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Slade sits in Matthew’s vacated chair, arranging Hannah on his lap. I pat the bed beside me, and Matthew carefully sits. My heart squeezes when he threads his fingers through mine, then kisses them.
Hannah tells me all about how Nancy clocked her over the head with a clipboard and stuffed her in the linen closet. “The only thing I don’t understand is why in the world Nancy would help that man,” she says.
I fill in the blanks on how Nancy was jealous of me and that Nelson Grant took advantage of that. We all avoid talking about what I did, and I’m grateful for that. I don’t know if I will ever be ready to address the fact that I’m a murderer. Sure, you can argue that it was in self-defense, but I remember a moment when I thought, “oh, he’s down, I can escape now” and not stopping. Whether it was a conscious choice or not, the fact is that I beat him to death and beyond. It took Matthew and Gunner to make me stop.
I am definitely not ready to explore the fucked-upness of all that.
After the third time I yawn, Matthew chases Hannah and Slade out of the room, declaring I need rest. I don’t argue because I’m exhausted. Matthew moves to sit back in his chair, and I stop him. “Lay with me?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
I smile at him sleepily. “Don’t you know by now that you’ll never hurt me?”
He carefully lays on my non-injured side, and everything is right in my world.
EPILOGUE
HANNAH
“There. All done.” I set the leftover bobby pins on the counter and admire my work.
Rose gasps when she takes in what I’ve done. Her makeup is done to perfection, and her long blonde hair is braided and twisted into an intricate updo with little gems pinned here and there. I really did outdo myself this time.
“You’re a magician!” Rose exclaims. She stands and throws her arms around me. “Thank you.”
I hug her back, loving that my friend is so happy. There for a while, we all worried that her past was just too much for her to overcome, but she’s resilient and now look at her. Three months pregnant and having a shotgun wedding. Well, not really, we just like teasing Matthew. The wedding date was set a week before Rose found out she is expecting.
“Let’s get you in your dress. If we’re late, Matthew will bulldoze his way in here.”
Rose laughs at that. “He was so mad when I told him I wanted to stick to the tradition of the bride not seeing the groom before the wedding.”
“Yeah, but you had fun convincing him to not be mad,” I tease.
Rose blushes. “You bet I did.”
I help her into her wedding dress, and she claps when it zips. “I thought for sure it wasn’t going to zip.”
“I told you not to worry, you haven’t even gained a pound.”
She snorts. “I’ve gained ten! Ten pounds in three months all because my husband-to-be is stuffing food in my face every time I turn around.”
She’s not wrong. Matthew is constantly making sure that Rose is eating properly and getting enough sleep and not stressing out. It’s adorable, and I feel so guilty because I’m extremely jealous of my best friend.
She doesn’t deserve my jealousy. Rose deserves all the happiness in the world after everything she’s survived. That green-eyed monster doesn’t care about that, though. I do my best to hide it, but sometimes I think Matthew suspects just how hard it is for me.
I help Rose slip on her ballerina flats and hand her a bouquet of white lilies and white roses. “Ready?” I ask.
“Yep. Let’s go get me married!”
I’m still in awe over the way Matthew managed to transform Black Rose from sinful BDSM club to princess wedding chic. Rose insisted that she didn’t need fancy and that she only wanted Kisten, Slade, me, and surprisingly the very stoic Gunner there. Matthew being Matthew wasn’t having it. Even though it’s just us and an officiant, he went all out to give Rose a dream wedding.
And if her beaming smile and the tears in her eyes are any indication, I would say that he succeeded. I do my best to focus on the ceremony. Matthew and Rose wrote their own vows, and they are mushy and sweet and utter perfection, but I can’t concentrate. Not when he’s standing just a few short feet away staring at me with hungry eyes.
After the incident with Nancy and Nelson Grant, I thought we had turned a corner in our relationship. Slade doted on me and stuck by my side for weeks. He touched me freely and didn’t shy away from me. I woke up one night screaming from a nightmare, and Slade rushed to my side. I told him all about my dream, and he carried me to his bed to sleep. Every night for two weeks, he let me sleep beside him.
I was so fucking happy I could hardly stand myself. Then he went on a business trip of some kind and came back the same old indifferent Slade. Just like that, the life I’ve always wanted was snatched away.
I wipe away a tear, thanking God that it’s not completely out of place to cry at a wedding. Slade tilts his head, frowning as he studies me. He knows me better than anyone on the planet. He also knows I don’t cry for sentimental reasons. I never have.
I close my eyes blocking out his concerned look. As my best friend says ‘I do’ and is kissed with way more tongue than would be appropriate at any normal wedding, I make the decision I’ve been waffling on for weeks.
Matthew sat me down one day and offered me a job. I’ve been working as his housekeeper and whatever else he needs for years now so I was surprised when he approached me about a position at the Black Rose in Vegas. I immediately turned him down. I couldn’t leave Rose and Matthew. I refused to acknowledge the reason I said no was because I can’t stomach the thought of being so far away from Slade.
He told me to think about it and that it was an open-ended offer. An offer I just decided to take.
THE END
