Page 109 of Beautiful Monster

“What about George?” she cries, tears streaming.

“We’ll bring him with.” I laugh. “He’ll love it there. And then after Belize, we’ll go to the next place, and the next place. And as long as you’re there, I’m there.”

As she sinks into my arms, I try to process how this happened. And why the fuck I ever fought it. Sunny may be younger than me, but I wasted most of my life waiting for happiness to find me. I just never expected I would find it right next door.

EPILOGUE

SUNNY

A little over a year later…

“God, it’s so good to be home,” I moan, rolling over to wrap my arms around his torso. He’s already awake and has been for over an hour. He’s always up before me, answering emails on his phone and putting out fires before he’s even had his coffee.

“Yes, it is,” he mumbles, putting his phone down on the stand and rolling me over to trace kisses down my neck.

Wrapping my legs around his waist, I try to ease him into place. I love how he’s always ready to go every morning.

“Why, Mrs. Caldwell,” he groans, shifting his body to meet mine.

“Promise me we’ll start every day like this,” I hum as he grinds his hips against me.

“I think as long as you stay on the pill, that won’t be a problem.” He peels my clothes off slowly, and I silently think about him filling me with his seed. How eagerly I would trade in the luxury of morning sex for the chance to carry a little piece of him inside me. But I promised him at least five years. So, for now I’ll enjoy my orgasms before nine a.m.

As he fills the space between my legs, I look up at him and think about the first time I saw him, standing across the yard. I take myself back to the early days of our forbidden love, when the idea of being together tore us apart. I relive the moments that led up to this, when we fell in love, fell apart, and found each other again.

He settles his weight on my body, burying his face in my neck and wrapping his arms around me so that we are entangled and practically one. Our bodies move in a sensual rhythm until his ecstasy is mine and mine is his.

After we’ve both finished, I trace my fingers along the skin of his back. Neither of us move for a long time.

“I love you,” he murmurs against my cheek.

Then, he places a kiss on my head and rolls over until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from me. “It’s strange to be back here,” he says, staring down at the ring on his finger.

“You worried?” I ask, reaching out and holding his hand in mine. I was afraid that returning home would be difficult for him. This town holds too many difficult memories for him, of things he’s done and who he used to be. For so long, Alex lived up to people’s expectations of him, mostly when they underestimated him. If he’s back here, will he fall into that same old routine?

We talked a lot about settling down somewhere else. With every place we visited and talked about staying, the decision just kept coming back to this house. This is our home, where our love was born.

When he looks back at me, the morning sun bright behind him, I take a mental picture of how beautiful he is in this moment. With a glowing tan and a thick beard, he doesn’t look like the defeated man I met two years ago. He’s aged, comfortable in his own skin like he never was before.

“Not worried at all, rain cloud.”

His phone rings, but he ignores it as he leans down to press his lips to mine.

“You can answer that,” I whisper because I can tell he wants to. We’re supposed to be on vacation from work, but Alexander loves his work. I see the way it fulfills him and how it’s built back a piece of him that was broken.

“Thank you,” he murmurs against my mouth before he jumps up and grabs his phone from the nightstand.

“Tell Joachim this is technically our honeymoon,” I call as Alex disappears into the en suite bathroom.

“He knows.” Alex laughs. “I’m the one bugging him.”

George jumps onto the bed and cuddles with me, purring by my head while he waits patiently for his breakfast.

Before Alex emerges from the bathroom in his running clothes, I climb out of bed and put on a robe, carrying George in my arms. The view from my bedroom window, the one that crosses the yard to my old house, stops me. The large picture window overlooks our pool, the pool house, and the yard that is now owned by a young family with three little ones, who all look like they’re eagerly awaiting their chance to dive into the water.

In the dead of summer, I bet they’re out there every morning. Alexander and I have only been home for a week now, and not a day has gone by that I haven’t heard them out there.

We decided to keep the house during our year abroad. Cadence happily looked after the place while we were gone. Mom decided to sell the house not long after we left anyway, so my sister took the opportunity to live on her own until she saved up enough for her own place.