“I told myself to let you go,” he said. “When I decided I couldn’t accept the CEO position this way, I told myself you deserved better than a guy just starting his career over from scratch. You deserve the guy at the top, the guy with the jet, the champagne, the yacht… You deserve the best. And so I was going to step aside, give you back the life you had before I came in and ruined everything.”
“You didn’t ruin everything,” Violet whispered.
Cain moved cautiously closer. “No?”
Silently, Violet lifted her left hand. Her unadorned left hand.
Cain stared at it a moment, then looked back at her. “You said no.”
“I said no.”
“Because Keith’s a tool?”
She smiled. “That. And other reasons.”
“What other reasons?”
Her heart crumpled a little at the memory of his office. “You told me not to say. That you couldn’t bear it.”
“I was wrong,” he said roughly. “I realized tonight that not hearing it is what I won’t be able to bear. Please,” he said, his voice pleading, sliding a hand to the back of her neck. “Please.”
“I love you,” Violet whispered.
His eyes squeezed shut.
“I lied, you know,” Cain said gruffly, rubbing his thumbs along her jaw tenderly. “When I told you I didn’t want the wife, the kids, the picnics in Central Park.”
“You did?”
He nodded. “I do love picnics.”
Violet punched his chest, and he laughed and pulled her closer. His laugh faded as he rested his forehead on hers. “I lied because I only ever wanted those things after I met you. And I was…” Cain swallowed. “I thought maybe if I could talk myself out of wanting all that, it wouldn’t hurt so much if you didn’t want them with me.”
“Cain.” Violet placed her hand on his cheek. “I want them with you. But… your life in New Orleans. Your work, your apartment…”
“Will always be important to me,” Cain said. “But as a part of my past. I love New Orleans, and I’ll go back whenever I can. But to visit. Not stay. I’m ready for a new challenge. A new life. Maybe…” He cleared his throat. “A new wife?”
Violet wrapped her fingers around each side of his tie. “Does this mean you’re my guy after all?” she teased.
His eyes closed, then he inhaled a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, they looked shinier than before. “Damn it, Duchess. I am so in love with you. Yeah. Hell yeah, I’m your guy.”
Violet lifted to her toes to brush her lips over his. “I sure as hell hope so. Because I’m going to be your girl for the rest of my life.”
Epilogue
Daddy! My turn, my turn!”
“It most certainly is not your turn,” Cain said from the piano bench, scooping up three-year-old Marla onto his knee. “It’s Emily’s turn to play. But I appreciate your bullish negotiating skills. You take after Great-Grandma.”
“Don’t flatter the girl with compliments, Cain. It’ll go straight to her head,” Edith said, as she entered the parlor armed with cookies and lemonade. “Emily, love, that’s wonderful. You play better every time I hear you.”
“That’s because she prax-tixed,” Marla said around a mouthful of cookie.
“And Marla doesn’t,” Emily said with big-sister superiority.
“You didn’t practice much when you were her age either, sweetheart,” Violet said, bending to kiss the top of Emily’s head. She caught Cain’s eyes over their daughter’s dark ponytail and felt her stomach flip when he smiled at her.
Several years married, and she still got butterflies around the man.
The moment was interrupted by two-year-old Dandelion, a clumsy golden retriever that rammed into the back of Violet’s knees while being chased by a gleefully barking Coco, who was rocking the hell out of her old age.
It wasn’t a peaceful existence, but it was a happy one that had exceeded Violet’s expectations on every level.
“I didn’t miss presents yet, did I?”
“Presents!” Emily screamed, whirling away from the piano and remembering the reason they were all there—her birthday. “Did you get me something, Great-Grandpa?”
“Of course, I did, sweetheart. You like turnips, right?”
Edith had met Joe Kaplan at a social club for single people struggling to settle into retired life, and they’d married just a few months after they began dating. As Edith had pragmatically pointed out, at her age, there was no time to waste.
Violet and Cain were thrilled for them, but nobody was perhaps quite as happy as Alvin. Joe was a retired physician, which meant Alvin had access to a doctor who was all too happy to keep his medical training alive and well for all of Alvin’s ailments.
Edith had found a way to ease into retirement as well. Cain had asked her to be his official mentor, an arrangement that had not only given their relationship a chance to blossom, but had resulted in Cain being voted in as CEO—unanimously—just a year after the first vote. Keith had been encouraged to resign after it had quickly become clear he was far more interested in the label of CEO than he was in the job itself.