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He kissed me, gently, right on my bruised cheek. His lips were like a feather. It was the most reverent and loving way a man had ever touched me.
Duke pulled back ever so slightly. “When I saw you, I didn’t feel relieved. I couldn’t lock it down. So I turned cold. I’m going to warn you, baby. That’s gonna happen with us in the future. I’m going to work on it, gonna work fuckin’ hard. But it’s going to take time to shake that shit out of me. But I figure we’ve both got some shit to learn about each other. Then again, we’ve got the rest of our lives to do it, so I think we’ll be okay.”
Tears were streaming down my face at this point, at everything that Duke was throwing at me. All the feelings piled up on my skin. All of those hopes coming true. I flinched at first. It couldn’t be true.
But there was emotion in Duke’s voice, a naked pain that grated against my heart. That couldn’t be faked, couldn’t be denied.
“The rest of our lives?” I repeated. “Are you proposing right now?”
The grip on my neck tightened. “No, baby. Not because I don’t plan on marrying you—if you’re into it, that is—but because my mother and grandmother would straight-up kill me if I did it in a moment like this. They raised me better than that.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “They did.”
Duke didn’t kiss me, not yet. I was aching for it, for his skin on mine, for his taste. “So, that’s a yes to marriage?”
I smiled. “You’re just gonna have to wait until you propose to get that answer,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’ll wait forever for you, baby.”
Then, he kissed me.
Epilogue
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I asked Duke as the car slowed down.
He lifted our intertwined hands and kissed mine. “Baby, I’m ready for anything as long as I’m with you.”
Cue stomach-melty thing that still happened when he said shit like that. The diamond he’d slid on my finger a couple months ago glinted in the light.
I hadn’t decided what kind of wedding I wanted yet. Both Amy and Gwen were calling me daily with ideas. Then there were multiple texts with dress designs, table settings, and threats of bodily dismemberment if they weren’t bridesmaids—well, that one was from Rosie actually.
It had shocked me that the women had kept in contact throughout all these months. They’d even come to stay in LA for two nights. One of those was spent drinking a lot of margaritas and getting fucked very well by my now fiancé when he figured out just how drunk I was.
They were my friends. It was something I’d only just realized, something warm and uncomfortable at the same time. I had people to call if I needed fashion advice, if I was going through an emotional crisis, or if I needed to murder a guy.
Moreover, they actually knew me for me.
And then there was Harriet.
She also made the trek to LA when she heard that Duke and I were looking to buy a new house, when it became apparent that we were going to live together. I couldn’t imagine spending a night away from him and it seemed he felt the same, so both of our houses were unacceptable. His was nice, clean, impressive. But it did not have enough closet space and I was weirdly jealous thinking about all the women who’d been in that bed before me.
My place was obviously vetoed. I couldn’t stand it there. Before the moving in together thing had become real, I’d already been looking for somewhere else. Somewhere that suited me more now that I knew who the heck I was.
Harriet had been the one to find our place. Of course.
It was in Malibu, because we’d wanted to get away from the mansions in Beverly Hills.
It was actually not too far away from the Unquiet Mind’s beach house. We’d spent a lot of time with them already since Duke was tight with them.
There were no marble floors, no infinity pools. There was just the ocean. There was enough closet space for both of us. It was large, impeccable, of course. But it felt like home. Then again, it was most likely because Harriet and Duke had been standing inside it.
The rest of his family had made promises to visit us, something that they’d never done before and that I was happy they were doing now.
But the news I found out just this morning was giving me second thoughts about calling a beach house in Malibu home, no matter the views.
“You’re ready for anything?” I repeated as the car stopped. I quickly checked my makeup in my compact before slipping it in my clutch. I fussed with the custom-made gown—a dress made to hug the extra curves I’d gained in the past months, curves that Duke worshipped. I wasn’t going to lie and say it was easy to get back to a borderline normal relationship with food. It was tied to all kinds of things. I was seeing a therapist to help me with that, and the trauma of being kidnapped, beaten, and then watching two men die. Well, I didn’t tell her about the murder part of it, but I had seen Salvador die so she was helping with that. Then there was the army of women who called daily, allowing me a safe place to talk, vent…whatever.
