I looked around at our room. “This place is ours, and I couldn’t do it anywhere else.”
She turned around in my embrace. She lightly fingered the green pocket square I’d stuffed into my suit. “You still have this?”
It was wrinkled, stained with blood, but yeah. I wasn’t about to throw it out.
“Grayson, I…” Her brow caved, and she held out Sonnet. “I don’t know if I can do this holding her.”
I pulled her into my arms. “Do what?”
“I’ve spent a month trying to think of the best way to do this… Everything feels so…underwhelming.” Her wide eyes met mine, pleading. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry this isn’t epic. I’m sorry it’s so much less than you deserve. I wanted to light the sky on fire for you. But each day, every idea felt worse. And I can’t go another fucking day waiting…so…”
My heart pounded with the sadness in her eyes, the hopelessness.
I was ready to tear apart whoever made her look like that.
“Snitch?”
Suddenly she dropped to her knees, hand holding mine.
My heart pounded. “What are you doing?”
She smiled at me, beautiful, white, and bright. “I’ve been thinking about my uncle’s wish a lot. His wish was for mine to come true…and it did. My wish was you. My wish was her. My wish was family. I know he wanted me to leave Crowne Hall, but that was because he never saw what you made it. My uncle loved you. He saw you before I did. He always used to say you were a sweet boy who was forced to grow thorns.” She swallowed, tears marbling her eyes. “You ripped out the thorns vining Crowne Hall. You made this place beautiful and bright again. I think he would be more than happy, I think he would be proud. Grayson Crowne, will you marry me?”
I exhaled.
Fuck.
“You fucked up my proposal, Snitch.”
STORY
Before I could say a word, Grayson dropped to his knees with me, pressing his forehead to mine, our child cushioned between us.
“I came here to propose to you, little wife.”
“Did you really?” My smile stretched my cheeks.
He shifted Sonnet and reached into his breast pocket, pulling out something thin and glass-blown.
“It’s a pen. Hand-blown. You have to dip it in ink to draw anything with it. Without ink it’s…unfinished.”
“The ink you gave me,” I said, touching my locket.
“Like the pen and the ink, I don’t work without you, Story Hale. I’ve broken thousands of promises to you. We’ve tied our knot thousands of different ways. Our love will always have a stain. Everyone will always see you as my mistress, as the girl who broke up my marriage. Everyone will always see me as the man who left his pregnant wife.
“I wanted to give you a perfect happily ever after, a perfect love, but you taught me that’s fantasy. What I want most—what I need—is you, us, this. So…will you love me imperfectly ever after? Ugly ever after? Sadly and hatefully and angrily ever after?”
I nodded crazily, my words stuck in my throat.
Too happy to speak.
He gripped my neck. “Say it.”
I exhaled the butterflies in my stomach. “Yes.”
“For real,” Grayson said. “Forever?”
“Forever, Grayson Crowne. For always.” God, that was like a weight off my chest.
Tears fell, and with them a heaviness, an ache, that had built, flowed out of me, and I could breathe. He thumbed my tears, a delicious smile spreading his cheeks, the dimples feathering with it.
“That’s my girl.” Then he kissed me, rough, slow, and with a closed mouth.
I wanted to crush myself against him, but we were careful to keep Sonnet safe.
And somehow that made it even more perfect, because it was another reminder of everything we had.
Our family.
He licked his lips. “From this day on, you don’t leave my side, do you understand? You’re in my bed every night, you’re beside me for breakfast, you’re mine. You’re home.”
“Yes.” It was all I could say as happiness choked my throat. “Yes.”
Home.
This moment finally belonged to me.
My love story was just beginning.
Eighty
THE EPILOGUE
STORY
Grayson Crowne watched me from across the limousine, eyes sultry and half-lidded. Our wedding had ended hours ago.
Pink petal smile only on me.
We were on the cover of every magazine—Grayson, Sonnet, and I. It was strange, remembering how just months ago newspapers were plastered with A NEW ERA OF CROWNE.
This felt like the real beginning.
As if he knew what I was thinking, he slowly got back up, sitting on the other seat. His tongue pushed against a crooked smile—a cocky, arrogant, Grayson Crowne smile. No matter how