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“Oh yeah?”

He nodded. “I don’t want our children to grow up in the world we were brought up in. I don’t want them to be controlled by us, or told who they have to marry or what kind of life they have to lead.”

Anticipation grew in my belly. “I don’t want that either.”

Jacob released my hand to cup my cheek. “Good. Then let’s move.”

“Move?”

“Yeah. I’m done with being controlled by my father. I meant what I said a few days ago: we have enough money to live on; I can leave my father to run the business on his own. I’ve had enough.”

My brows furrowed. I remembered Jacob saying that, but he’d also said that Edward could take on all the responsibilities of the job. Why would he have said that if he knew Edward was dead? And why was it that I could remember that, but not what happened immediately after?

“I don’t know about you, but I also don’t want to go back to the island, not after what happened,” Jacob continued, pulling me from my thoughts. “I wondered how you’d feel about moving to Italy?”

My eyes almost popped from my head. “Italy?”

Jacob grinned. “Yeah. I’ve found a beautiful house near where we went on our honeymoon. It’s a short drive to the nearest town, and the schools are highly rated. It’s the perfect location to start a family, but if you’d rather we look somewhere else, we can.”

Tears of happiness slid gracefully down my face, my last thoughts of Jacob’s comment about

Edward disappearing into the distance. They didn’t matter. Nor did anything Jacob had done to me in the past.

He was a changed man; the weeks prior to the incident with Wallace had been the best of my life. Jacob had been the perfect husband, and I knew he would be the best father a child could have.

A smile spread over my lips at imagining him and me, cuddling on a beach while our children ran into the waves, laughing at how cold the ocean was. I wanted that image more than anything.

Had my relationship with Jacob been perfect up to this point? No. But could the future be? I understood how Jacob’s mind worked now. I knew what behavior made him happy and what behavior made him angry. And I knew how much he loved me.

So, yes. Our future could be everything I’d dreamed of.

“It sounds perfect,” I said, pulling myself up off the bed to wrap my arms around his neck. “I love you, Jacob, and I can’t wait to have this baby with you.”

He placed a light kiss on my lips. “I love you too, Charlotte. My perfect angel.”

Epilogue

Jacob- Five Months Later

Freedom is an illusion. A concept made up to allow people to believe that they are free to make choices. Free to go where they want, when they want, and with whom they want. Free to do whatever they want.

The reality is that no one is really free. We’re repressed by rules, governments, morals, and a whole bunch of other shit. True freedom only comes when you take your final breath and close your eyes for the last time.

But some believe they are free because being ignorant of the truth is easier to accept than their reality.

Like Charlotte. My beautiful wife.

It took time and a fuck load of effort to mold her into my perfect angel, and there were times when I didn’t think she would succumb to my charms. For example, the time on the plane home from our honeymoon. For a tense few hours, I honestly thought she would walk away when the plane landed.

Of course, she realized she had no one to turn to except me, just how I wanted it to be. Not that she would have gotten very far if she had tried to leave me; the tracker in her necklace wouldn’t allow her to disappear into thin air.

The necklace was similar to the one I’d gifted Amy all those years ago, only then, I hadn’t had the bright idea of putting a tracker in Amy’s. Mistakes are for learning from, and it wasn’t a mistake I was going to make with Charlotte.

I wondered if Charlotte realized just how alike the necklaces were; what can I say? I liked the design, one of the reasons I didn’t leave Amy’s necklace around her throat when she died, it was currently locked away in a secure vault in the heart of Paris.

When she crashed her car, and I stood by her window, watching her choke on her own blood, I couldn’t leave the necklace around her neck. It was too pretty to go into the ground with her dead body.

Things between Charlotte and me were perfect after our wedding party, and I supposed I should have thanked my mother and father for springing that on me; it had been the perfect event to earn Charlotte’s trust again.