Page 125 of Crimson Love

“Love you, Lennon.” I’ve lost count how many times Jett has expressed that. The love I have for this man is ceaseless. “This is just the beginning. I’ll make all your dreams come true.”

“I love you, Jett Parker Cross. I can’t wait to live life with you.”

EPILOGUE

Jett

Five years later

I walk out of my office after going through a round of interviews. It’s official. The board voted yesterday. As much as I’d like to say the position is mine by a landslide, it definitely wasn’t. The vote was as close as it was years ago when I first joined.

Five to four.

Words like nepotism, coercion, and bullshit floated on muttered hisses under angry breaths. But it’s just like I told Lennon years ago when she went public with her father’s atrocities, I ignore it all. They’ll find something else to be pissed off about eventually.

Ask me if I thought I’d be right here when I was diagnosed with PKD, and the answer would be fuck no.

A wife.

Two kids.

Another on the way.

A kidney that’s still going strong.

A family.

And a new title behind my name on my business card.

Jett Parker Cross, CEO of Stonebridge Capital.

Yeah, I even added my middle name that was handed down to me by my mother. My grandmother always said she wanted to make sure I had a piece of her wherever I went. It only seemed fitting.

I yank at the knot on my tie and pull the damn thing off. When I work from home, I only have to wear a suit when I’m on a conference call, unlike when I’m back in New York. There, I’m all business all the time.

I walk into the kitchen and hear them before I see them. Parker just turned four last week and Emily is two. When I drilled Lennon with questions about how many kids she wanted, it was rhetorical. But after her father died, everything went into fast forward. It was easy to fall into our new life once she got past her fear of the future.

She was all in.

Lennon might be young, but I’m not. We were married before Harlow and Devon had time to say I do. There was no time like the present to dive into our lives ... and our futures.

I might be a Madison by blood, but I don’t carry the social claim that Patrick and Harlow do. I don’t want the pomp and circumstance that comes with having that last name. I told Lennon we might want privacy one day, but I had no idea how much we’d crave that.

The nosy Nellies of Winslet are nothing compared to the rest of the world. I’m the long, lost son of Patrick Madison. My father hasn’t minced words over the last few years. The board of directors, the company, hell, the whole world knows he was grooming me for the top spot.

The vote yesterday was not a surprise, but the last couple of years in particular have put me on the hot seat so much, the privacy fence and gate on our property has been upgraded more than once.

Let’s just say, privacy and security for my family is something I take fucking seriously. It took one freak trying to get through our gate to make a bogus delivery for me to call in the big guns. Eli Pettit’s Statum Security now manages The Manor at Winslet and everything Stonebridge on the west coast.

Pettit’s job is about to get bigger.

For the past few years, we’ve been slowly moving parts of Stonebridge west. I might have an apartment in New York City, but as the kids get older, I’m not anxious to go back and forth. Harlow wants this, and so do I. It makes sense for so many reasons.

We’ll never give up all our offices on the east coast. There are benefits to being where the action is on Wall Street.

But, going forward, my trips across the country will be fewer and farther between. Harlow and I will make decisions from here. Chrissie has proven to be the backbone that holds Stonebridge together between the coasts. She’s gone from Harlow’s assistant to just her best friend. My sister moved into an advisor role, and Chrissie reports to Patrick and me.

It's a new life for Stonebridge.