Epilogue

Darien

The sound of the front door opening told me Felix was home from the restaurant. To my surprise, Felix didn’t seem to mind Hayden ordering him around, treating even his darkest moods with little more than an eye roll. Maybe because if anyone could understand dark moods, he could. Only he’d had far more reason to rail against the world than my brother ever had.

“Darien?”

I smiled at the note of concern in my boyfriend’s voice as he called my name, like he still had to pinch himself to believe he had someone to come home to.

“In here.” He appeared in the kitchen doorway a few seconds later, and I drank him in. He’d let his hair grow longer in recent months, the tousled waves far better to grab onto when he treated me to the very best of his oral expertise, which was frequently. Felix only shaved now when stubble threatened to grow into a beard, the rugged look suiting him. And those pretty gray eyes of his were rarely stormy anymore. He was still working on his relationship with his mother, but they’d built a lot of bridges and I had faith that they’d eventually get back to where they used to be. How could you not when both parties wanted it so much?

The best thing, though, was the smile he currently wore, a smile that only grew brighter the longer we spent together. And yes, I’d be lying if I said that being the recipient of that smile didn’t fill me full of a tingling warmth. Felix had taught me what love was—my life far richer for having him in it.

“Hi,” he said as his gaze dropped to the table I’d decked out in finery—borrowed from Hayden, of course. The smile changed to a slight frown. “What’s this in aid of?”

I gestured for him to sit, waiting until he’d done so before transferring the plates filled with tapas over to the table and presenting them with a flourish. “You don’t know?”

Felix rocked back in his chair with an expression of concern. Taking the seat diagonal to his, I took pity on him. “Think a year ago.”

His brows drew together. “It’s not when I got out of prison. That’s next week.”

“Correct. So think of something momentous that happened just prior to that.”

I saw the moment he got it, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Was that a year ago?”

“It was,” I announced. “Exactly a year ago today, I walked into The Scrubs, completely oblivious to how my life was about to change.”

Felix pulled a face. “Some would argue not for the better.”

I gave him a mock glare. It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like that, and it no doubt wouldn’t be the last. But I didn’t mind repeating myself until we filed off the sharp edges of his insecurities once and for all. “Then they’d be wrong, because I don’t regret a single thing.”

“You’d still be a probation officer if you’d never met me.”

“Ah, well!” It was impossible not to keep the smile off my face. “In a weird example of the stars aligning, I have news on that front. I got the phone call this afternoon.”

Felix’s eyebrows rose. “You got accepted?”

I grinned. “I got accepted.” The phone call I was referring to was for a counseling course. As of today, I was officially retraining as a counselor who specialized in working both with prisoners who were still inside but needed someone to talk to, and in those who’d been recently released but had issues beyond just starting again, like alcohol or drug abuse.

It would take all the parts I’d liked about being a PO, like being supportive and listening, and get rid of all the parts I hadn’t enjoyed, like the bureaucracy and having to be on people’s backs for things they often felt were ridiculous. If I hadn’t been stuck in something of a rut, I might have considered it a better fit years ago.

Pride shone from Felix’s eyes. “You’re going to be a great counselor.”

“I know, right? Darien Quinn, counselor extraordinaire.”

“Have they checked references?” There was a cautious note in Felix’s question that said he was loath to spoil the moment, but felt he had to.

We’d both been aware when I’d decided to make the change that my so-called transgression could come back to bite me in the arse if the probation service wanted to make things difficult for me. I might have quit before they pushed me, but that only earned me a few brownie points. “I think they realized that the whole miscarriage of justice thing and the fact that you should never have been in prison in the first place, and ergo would never have been my client, muddied the waters and made it far from a straightforward situation. Plus, they’re probably concerned about what I might say with the media still sniffing around.”

Felix laughed. “They don’t know you very well, if they think you’re going to be badmouthing them to the press.”

“And hopefully,” I continued, “they realized that I’m not planning to sleep with any more of my clients.”

Felix narrowed his eyes. “You better not. You only get to sleep with me from now on.”

“I can live with that. Don’t get too excited about the new job, though. It doesn’t pay any better than being a probation officer did.”

Felix pulled a face. “Damn! And I was only with you for the money.” He leaned forward slightly. “When my compensation comes through, it won’t be a problem.” It was a touchy subject, and it surprised me he’d brought it up. Yes, he was going to get a bumper payout, but so he should. What price did you put on stealing seven years of someone’s life away? Less than five hundred thousand pounds, apparently. For a larger sum, he’d have needed to be wrongly incarcerated for over ten years. The final amount hadn’t been decided on yet, but however much it ended up being, Felix would deserve every single penny of it.

