it again hadn’t worn off. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing you say that.”
“What, that I love you?”
I stopped him on the sidewalk and leaned up to kiss him. His lips tasted like salted peanut butter and chocolate. “Yes, that you love me. Don’t ever stop, okay?”
A phone buzzed and we both moved to see if it was mine or his. “It’s mine,” he said. He looked at his phone, then looked to me. “It’s the attorney.”
I stilled. The attorney was the attorney who had filed an anonymous whistleblower complaint against LeFranc with the IRS on our behalf.
Alex stared at his phone but made no move to answer it. “Alex, answer it,” I urged, startling him out of his stupor.
He gave his head a little shake and swiped across the screen to answer the call.
I listened to Alex’s half of the conversation, wishing we were in a place private enough for him to put the call on speaker.
“Right,” Alex said. “I do understand. No, that is . . . we didn’t expect it at all, but that’s, that’s amazing news.”
My pulse quickened. What was amazing news?
Alex hung up the phone and turned to face me, his eyes wide with excitement. “You’re never going to believe it.”
“What? Believe what?”
He looked around the busy street. “You need to be sitting down. Come on.” He grabbed my hand and led me down Broad Street and into Washington Square where we found a bench shaded by a sprawling live oak tree.
“Alex, what is going on? What did the attorney say?”
He took a deep breath and I noticed his hands were shaking. “LeFranc was found guilty of tax evasion. Over the past several years, they’ve hidden almost 50 million dollars from the government.”
“Wow. So the twelve million we found in Sasha’s accounts was only part of it.”
“Right. That’s a lot of back taxes and fees they owe the IRS.”
Realization dawned and I swallowed, my hands suddenly trembling to match Alex’s. We hadn’t filed a whistleblower complaint against LeFranc for our own gain. We’d done it because it was the right thing to do; because the company had been defrauding its employees, its investors, its customers for too long. But we’d always known it was a possibility; that the IRS often awarded whistleblowers a percentage of the back taxes and fees owed as a result of the filed complaint.
I took a slow, deep breath. “How much?”
Alex started to laugh. “3.3 million dollars.”
I closed my eyes. Then opened them. Then closed them and pressed my palms to my face. Beside me, Alex still laughed. “I think it’s time you quit your job, Dani. You’ve got a design brand to launch, and now you’ve got the capital to do it.”
Tears filled my eyes and I leaned forward, pressing kisses to Alex’s lips and cheeks and ears and eyebrows. “Hey, Alex?” I said between kisses.
“Hmmm?” he answered, his lips finding mine. This kiss lasted longer than the others, long enough that a tour guide starting her tour at the foot of the George Washington statue looming in front of us cleared her throat until we separated, then shot us a scolding look.
My cheeks flushed, but I didn’t let go of Alex. I placed my hands on his cheeks and leaned my forehead against his. “Let’s get married,” I said softly.
He stilled. “What?”
“Marry me.”
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t want to live with Isaac anymore. I want a house. And a husband. And a baby with blue eyes and another baby with brown eyes and I don’t want to wait anymore.”
He smiled and kissed me again, causing another round of throat-clearing from the tour guide. “Oh, knock it off,” Alex said, and I laughed. He always sounded more Southern when he was annoyed. “We just decided to get married. We’ll kiss if we damn well please.”
And we did. That day. And on our wedding day. On the day I sold my first wedding dress and the day I opened my own shop on King Street. On the day our twins were born. (Both with brown eyes, stupid genetics.) On Isaac’s wedding day. On the day of my very first runway show in New York. On the day Paige and Reese moved back to Charleston full-time and on the day our twins started kindergarten. On the day Chase and Darius finally adopted a gorgeous (blue-eyed, of course) baby girl.
But more importantly, we kissed on all of the awful, hellish days that came in between the shiny, memorable moments.
Even when it was hard.
Even when we hated the world, and sometimes even when we hated each other.
Those were the kisses that mattered most of all.
THE END
Acknowledgments
If I’ve learned anything over the past ten years, it’s that the process of breathing life into a book is never the same. This book will always be special to me for personal reasons and I hope it means something to you, too. Jolene, you read it first and told me it was good enough to keep working on it. Your insight, as always, was priceless. Melanie, I don’t think I could do anyt hing in publishing without your input. I value your opinion next to my own. Thank you for answering the countless texts, Facebook messages, and emails. Emily, the other half of my brain, my words will always be better because of you. Tiffany, Suesan, Wendy, Cindy, Brittany, thank you for beta reading and offering suggestions that tightened and polished the story. Camille, thank you for proofreading. It is second to none! Willete, your ability to interpret my abundance of emails and turn my thoughts and (often misguided) opinions into such a gorgeous cover is a testament to your brilliance. You’ve earned my loyalty to Red Leaf Cover Designs for life. To my team at Four Petal Press, walking this road with you all is the BEST. I feel lucky to call you my friends and associates. To my kids, who are endlessly patient as I balance life and writing, thank you for getting me, for understanding me, for embracing the good and the bad of this job that I do. Josh, you’re the reason I can write love stories—why I believe that love CAN change the world. Because your love changes mine every day.