man whose ring gleams on my finger. The family that survived the worst and came out stronger. The future that once seemed impossible now laid out like a map to happiness.
And I think about the start of our family.
"I want this." I press my palm against his chest, feeling his heart beat beneath my hand. "All of it. The publishing house. The marriage. You." I take a breath, letting the words rise from somewhere deep inside me. "And I want a family, Drake. With you. I'm ready. I tossed my birth control."
The hope that blazes across his face steals the last of my defenses.
He sweeps me into his arms and carries me through the empty Redthorne floors set to house my publishing company, past the bookshelves and the reading nooks and the desk with my name on it, toward the elevator that will take us home.
Our home. Our future. Our life, built on the ashes of wishes and contracts and the stubborn belief that some people are worth fighting for.
Drake strips me and presses me against the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse.
Our penthouse. The glass is cool against my bare shoulders, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from his body as he cages me between his arms. Chicago spreads beneath us, a glittering tapestry of lights and shadows, thirty-two stories of indifferent city that has no idea two people are finding their forever in the reflection of its skyline.
"I want you to watch as I enter your beautiful pussy, baby girl. Watch how good you take me." His voice is gravel and heat against my ear. His breath stirs the hair at my temple. "Watch what I do to my future wife."
He lifts me effortlessly, and my legs wrap around his waist as he positions himself at my entrance. The city lights blur behind me as he holds my gaze, his gray eyes molten with desire and something deeper, something that makes my chest ache with the weight of it.
He enters me slowly, reverently, stretching me in that perfect way my body has learned to crave. Each inch feels like a claiming. A promise to always be mine, more binding than any words we could speak. His forehead presses against mine, and I breathe him into my soul.
"You're mine." The words rumble through his chest and into mine. "Every part of you. Forever."
"Yours." The word comes out broken, breathless. "Always yours."
He begins to move, and the pleasure builds in familiar waves, cresting and breaking and cresting again.
The glass fogs beneath my palms as I brace myself against his thrusts.
The city watches from below, a million anonymous lights bearing witness to the way this man takes me apart and puts me back together.
His thumb finds the place where our bodies join, circling with a pressure that makes my vision white at the edges.
I shatter in his arms with a cry that echoes off the glass, my body clenching around him in rhythmic pulses that pull him over the edge with me.
He groans my name against my throat and spills inside me, his hips stuttering through the final waves of release.
Katriana. His little rose. His partner. His future wife and the mother of children we have not yet made.
We stay pressed against the window for a long moment, breathing hard, hearts pounding in tandem, the cool glass the only thing keeping us from floating away entirely.
Afterward, we lie tangled together on the thick rug beneath the windows, our bodies cooling in the climate-controlled air, our hearts beating in sync the way they have since the first night I trusted him with everything I am.
"I love you." The words come easier now than they did in the basement all those months ago. "I love you, Drake Moses. And I am so grateful you claimed my wish."
He pulls me closer, tucking my head beneath his chin, wrapping himself around me like armor made of warmth and devotion.
"I love you too." His voice rumbles through his chest and into my bones. "I've loved you for years. I'll love you for the rest of my life. And when I die, I'll love you from whatever comes next."
I smile against his skin and let my eyes drift closed.
Outside the windows, the city that once felt like a cage now glitters like a promise. The world that tried to break me has become the foundation for everything I never dared to want.
A publishing house with my name on the wall.
A man who would burn the world to keep me safe.
A family that survived the worst and found their way back to each other.
And someday soon, a child who will carry both our names and grow up knowing nothing but love.
I am Katriana Bellrose, soon to be Katriana Moses.
I am the woman who made a wish and had it granted by a man who was waiting for me before I even knew to hope.
I am happy.
And I am finally, blessedly, impossibly home.
Later that evening Rafael and Persia throw us a surprise party.
The celebration spills through the halls of Ember House, champagne flowing freely as the inner circle of the Red Letter Syndicate toasts to dreams made real.
Persia holds Sofia on her hip while Rafael stands at her side, his hand resting possessively on the small of her back.
Kon leans against a bookshelf with his usual stoic grace, a rare smile softening the hard lines of his face.
Massimo and Rowan argue good-naturedly about something I cannot quite hear, their laughter echoing off the high ceilings.
But it is Luca who draws my attention as the evening wears on.
He stands near the floor-to-ceiling windows with his phone in his hand, and the expression on his face stops me mid-sentence in my conversation with Damaris.
I have never seen Luca anything but composed.
The man who handles the Syndicate's finances with ruthless precision, who can erase enemies and make fortunes appear with equal ease, who moves through the world with an easygoing charm that masks the predator beneath.
Tonight, something has cracked that careful facade.
His jaw is tight. His dark eyes burn with an intensity I do not recognize as he stares at the screen, his thumb hovering over something he seems unable to delete. The glow from his phone casts shadows across his features that make him look almost dangerous and desperate in equal parts.
I drift toward Drake and slip my hand into his, nodding subtly toward Luca. "What's going on with him?"
Drake follows my gaze, and something knowing flickers across his expression. The corner of his mouth twitches with what might be amusement or might be concern.
"Someone sent him something interesting about fifteen minutes ago." Drake's voice is low, meant only for me. "A mistake, apparently. Wrong number."
My brows rise in curiosity. "What kind of something?"
Drake just shakes his head, pulling me closer against his side. "That is his story to tell, little rose. When he is ready."
I watch Luca pocket his phone with a deliberate slowness that speaks of reluctance. His expression smooths back into the easy smile I recognize, but his eyes remain dark with secrets as he rejoins the celebration.
Whatever landed in Luca Valentina's inbox has shaken the unshakeable.
And knowing the men gathered in this room, I suspect Chicago is about to witness another collision between a Red Letter wish and the ruthless men who grant them.
I make a mental note to ask Persia about it later. Between the two of us, we have become quite adept at reading the storms brewing behind Syndicate composure.
But for now, Drake's arms wrap around me from behind, his lips brushing against my ear with a whispered promise that chases all other thoughts from my mind.
Tonight is about us. About Ember House. About the future we are building together.
Luca's story will unfold in its own time.