Epilogue - Luna

Wow.

Ryder had said Emmy Black's home was big, but this…this was more like a castle. My whole Vegas mansion would have fit in the ballroom. Actually, it wasn't my mansion anymore. Mom and I had finally reached an agreement, or rather our lawyers had. She'd keep the house, and I'd get Stargirl. Which meant I'd keep my royalties, my masters, my trademarks, and all of my copyrights, and those meant more to me than a property I'd have sold anyway.

The Richmond house was smaller, but there was still plenty of space, even with five of us living there. Not that I'd seen much of Slater. He'd joined us for dinner on my first night in the city, then disappeared until he showed up at the party tonight. Knox and Ryder were around when they weren't out saving the world, and Caro had been working from home to keep me company.

I'd barely stepped over the ballroom's threshold when a man rushed over and crushed me in a hug. Turquoise hair and sneakers, gold jumpsuit, no boundaries…

"You must be Bradley?"

"OMG, how did you know?"

Because literally everyone had warned me about him. Emmy had sent an email apologising for the party before I even received the invite. Bad taste, she called it, but it was okay. I didn't have PTSD, not from the Egyptian stuff. No, the real trauma had come from Julius, and Mark Antony had taken care of that problem for me. The goat-milk bath and the House in the Woods? That was just a story I'd tell my grandkids someday.

"A lucky guess."

Bradley held my hand up to the light and examined my rings, the pretty solitaire diamond and the plain wedding band. The designs had been dissected online and deemed "boring," but I loved the simplicity of them. Just as I loved the man who'd put them on my finger.

Ryder was at my back, and Bradley took a step to the side to study him.

"Didn't you read the invite? Where's your costume?"

"I have hieroglyphics on my T-shirt."

"Well, that's a cop-out. At least your wife understood the assignment."

Phew, at least my thigh-length toga dress passed muster.

"How is what you're wearing Egyptian?" Ryder asked.

"If the pharaohs had lived in the twenty-first century, this is totally what they would have worn." Another man approached, this one dressed in a linen kilt, a beaded necklace, and leather flip-flops. Bradley slipped an arm around his waist. "This is Miles."

Not quite what I'd been expecting. Emmy had told me he was super dull. But I'd been looking forward to meeting him because she also said he'd helped in my rescue.

I held out a hand. "Luna Metcalfe, and this is my husband, Ryder."

It felt so good to say that.

"Miles Bradley. Ryder and I have spoken before." His face creased into a puzzled frown. "The hot chicken?"

"Huh?"

"The shirt. It says ‘I am hot chicken, I sleep with donkeys' or something along those lines. I can translate hieroglyphs reasonably well, but I'm not fluent."

"Shit," Ryder muttered under his breath as I started laughing. He peeled off the shirt, balled it up, and tossed it over his shoulder, where it hit a pretty brunette in a dress that was a longer version of mine. She was heading in our direction with Emmy. Ryder upgraded the "shit" to "fuck," and I laughed harder.

"Bradley, leave Luna alone. Ryder, meet your new colleague. Bront?, this is Ryder Metcalfe and his lovely new wife. He's been on secondment with the Vegas office for a few months."

Bront? held out the shirt. "You dropped this."

"Uh, thanks."

Emmy was dressed in the most risqué costume of all, a beaded dress that was mostly see-through. I'd worn a lot of stupid outfits, but I wasn't sure I'd have dared to venture out in public like that, even in my crazy days.

"Did Egyptian women really wear that stuff?" I asked.

I didn't miss the glare she cast in Bradley's direction. "Apparently so."

The biggest man I'd ever seen glided up to her. Black, her husband. I'd met him in San Gallicano. "Just don't bend over, Diamond, or I might have to kill somebody."

I was only half-sure he was joking.

The group moved on, leaving Ryder and me with Miles, and I took a moment to savour the silence.

"I just wanted to say thanks for helping with…you know. The Mark Antony situation."

"You're welcome. From what I hear, it was a tragedy all around. You never met Julia Strand, but she was quite a woman, and to die the way she did… I wouldn't be surprised if her passing upset Mr. Hebert deeply."

