Jordan’s hand spreads against my back, warm and steady.
“She is done earning love from people who should have given it freely,” he says. “I will make sure she is happy with me.”
“And I will love her like a daughter,” Vivienne adds, still holding my mother’s wrist like it is something unpleasant she found on the floor. “Since the position seems to be vacant.”
My breath catches.
The room disappears around that sentence.
Vivienne releases my mother’s wrist and turns to me, her smile softening without losing any of its power. “There you are, darling. I meant to introduce myself over coffee, but your mother forced me to be dramatic before caffeine.” Her gaze sweeps over my face, warm and assessing. “You are even more beautiful than the picture Tina sent me yesterday.”
I blink at my mother, then at Jordan, then back at the woman who just called me her future daughter-in-law and stopped my mother from slapping me before breakfast could settle.
“I think,” I say faintly, “I need to sit down.”
Jordan bends, his mouth near my ear.
“I’ve got you, love. I’m not going anywhere.”
Epilogue
Natalie
One year later, I have learned that peace does not always arrive with fireworks.
Sometimes peace is a blocked phone number.
Wesley tried calling me after he called off the wedding. I did not answer, and after the fifth call, I blocked him. There are many ways to heal, but I highly recommend the tiny button that makes a bad decision stop vibrating in your hand.
My mother and Lydia apologized eventually.
It took almost a year.
They cried. They explained. They softened their voices and called it a terrible misunderstanding, which was a very polite way to describe blaming me for Wesley’s choices and nearly slapping me in a hotel dining room.
I accepted the apology because I wanted the fighting to end.
I still do not know if I forgave them.
We have peace now, but it is the kind of peace that keeps distance. We speak on birthdays, holidays, and family emergencies. My mother asks how I am, then asks how Jordan is. Lydia sends polite texts with too many exclamation points. Their kindness became warmer once they understood Jordan Richmond was not a temporary scandal, and warmer still when they realized being kind to me might keep them close to his name, his money, and his world.
That used to hurt. Now it only tells me I was right to build a life somewhere else, with my husband and Vivienne.
Jordan’s mother kept her promise. She loved me like a daughter before I even knew how to accept it. She calls me darling, sends soup if I sneeze twice, and has bought enough baby clothes to dress a small, stylish army.
I no longer work as Jordan’s secretary either. I run the Richmond Foundation now, and part of our work overlaps with the Damned Saints in a way no one puts in glossy brochures. The Saints take care of most of the women they pull out of places no one should ever have to survive, but when they are overwhelmed, when there are too many beds needed and too many lives to rebuild at once, the foundation steps in.
Housing. Therapy. Training. Jobs. Locked doors. Safe rooms. New starts.
Some days break my heart.
Some days put it back together.
Today is one of the good ones.
I am six months pregnant, sitting on the nursery rug in our house with tiny clothes folded around me, when Jordan appears in the doorway.
His tie is gone. His sleeves are rolled. His eyes move from me to the tiny socks in my hand, then to the open drawers around me.
