Epilogue
Annalise
Two years ago on this day, I’d been devastated.
I lit the last two candles and dimmed the lights in the living room. Perfect.
The fireplace was going, the table was set with the china my mom had given me when I moved out, two dozen candles set the mood for romance, and I had Bennett’s favorite meal in the oven. I looked around and smiled. Finally this man would have a date with a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day.
Last year I’d planned a special February fourteenth, but like most things since I met Bennett Fox, our night didn’t go as expected. We got a call that morning from Lucas. He was at the hospital with his grandmother. He’d woken up to find her unresponsive and called 911. Turned out she’d had a stroke.
A week later, she passed in her sleep while still in ICU. And our lives took an unexpected turn once again.
Two years ago, my boyfriend of eight years had dumped me on Valentine’s Day. Today I’m raising a teenager with a man who makes me want to simultaneously strangle and straddle him. Yet I’ve never been happier.
The day after Fanny died, Bennett petitioned the court for temporary custody. We filed for permanent custody a few months later. I pushed for Lucas to talk to a counselor, concerned he might be struggling with the loss of the second woman in his life to have raised him. As his guardian, Bennett went with him for a few sessions, and he wound up also seeing the counselor on his own a few times to work through his lingering guilt over the loss of Sophie. It did them both a lot of good.
I picked up the framed photo on the bookshelf in the living room and ran my finger over Sophie’s smiling face. “Don’t worry. They’re happy. I’m taking good care of your boys.”
Over the last year I’d found some solace in talking to her at different times—when Lucas was acting out, or when Bennett frustrated me with his incessant overprotectiveness. I felt eternally indebted to her for the beautiful life I had today, and I told her so often.
I heard the key in the door and leaned over the kitchen counter, exposing an eyeful of cleavage as I waited for my crazy man to come in. He opened the door, and his eyes immediately zoned in on what I displayed. Tossing his keys on the counter, he set down two bags. His eyes flickered up to mine and back down to my cleavage twice before he even noticed the apartment was filled with candles.
“Where’s Lucas?”
“Sleeping at his friend Adam’s,” I said with a coy tilt of my head.
A wicked grin crossed Bennett’s face. He walked toward me with such an intent look that goosebumps broke out over my arms. I had to work to stand still and not squirm with anticipation.
He slipped one arm around my waist and tugged me flush against him, while the other gripped the back of my neck. “I’m going to make you scream so loud, the neighbors might call the police.”
His kiss knocked the breath out of me. I had no doubt he intended to make good on his threat.
We’d had to take our sex life at home down a notch since we became full-time parents to a teen. While before we’d had sex all over the apartment—up against the wall, on the living room floor, kitchen counters, in the shower—after the arrival of Lucas, our activity needed to be somewhat confined, as did its volume.
Although that didn’t stop Bennett—he just became more creative. He’d send the entire staff home early so we could have uninhibited sex in the office. That tended to happen after the two of us had argued over how a certain account should be handled. We might be on the same team now, but a heated disagreement still made my man frisky. Sometimes I rattled him on purpose for just that reason.
“How did the meeting with Star go today?” I asked. “Did you tell Tobias I said hello?”
Bennett’s eyes flashed.
See? Just like that. One of the easiest ways to get him riled up was to poke the jealous lion. It had always been a sore spot that Star had changed their mind at the last minute and gone with my campaign. Tobias had convinced the others it was the way to go, and that had only fanned the flame of envy Bennett carried. Oh, and by the way, Pet Supplies & More went with my campaign, too. Which meant I’d won two of out three, and it would’ve been Bennett wearing the cowboy boots. But it all worked out in the end. I’d taken both my new accounts and a whole bunch of others with me when I left Foster, Burnett and Wren and went to work for The Fox Agency.
“You’re just asking to walk funny tomorrow, aren’t you, Texas?”
The nickname had stuck.
I smiled. “Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart. We broke your streak.”
Bennett’s brows drew together.
“You never had a date with a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, remember?”
“Ah. It’s Valentine’s Day.” He smiled mischievously. “I totally forgot about that. Hate to spoil your plans.” He looked around the room. “Seems like you went to a lot of trouble. Such a shame.”
I frowned. He forgot Valentine’s Day? Other plans?
“Really? We have the entire house to ourselves for a night and you made plans on Valentine’s Day?”
“Sorry, babe.”
Talk about disappointment. The lid on the pot full of water on the stove to cook the pasta started to make noise. Apparently there were two things boiling now.
I stepped around Bennett and went to the kitchen. Grabbing a pot holder from the drawer, I turned down the heat and lifted the top to let out the steam. But as the seconds passed, I became more and more annoyed that Bennett had spoiled the evening I’d planned. I’d even gotten him a few gifts I didn’t feel like giving him anymore.
Never one to hold back when it came to fighting with him, I clanked the lid down on the counter and decided to share how upset I really was.
Only when I turned, he wasn’t standing there anymore.
He was down on one knee.
I gasped in shock.
Bennett held a black velvet box in his hand and smirked. “You were going to rip into me, weren’t you?”
My heart was beating out of my chest. I covered it with my hands. “Of course I was. Why did you screw with me like that?”
He reached out and took my hand. “You did all this because I never had a date with a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. I’m hoping that streak continues and I’ll be having a date with my fiancée.”
My eyes started to tear.
He squeezed my hand, and I noticed the box in his other one shaking. My confident nemesis-turned-love-of-my-life was nervous to propose. Underneath all the tough exterior was a man with a giant, soft heart—it’s why he suffered so much for so long and put up a wall to protect it from breaking again.
Bennett swallowed, and the humor in his face was replaced by sincerity. “When I met you, I was broken, and I didn’t want to be fixed. You vandalized my car, tried to take my job, and called me an asshole, all within a few hours of strutting into the office. I did everything I could to hate you, because somewhere down deep inside, I knew you were a threat to my need to be miserable.
“When I insulted you, you invited me to a meeting even though you were my competition and you could have gone alone. When I made an ass of myself telling you your mom was hitting on me, you encouraged me to stay for dinner. When Lucas’s grandmother died, it was you who immediately said we needed to take him. You should’ve run the other way, but that’s not who you are. You’re a beautiful woman, but the true beauty that shines from you comes from the inside.”
He shook his head. “I don’t deserve such selfless love. I can’t imagine how I deserve you. But if you’ll let me, I want to spend the rest of my life trying to live up to half of what you somehow see in me.”
Warm tears started to stream down my face.
“Annalise O’Neil, I want to argue with you every day at the office and make up with you every night in our bed. I want to fill your belly with crazy-haired little blond babies who look just like you and overflow our home with happiness. I want to grow old with you. So, will you not be my girlfriend and do me the honor of being my fiancée this Valentine’s Day instead?”
I dropped to the floor, almost knocking him over as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Yes. Yes.” I kissed his face again and again. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Bennett steadied us and pressed his lips to mine. His thumbs wiped the tears from my eyes. “Thank you for loving me even when I hated myself.”
My heart let out a big sigh. That’s the thing about love. We don’t fall in love with the perfect person; we fall in love despite a person’s imperfections.
“I love you,” I said.
He lifted my hand and slipped a beautiful emerald-cut diamond on my finger. “I didn’t see you coming, Texas. Didn’t see you coming.”
“That’s okay.” I smiled. “Because you’ll never see me going now, either.”