"He talked about her often while we were in Utah. Did you know her well?"

"Not well enough to call her a friend, but we enjoyed several fascinating conversations over the years. I specialise in the New Kingdom, while she focused on more recent times."

"So the New Kingdom wasn't recent?"

"It was relatively new. We're talking over a thousand years BC."

"And Cleopatra died in thirty BC?"

"Someone's been studying." Miles looked pleased. "Yes, in terms of timeline, we're closer to the Founding Fathers than Cleopatra was to the New Kingdom. I think you would have found Julia an interesting woman to talk with, at least in her heyday. She withdrew from public life in recent years."

"Right, the whole tomb curse thing."

"Tomb curse?"

"Mark Antony said she freaked out when she found it."

"And this tomb belonged to…?"

"To Antony and Cleopatra."

"Let me get this straight… The man who kidnapped you, he claimed that Julia found Antony and Cleopatra's final resting place?" Miles shook his head. "Impossible. She would have told the world."

"No, someone died there, so she just sealed everything up and left. I mean, I guess he could have been lying, but he had a photo on his phone."

"A photo?"

"Gold busts on stone pillars and a bunch of hieroglyphics." Now Miles had the strangest look in his eyes. "What?"

"If that's true, it would be the find of the century. No, the millennium. An intact tomb with not only an Egyptian queen but a Roman general too? Did he say where it was?"

"No, he literally mentioned it once and showed me the picture."

"Where is this picture now? What happened to his phone?"

"Who knows? It was somewhere in the house when I left, and I never went back."

Miles stared at me for a long moment. "Excuse me. I need to speak with Emmy."

"Sure, whatever."

Ryder chuckled as Miles speed-walked across the ballroom. "You knew about a lost tomb, and you never said anything?"

"Is it that important? I mean, the police only asked me about the kidnapping stuff."

"Miles seems to think so."

"Shouldn't the dead rest in peace?"

"The answer to that depends on whether you're a priest or an archaeologist. Come on, let's get something to eat."

The buffet was big enough to feed a small country, and we ran into Slater by the falafel, which was piled high in a replica sarcophagus. Okay, now I understood Emmy's "bad taste" comment. Slater was busy typing on his phone, and he barely glanced up as I reached past him to get a plate.

"Arranging this evening's booty call?" Ryder asked him.

"Huh? No. My sister wants me to do her a favour."

"Does it involve tossing her fiancé out of a moving vehicle?"

From what I'd heard, nobody liked Slater's sister's fiancé.

"Unfortunately no. Her friend just lost her husband, and the friend lives in Virginia, so Blair wants me to check she's okay."

"Was there nobody else available? Nobody at all?"

"Apparently not."

Slater held up his phone, and I squinted to read the message. Reading was getting easier now. Books were actually pretty cool.

Blair

If there was literally anyone else within 300 miles, I wouldn't be asking you to do this.

Blair

Do not put the moves on her.

Blair

You know what? I'll just Uber her some groceries.

Blair

No, that's too shitty. You take the groceries and tell Dahlia I'm thinking of her.

Blair

P.S. She has a little girl. Take some toys too.

Ryder's turn to laugh. "Good luck, man. Have you ever talked to a woman without fucking her?"

"My mom, my sister, and both of my grandmas. And Emmy, obviously." Slater gifted me a heart-stopping smile. "And your lovely wife."

Ryder shoved him back a foot. "Get out of here."

"Your sister can't go to see her friend?" I asked Slater.

"Blair's in Australia at the moment. What the hell am I supposed to buy for a little girl?"

Ryder shrugged one shoulder. "Go ask Ana. She has one."

"Tabby's favourite toy is a crossbow. I don't know much about kids, but I'm pretty sure that isn't normal."

"How about a colouring book?" I suggested. "Or a doll?"

"And pick up a cock cage so you don't stick your dick somewhere it shouldn't go," Ryder told him.

"Asshole," Slater muttered as he headed for the door.

