“It’ll be a long road. Not an easy one.”
“She has me.” I curled my arm around Eredine’s shoulders. “You have me,” I promised.
“You have all of us,” Robyn added.
Ery’s lips trembled. “Then we’ll get through it together.”
EPILOGUE
EREDINE
Eighteen months later
This was not what I had in mind when I thought about enjoying the view from the master bedroom in our new home. Arran’s house became ours days after my ordeal with Ezra Jefferson. He’d wasted no time asking me to move in.
And now we were fully settled into the beautiful space.
The master bedroom looked out over the North Sea with a wall of bifold doors that led onto the balcony.
I hadn’t imagined enjoying that view with my naked body pressed against the glass while Arran moved languidly inside me from behind. His palms were pressed to the glass above my head, while my cheek felt the smooth coolness against my skin.
No one could see us, despite the less than private, slightly kinky slow lovemaking.
As I grew closer to climax, however, I pushed off the glass, arching my head against his shoulder, desperate for him to speed up.
Suddenly, I was on my hands and knees on the decorative faux fur runner in front of the doors, and Arran was no longer making love. He was thrusting into me with hard, deep drives.
He’d already pushed me close to the precipice, so it wasn’t long before I cried out and came around him in tight throbs.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” His grip on my hips tightened as he pistoned against my ass. And then I felt him jerk before he pulsed inside me.
We collapsed on the rug, panting for breath, naked, sweaty, tangled limbs reaching for one another.
Soon, I was cuddled into Arran’s side, staring up at the ceiling as he made lazy circles on my shoulder. The wood burner in our bedroom crackled as the real fire filled our room with a cozy heat that warded off the winter chill.
Sliding my fingers through Arran’s, I looked down to catch sight of my engagement ring winking in the light. He’d proposed this morning. It came days after we’d been running on the beach, and Arran had stopped and blurted out, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want kids with you. When we’re ready. Do you want that too?”
Since we’d really only had four months of blissful relationship time, considering Ezra’s trial had taken a while to get going and then weeks to conclude, we hadn’t talked about the future. I think we’d both wanted to put the past behind us first.
The accusations of sexual assault against Ezra were terrible but my sister’s story particularly horrified people. Ezra’s father became a pariah as people deduced he’d used his power to cover up his son’s crimes.
However, Ezra wasn’t tried for Kia’s murder. That he genuinely believed I was my sister had called his sanity into question. Five women, including the senator’s daughter, came forward as witnesses in his trial. Jefferson was convicted of three counts of sexual assault, because there wasn’t enough evidence in two other cases, as well as assault and attempted sexual assault against me. Any charges against me for stabbing him were dropped since it was self-defense.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Ezra Jefferson hung himself days before the trial’s end. An investigation into his death ruled it a suicide.
And I was finally free of him. Kia might not have seen justice while she was alive, but the world now knew what he’d done to her, and I hoped it was enough.
His death made me feel like I could breathe again.
Except this time, I was breathing the kind of fresh air I hadn’t encountered in nine years.
It was for that reason that Arran and I had enjoyed spending the last four months together with no heavy conversations or worries about the future. Until he’d asked me on the beach if I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and start a family together when we were ready.
Of course, I wanted to, which I told him with much enthusiasm that morning.
I smiled, remembering it.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.
“Just how happy I am, and how sometimes I need to pinch myself.”
“Aye?” He cuddled me closer. “Well, that’s my aim in life, you know. To keep my wife happy.”
I chuckled. “I’m not your wife yet.”
“Almost.” Then he groaned. “We need to get up soon, and I don’t want to. Maybe we can skip family lunch for once?”
“Nope,” I said immediately.
It was a life rule for me that we never skipped out on a family get-together unless there was an emergency. Not just because I was grateful beyond anything to be part of this family, but because everyone was so busy, yet they made an effort to be there. Arro and Mac and Robyn and Lachlan were rushed off their feet, taking care of their one-year-old girls (yes, they both had girls), and Thane was ever a support to his wife and children as Regan juggled full-time motherhood with finishing her business degree. She was close to opening a preschool here in Caelmore, and I couldn’t be prouder of her. Or Arran. He’d turned the reopening of the Gloaming into an immediate success with tourists, and all it took to get the villagers back on his side was him hosting this year’s anniversary ceilidh in the reception hall.