EPILOGUE
Lori
Sunday morning, Cole and I show up at Cat and Reese’s house. Cat opens the door and I hold out my hand. She squeals and hugs me. When she looks at Cole, she laughs. “You were such an ass here yesterday, I thought you were going to blow this, Cole Brooks.”
He laughs. “You and me both, Cat.”
A few minutes later, we are standing at the kitchen island with Reese and Cat, talking about our options. “We could just say fuck it, tell everyone this is how it is, and just move on,” Cole says.
“You could,” Reese says. “She’s with us. Her performance is what matters.”
“But,” Cat says. “If her scholarship is pulled, it looks bad and it will feel bad.”
“I do feel bad about taking money someone else needs,” I say. “I desperately needed this. Others do too.”
“I have an idea,” Cole says, looking at Reese. “You know a higher-up on the committee. What about proposing she keeps her status in the program, but we, me specifically, fund her scholarship.”
“What do you think?” Cat asks, looking at Reese.
“They like being behind superstars,” he says. “I don’t think we should tell them that you’re getting married. We want to keep her at the firm, so we feel we should fund her scholarship to honor the program. However, she doesn’t want to lose it and she’s willing to move to another firm in the program, with us still paying.”
“Move?” I ask. “I really don’t want to move.” I look at Cole. “What do you think?”
“This is your career,” he says. “You really want this honor and deserve it. You can come back.”
“Oh God,” I breathe out. “This is so real now. I just need to know how this is going to happen.” I look around the room. “How do we do this? How soon can we find out?”
“I can call my guy now,” Reese says, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’ll be right back.”
I press my hands to my face. Cole turns me to face him. “If you go elsewhere, you can come back,” he repeats. “Or not. Where you work is not what matters.”
“I like working with you. We work well together.”
“We can still work well together. We’ll always have each other to game plan with.”
“He’s right,” Cat says. “It works for me and Reese.”
Reese walks back into the room. “He says he knows we can work it out. We’re paying after all. Or Cole’s paying.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“He said they’ll get back to us.”
Cole slides his arm around my waist. “And so, we wait.”
“What about the engagement?” Cat says. “Secret or not?”
“Cole and I have been talking about this for hours on end,” I say. “I’m afraid if we keep it a secret and then suddenly say, ‘Surprise, we’re getting married’ it hurts the trust with the staff, and not just with me, but with Cole. But what can we do? It feels like we’ll make a public service announcement if we speak up.”
“Well, hell,” Reese says. “Just leave the ring at home, keep it out of the office, and send everyone a wedding announcement when she has her degree or right before the wedding or whenever it feels right. If someone figures it out, they do.”
His phone rings and he glances at the number. “It’s him again.” He answers the call, listens and says, “I’ll find out what they want to do.” He disconnects. “They called the firm next in line. They want Lori if she wants to come. Or she can stay here.”
My stomach knots. “I have to go.”
“What?” Cole turns me to face him. “No. You don’t.”
“I do. I don’t want to take my ring off or hide. I want to have lunch with you. I want to kiss you when I want to kiss you and I just want to be free. I can come back. I will come back if you both will have me. And then it won’t matter. I will have proven myself outside of the office.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “Okay. Okay then, that’s what we’ll do.” He pulls back and looks at Reese. “Tell them.”
Reese makes the call. “You can come back,” he says. “You damn sure better come back. Our competition doesn’t get to keep you.”
“I will,” I say, and I turn to Cole. “I will. Now, let’s go see my mother and talk about that wedding date.”
Hours later, we sit with my mother and Joe at the hospital coffee shop, laughing and life is good. A new adventure is ahead of us all. Better times have arrived. I feel it. I know it and when I look at Cole, I see that he does, too.
***
Four months later…
I walk out of the firm where I’ve been working at to finish my program, to find Cole leaning on his BMW, looking like a sex god in one of his three-piece suits, his ankles crossed, his hands on the black hood. He smiles when he sees me, and God, I love his smile. I smile, too. I rush toward him and he grabs me and twirls me around. “You did it, sweetheart,” he whispers, because I’m now a real attorney.
He sits me down and he cups my face, kissing me. “Everyone is excited to have you back at the office. And with the trial delays, you’re just in time to help me get our professor off.”
“Did you get a new date?”
“A month from now, and I think I should open and you should close.”
“You want me to do the closing statement?”
“We need to end with a woman and you wrote the closing statement that just won that firm a massive case.” He kisses me again. “Let’s get to work. We have a case to win and when it’s over, we’re getting married.”
***
Cole
Six months later…
I sit at the courtroom table watching Lori as she works the jury and the courtroom. She is beautiful, but she has this quality, this girl next door vibe, that everyone can trust. The girl next door that is passionate not just in the bedroom, but in everything she does. In everyone she defends. “I leave you with this,” she says. “How will you sleep at night if you do what the prosecution asks of you? If you ignore the lack of evidence and convict our client? If you give—no, bless—law enforcement with permission to quit looking for the real rapist and killer? If someone else is brutalized, raped, and killed? How will you live with yourself? I know I can’t. I pray that I have convinced you to make them keep looking. Please tell law enforcement they don’t get to quit. Tell them they have to keep looking and you do that by ruling Edward Sullivan not guilty.”
She rests her closing and walks back to the table and pride swells inside me. We’re going to win, and that closing did it.
A few minutes later, we stand outside the courtroom and Lori paces. “Was I good enough?”
“Sweetheart, you were brilliant. If I was up against that, I’d be shitting my pants.”
Her cell phone buzzes and she pulls it from her pocket to read the text out loud: You’re brilliant. I just saw you on TV. I’m writing about you in my column and I don’t care that we’re connected. Everyone else is going to say the same thing. You made it, honey. All on your own.
She looks up at me, her eyes brimming with appreciation. “Not on my own. You have helped me every step of the way.”
“You just helped me win this case,” I say, not about to let her downplay what she’s done. “Who helped who?”
My phone buzzes and my lips curve. “Look at that. The jury is back in twenty minutes.”
She pales. “Oh God. We lost.”
I laugh. “We won. I’ve never been so sure.”
A few minutes later, I prove I’m right and so is Cat. Lori is brilliant. The verdict is not guilty.
***
Two weeks later…
Lori is wearing a stunning pink gown and I’m in a tuxedo as we exit the church with confetti being thrown at us. A private car waits a few feet away and it’s not long until I have her in the backseat, kissing her. “Mrs. Brooks,” I whisper.
“I can’t believe we did it.”
“I can’t believe we finally did it. Now, we go on our honeymoon.”
“You still haven’t told me where. Is it Italy, Paris, or Germany?”
“All of the above,” I say. “I want to see it all with you, Lori.”
“What about work?”
“Work can wait. We cannot. Not ever again.”
I kiss her, one of the many kisses I plan to give her for the rest of our lives, every wall dividing us now gone, forever.
THE END
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Already finished with the Dirty Rich series and ready for something else? After the sexy excerpt of Dirty Rich One Night Stand is an even sexier excerpt of Pulled Under, the second standalone book in my Walker Security series! Keep reading to meet Sierra and Asher!