Adrian made a low noise in his throat. “Holding on isn’t much of an option right now.”
He stripped off his shirt, filling my finger-frame with his ripped torso and hungry green eyes. Even as he came to the bed and started to undress me, I found my thoughts drifting to last year. I was terrified of leaving the Coleton life behind because I feared my father was right. Maybe all I really was good for would be to get married off to one of the sons of his business buddies. Or maybe I’d get out in the real world and find I had no place in it—that all I was the whole time was just a wallflower.
Except here I was.
Adrian Terranova was peeling the clothes off me like I was a gift he’d been waiting to unwrap all year. I’d just played an instrumental part in righting some of the wrongs my father had been carrying out his whole life. I’d proven I was more than he thought.
“Hey,” Adrian said. He kissed my chin, then locked eyes with me. “I see your mind drifting. Get back here. Be with me.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice. I hooked my fingers behind his neck and pulled him in for a deep kiss.
41
Epilogue - Adrian
One Year Later
Juliette and I decided to get married in the Italian countryside. We wanted a small wedding, but the venue was still incredible. The place reminded me of the screen saver on my old Windows computer. It was all vibrant green rolling hills and crystal blue skies. We were staying at an old manor estate that had been converted into a sort of hotel slash museum.
Our group rented the place out and we had enough room for all our guests to stay there. I’d invited Noah, Travis, and Jordan. Juliette invited Lythe, Anastasia, and her mom. Once we moved back to North Carolina, Jules had reconnected with her friend, Anastasia, and started hanging out with Lythe regularly. The three of them all launched a new business together, too. The concept was that people could rent personal assistants for short windows every day or even on a one-off basis. It turned out to be wildly popular.
Smaller businesses without the budget for full time assistants and larger places with temporary needs swooped in immediately and Jules’ business had been forced to keep growing to keep up. Now they were a bustling company with over seventy employees and getting bigger every day. More importantly, she was genuinely happy.
I found I hardly thought about Russ Coleton or Coleton Enterprises anymore. Noah had mostly taken over finalizing the demolition of everything Russ Coleton stood for. It had taken just over seven months to get him convicted and behind bars for a minimum of thirty years. It stung a little that it was the financial crimes that got him in far more legal trouble than the crimes against humanity, but I decided punishment was punishment. Coleton Enterprises was financially devastated, just as we’d predicted. Investors raced to sell their shares, value plummeted, pending foreign deals collapsed, and Coleton found itself having to sell off parts of itself to survive. But Coleton was never built to exist as anything but an ever-expanding giant. Once it lost its hold on the market, competitors stepped in to push them out.
The cream on top was the article written about it all that attributed Coleton’s fall to corruption. Maybe it wasn’t going to really mean anything in the long run, but I knew it was my legacy. That article would be the monument I’d leave behind to remind CEOs what can happen if they think they’re too big and powerful to get caught.
But all of that felt like another life already.
I was sitting in a vaulted stone hall with roaring fires on either end in elaborate hearths. The room was filled with laughter and conversation as my friends and Jules’ talked. Our wedding was tomorrow, and I was damn happy to know I’d put the last ring on her finger and make sure the whole fucking world knew she was off limits. She’d be mine.
Jordan nudged me. “This place is beautiful. You did good.”
“Jules gave me a very clear idea of what she wanted. I just found it.”
“Well, it’s gorgeous. If I ever tie the knot, I may steal it and just use this venue, too.”
I grinned. “Jordan Terranova talking about marriage? Are my ears working correctly?”
She smiled. “I don’t know. It has a little appeal to it. You know, now that I’m not consumed by the need for revenge every waking minute.”
“It’s funny how that changes your perspective, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Now I’m just realizing how all the men I know are either your friends, shitty, or both.”
I chuckled. “Being my friend means you wouldn’t date them?”