Epilogue
Hannah
3 Years Later
I woke up in a king size bed on the 32nd floor of the luxury hotel. I hardly had time to myself with the way things picked up for my acting career. Since Satin Sheets came out almost three years ago, I’d starred in two more movies and became one of the biggest new names in show business. I had to start turning down movie offers because there wasn’t enough time for me to shoot. My schedule was hectic, and because of that, I had only seen Ezra a few times in the past three months. Our careers were beginning to create a strain on our relationship, and at one point, I thought we were going to fall apart, but each time, we managed to reconnect and get back on the same page.
I felt his arms wrap around me from behind as I stood at the window, looking down at the streets in Dunedin, New Zealand. His lips pressed softly against my neck as I rested in his warm embrace. “It feels like it has been forever since we’ve been back here.”
“Forever?” I responded. “Yeah. It has only been three years, but the way we have been so busy, it can easily feel like 10.”
“Yeah, easily.”
I faced him as he stood in a bathrobe with nothing but his boxers on underneath. We were on vacation together, and we wanted to go to the place that we first visited together as a couple. Ezra had just wrapped up his filming of a blockbuster action movie called The Last Time. He had to cut his hair off for the role, but it wasn’t much different from how he normally wore it. He had a few tattoos on his forearms and one on his shoulder that just had the letter “H” inside of a heart. I joked with him about how simple it was.
“So, I guess that, ‘H’ will be easier to cover up if we don’t make it, huh?”
He laughed. “Cover up? No, I don’t plan on covering it up. Why would I need to? You’re going to be with me forever, and if you’re not, then I’m going to have to kill you and whoever that you leave me for. I already made that up in my mind.”
“Oh, really? Wait a minute. Can you say that again? I want to get my phone, so I can record the evidence.” I tried to get out of his arms to grab my phone, but he lifted me in the air and carried me to the mattress. He climbed on top of me, his muscles bulging as he held his body above mine, but he didn’t take it any further. “Why did you stop?”
He kissed me. “Because we have to go. I have plans for us today, and we need to get on the beach by,” he looked at his watch, “7 pm.”
He got off the bed and pulled some clothing out of his suitcase. “Baby? It is only 12! We have time! Get your ass back over here and give me some dick!”
“I will later, trust me. But right now, we have to get going. Come on. Get your dirty ass in the shower so we can go!”
I laughed out loud. “Whatever, Ezra. Ugh. I swear you better make up for this! I’m already wet! I don’t need a fucking shower!”
After we had got dressed, he took me out to eat, and we ended on the beach right at 7 pm. The grains of sand slithered through my toes as we walked along the sandy shore, hand in hand. The yellow sun shifted to a dark orange is it started to descend beyond the horizon. Seagulls flew past us, echoing their soothing chants each time they flapped their wings. “So, why did we have to come here by 7 pm? You got something planned?”
He smiled as we stopped right in front of a sand castle. It was built 3 feet high, and the water that brushed onto the shore stopped just feet from it. He kneeled and patted the castle as I looked out to the shore as far as my eyes could see. Once I glanced down again, Ezra had made a dent in the castle. “Ezra! Why are you messing up some kid’s sand castle! That is so rude!”
“I was trying to fix it. I guess I pressed it too hard. Can you help me?”
I kneeled beside him and grabbed sand from the side to reconstruct the small building. Suddenly, I saw a black case buried in the mound of sand that had crashed on the side of the castle. “Ezra, what is that?” I asked, leaning in closer to it.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see it there before.”
When I reached for it, I saw that it was a small, black box, and as I held it in my hand, my heart felt as if it had stopped beating. I looked at Ezra as he kneeled beside me. I shook my head as tears rushed to the bottom of my eyes and everything around me grew silent. “Hannah, baby, I’ve known from day one that you were the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, and there wasn’t a time that I ever doubted it. You are my life, and I don’t know how I made it as far in my life as I did without you, but I don’t want to have to find out. You are a part of the puzzle that I’ve been missing and I–”
“Ezra, just ask me, damn it! I’ve been waiting three years for this!” I said as tears flowed from my eyes in rivers.
He smirked. “Will you... stop rushing me!”
“Ezra!”
“Baby, will you marry me?”
I lunged into his arms, then demanded him to put the ring on my finger. “What took you so long to ask me, Ezra? You make me sick!”
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Naomi Niles