"You think we should help?" I asked Ryder. "That's so sad. The idea of losing… No, I'm not going to think about it. We could send flowers?"

"Slater can handle it. We joke around, but even he wouldn't be enough of a prick to hit on a grieving widow."

I tried to enjoy the party, but the fun was tinged with sadness. There was so much loss in the world. My therapist said that although none of my family had died, I was still grieving in my own way because everything I'd once known was gone. No matter that my new life was better, I still needed time to process the changes. But I'd get there. Tonight was another step in the healing process, the first event I'd ever been to where people weren't staring at me and whispering behind their hands. I was a nobody, and it felt…weird. Almost disappointing, but I knew Dr. Beaudin would say that was only because I'd been conditioned to think that way. And the anonymity was pretty cool. It meant I could eat as much falafel as I wanted without someone calling me Miss Piggy and turning me into a meme with oinking sounds over the top. In fact, I hadn't seen a single person taking pictures this evening.

The wine flowed generously too, and at least there were plenty of bathrooms here. I wasn't sure I'd ever live down the peeing-during-a-rescue thing. Bradley had given me a map of the house with the bathrooms marked, but when Ryder saw me studying it upside down, he dipped out of his conversation to show me the way to the nearest one. And maybe more. I recognised the hunger in his eyes, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. Now that the dam had been broken, we were having sex three times a day, and the man had stamina.

"Where's that music coming from?" I asked as we stole along dimly lit hallways. Riverley Hall was a maze and kind of ugly, and if Ryder hadn't been beside me, I might have gotten creeped out. There was a cover band in the ballroom, but this was something different. Just a piano.

"Sounds like the music room. You want to see?"

I nodded, and Ryder steered me along a different hallway. How did he find his way around this place? I'd had a music room once, overlooking the pool with a big white grand piano in one corner. I used to sit there and sing for my socials, except I couldn't play the piano very well, so Jubilee added the sound afterward.

But this pianist was on a whole other level.

Pianists.

When I peeped through the doorway, I saw two people sitting at the piano—Emmy's husband and a Japanese lady not much bigger than me. They were each playing with one hand, and it was the first time I'd seen the giant's smile.

Emmy was there too, dancing with another blonde, her arms around the woman's neck and a glass of white wine in one hand. When they spun, I realised I recognised the blonde from the Cathouse. A few other people were in there too, seated on a big leather couch that faced the piano. I knew the piece they were playing. The tune was "Fastlove," but slowed down so it wasn't very fast at all.

I felt like a voyeur intruding on a private moment, and of course, Emmy saw me watching.

"Come in and join the party. Or don't. I don't care."

The blonde took a swallow from Emmy's glass and giggled, and I didn't know where to look. Emmy's dress had slipped, and there was more of her on show than there had been earlier. Thankfully, she was wearing pasties and a pair of flesh-coloured panties. I glanced back at Ryder. He didn't look entirely comfortable either, but I found myself taking a step forward. And singing. The one thing I felt entirely confident in was my voice, and the music spoke to my soul.

Emmy's head dropped against the blonde's shoulder, and how much had she had to drink? An acoustic guitar joined in, and Ryder lifted me to sit on the piano, keeping one arm around my waist even though there was no chance of me falling. The guitarist was a Black man whose face looked vaguely familiar, and Dan was sitting next to him on the arm of the couch, her feet bare, a bottle of red clutched in her hands. These people were all drunk, weren't they? I was in good company then, because I'd also been indulging all evening. Ryder had arranged for a car to take us home.

The third person on the couch swam into view, and I almost swallowed my tongue when I recognised him. It was a face I'd seen a hundred times but never in person. President James Harrison. It had to be a lookalike, right? The president wouldn't hang out at a party with his shirt half-unbuttoned and a glass in one hand. He looked quite at home, arms stretched out along the back of the couch, legs crossed in front of him. And his expression as he watched Emmy and the blonde dance was positively feral.

I started coughing, and the Japanese lady leapt up.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh, yes? Yes! Sorry."