Realizing we were sitting amongst a smorgasbord of food rapidly growing cold, I waved a hand at it. “We should eat.”

Felix studied the plates for a few seconds, taking in the grilled artichoke hearts, the patatas bravas, and other dishes I’d eaten but couldn’t name. “You cooked?” I waited. It only took a few seconds before Felix laughed at his own question. “Of course, you didn’t. Hayden did. ”

I pasted a look of mock outrage on my face. “I could take offense at that.”

Felix grinned. “You could, but it wouldn’t stop it from being true.”

“Hayden cooked,” I conceded.

Felix was still smiling as he started spooning things onto his plate. “He never said anything.”

“Good. If he’d spoiled my surprise, I would have been pissed at him.” I poured the wine, and we ate in a companionable silence for a few minutes, Hayden not having let me down in terms of how delicious the food was.

Felix was the first to speak, his thoughts having strayed back to what I’d mentioned earlier. “Was it really a year ago today?”

I nodded. “Certainly was. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment. It was the first time a client had made me lose my cool.”

“You kept staring at my crotch,” Felix said with a straight face. “I wondered what kind of guy they’d sent.”

I stared at him, openmouthed. “I did not!”

Felix brought his wineglass to his lips, hiding his smile behind it. “Go on, lie, and tell me you didn’t check me out.”

“I might have checked you out. I might even have had a passing thought about how you made prison clothes look good, but I did not stare at your crotch.”

“You wanted to.”

“Maybe.”

We both started laughing at my admission. We laughed a lot these days, enough that I got to admire all the extra laughter lines around Felix’s eyes.

I reached out and traced one with the tip of my finger, because I could, because Felix was mine, and anything went with us, whether it was an animal passion that left us both sore the next day, or a melting tenderness that I hadn’t known I was capable of. We left nothing hidden, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. For this man, I would be vulnerable. That, and a hundred other things. Whatever made him happy. I propped my chin on my hand and studied him. “Do you know you’ve never told me what your first impressions of me were?”

Felix placed his fork down. “I haven’t?”

I shook my head. “Go on. I can take it. Tell me what you thought when I walked into your life exactly a year ago today.”

I popped an artichoke heart in my mouth and chewed slowly while Felix closed his eyes in a way that said he was reliving it. Finally, he opened his eyes and smiled. “My first thought was, what bullshit is this?”

I nodded. “Understandable. You’d just had your PO changed without notice, only a few days before release.”

“Then I looked at you properly and thought you were hot. Hot and flustered, and not very good at hiding the fact that you were clearly attracted to me, even with your ‘I prefer women’ line.” I grimaced at the truth of the statement. I really hadn’t been very good at hiding my feelings. “At that point, I figured that although I liked Katherine, the view had definitely improved.”

“I’m not a piece of meat,” I joked. I pointed an accusatory finger at him. “ And I don’t think we should recall that first meeting without acknowledging that you were a prize git.”

Felix inclined his head in recognition of my point. “I was, and for that, I’m sorry. You got me angry.”

I laughed. “I wasn’t even talking about that part. I was thinking more about how sexually aggressive you were. You know, the pictures you were painting of you and your cellmate, and the stuff you said to me. ”

Felix pressed a hand to his chest in a parody of feeling hurt. “Me! Sexually aggressive? Surely not. And just for the record, in case you haven’t already worked it out, the thing about my cellmate was complete bullshit. He had zero interest in me. I just wanted to conjure up a bit of prison porn for you. Give you something to think about when you got home, so I’d be on your mind.” Felix took a sip of his wine. “Anyway, to sum up, you left a lasting impression. I decided right then and there that I wanted you.”

I lifted my glass in a toast. “And you got me. Congratulations, Mr. Church on a hard-fought campaign with a pleasing result.”

Felix clinked his glass against mine. “The one good thing that’s happened in my life. The best thing. Something I won’t be letting slip away.” His eyes were soft, love shining from them.

The problem with seeing that softness in him was it made another part of me hard. I put my glass down and apologized silently to Hayden for the food going to waste. “How about you show me a bit of that sexual aggression?”

Felix could move fast when he wanted to, and I barely got through the kitchen door before he came after me. I’d let him catch me, but there was no harm in making him work for it. It would keep things fresh through the decades I intended to spend with him.