“Don’t you mean the best thing you ever did? Because look what we have,” I breathe, resting my forehead against his and stroking his cheek.
He runs his thumb over my lower lip, watching it before lifting heavenly blue eyes to mine.
My heart stalls as he whispers, so honest and devoted I feel the words melt into me and stay, just like my name inked over his heart.
“You’re right,” he breathes. “Best risk I ever took.”
49
SLADE
EPILOGUE – THREE YEARS LATER
She tucksa strand of red hair behind her ear as she lowers her clipboard and captures my eyes.
“Let’s skip the formalities. We can cover those later.” Her eyes narrow like she’s assessing how much she can ask me. How deep she can delve.
I run a hand down my tie, relaxing back into my seat.
“What do you want to know?”
A wrinkle settles between her brows. “Do you regret any of it?” It comes out as a whisper, and I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, so I can look at her more closely.
She holds my gaze, and that’s when I see it. Those tiny scars hidden in the depths of her irises, repaired by happiness, but never completely gone.
“Doyou?” I ask.
Her brow relaxes, and she looks at me in understanding, recognizing a kindred survivor.
“No,” she replies simply. “Because I have what I have now. My husband, Jet. Our kids. My family wouldn’t be what it is today without what happened to me.”
I nod. “Sometimes the worst days of our lives can bring us the best later on.”
“Exactly,” she whispers. “You saw my story, then? Forest Girl?”
“I did.”
She looks back, unwavering.
Ava Grant, a casting director turned producer, who once allowed the world to see her own tragedy after she was involved in a plane crash as a child and survived purely from a mix of luck and determination.
“It was therapeutic for me.”
“As we hope this will be for us,” I reply.
The sounds outside the meeting room blur into a gentle hum in the background as we sit in silence.
She waits for my answer.
For my confirmation.
She doesn’t push me. She already knows what I’m going to say. I wouldn’t have accepted her invitation to sit and talk about it if my family hadn’t already decided.
We’ve been inundated with calls from Hollywood, wanting to put our family’s story on screen for the world to see. When Uncle Mal’s trial finished and he was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to arson and endangering life, we released a statement to the press, giving out some details. But not all. We knew they might twist it to their own narrative if they chose. So, we decided, as a family, that we’d do it our way. We’d make sure the truth was told exactly as it happened.
But we knew we had to wait for the right person to trust our story with.
“We want your company to tell The Beauforts’ story,” I say.