She handed me a glass of water, and I took a long swallow, only to find it wasn't water at all. It was neat vodka, and now my throat was burning.

"Wrong glass?" Emmy asked as I gasped for air.

"Wrong glass," I choked out.

The Japanese woman gripped my arm. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"James, for fuck's sake, give her your water."

James? This was the president? A glass found its way into my hand, and I poured the contents down my throat, beyond relieved when the fire began to subside. Half of the water spilled over my dress, which turned translucent, and I wished Mark Antony had been the monster I'd first thought he was because if he'd killed me on the mountain, I wouldn't be dying of embarrassment right here, right now.

"You sure know how to make an entrance," Dan's boyfriend said. Or was he her fiancé now? I checked their hands. No rings.

"I was trying to find the bathroom."

"Did you get a map?" the president asked. "This fucking place needs signage."

"Have you met James?" Emmy asked.

"Of course I haven't met him. When would I ever have met him?"

He was the freaking president. Several years ago, Mom had written to the White House, offering for me to sing "Happy Birthday" Marilyn Monroe-style, which she didn't tell me about until after she'd done it. Nobody had ever replied, so now she voted for the other guy, but I'd been secretly relieved.

He held out a hand. "James."

"Yes, I got that." Dammit, think before you speak. All those pageants, and I'd left my poise back in Vegas. I tried a sort of curtsy, nearly landed on my ass, and cringed as Emmy and the blonde both fell about laughing. Luckily, Ryder caught me. "Shit! Uh, I'm Luna Maara. Luna Metcalfe. Luna Maara Metcalfe."

Could this get any worse?

"Pleasure to meet you, Luna Maara Metcalfe."

"Aren't you meant to be campaigning or something?" The election was next month, wasn't it?

His eyes twinkled, and his smile was devastating. "Do I have your vote?"

"Uh, yes?"

"Good. Now I can check campaigning off my list for tonight. I hear you recently got married?"

What? President Harrison knew who I was?

Thankfully, Ryder stepped in before I made an even bigger fool of myself. "Last week, sir. In Las Vegas. Got engaged one day and married the next."

"Congratulations to both of you, but skip the ‘sir.' This is the one place where I don't have to deal with that bullshit."

"Understood."

"Taking notes, Dan?" Black asked. "Just go to Vegas."

"Send me a ‘save the date,'" the president told her. "I'll have either all the time in the world or none whatsoever."

"Dan and Ethan got engaged six weeks ago," Emmy explained. "She's still wearing the ring on a chain around her neck because Bradley's gonna lose his fucking mind when he finds out."

Dan groaned. "He knows something's up. He caught me looking at dresses online last week."

"Uh-oh."

"I told him I was helping Hallie."

"So that's why he sent her a bunch of cake samples?" Emmy asked. "Hell, I'm gonna tell him that I'm getting married again."

Black's turn to groan. "Diamond, we already got married twice."

"Who said anything about marrying you? I was thinking of taking up polygamy."

The president raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

"Enough." Black rearranged Emmy's dress. "It's late, and James has an early start."

When Emmy didn't respond, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She blew President Harrison a kiss as they left.

"Laters, baby."

He let out a long breath. "Fuck my life."

Everyone began filtering out of the room, but Dan's fiancé paused before he left and handed me a card.

"I hear you parted ways with your record label?"

"They didn't like my boobs," I blurted.

What the hell is wrong with me tonight?

"I'm not going to comment on your body, but I do like your voice. If you're looking for a new deal, call me."

"You know people in the industry?"

"I have a studio near here."

Really? I glanced down at the card, curious.

ETHAN WHITE

Spectre Productions, Inc.

Ethan White…

The Ghost.

"But I thought you didn't want to work with me," I blurted.

"I didn't want to work with your mother."

"That made two of us."

He broke into a smile. "I hope to hear from you once you've settled in here."

I stared after him as he trailed Dan out of the room, my heart thumping in my chest.

"You should call him," Ryder said.

That was the strangest audition I'd ever had, but even through my alcohol-induced stupor, I felt excitement bubbling through my veins.

"I think I just might."