EPILOGUE

It was a who's who in Giorgio's world as the annual fashion awards got underway. He could name everybody who was somebody in that massive room and all of them counted him as either a friend, a mentor, a former employer, or a competitor. Mostly they were his competitors. But they were his people. And on that night, as he waited anxiously for the envelope to be opened, he was nominated for Designer of the Year, the most prestigious award of the ceremony.

He was the odds-on favorite when everybody thought he was done for. Yara had admitted that she was never pregnant and his decades-long search to find his child was her way of tormenting him. Was her way of punishing him for the cheating and disrespect and disregard he showed her during their entire marriage. It was a similar story with Pen. The fashion world, and many of his friends, had written him off. He, they all decided, was bad news.

But he put it all behind him and embraced his profession again. He came back with a vengeance and had the best season of his career. The award would be the icing on the cake.

The presenter of the big award, a so-called icon in the fashion world, although Giorgio didn't find her fashionable at all, was telling unfunny jokes and stringing it out. He sat still. Rhonda and Frank were there sitting still too. Frank was still walking with a cane after Yara's bullet torn through his leg, but he was otherwise fine. They were as nervous as he was.

And then it was announced. "The award," the presenter said as she began opening the envelope, "for designer of the year is---"

"A boy! It's a boy, Mr. Janardi. It's a healthy baby boy!"

Giorgio quickly turned his eyes away from the television screen in the hospital's waiting room and jumped up from his chair. Frank and Rhonda jumped up too. "And my wife?" Giorgio asked the nurse excitedly. "Is my wife okay?"

"Mrs. Janardi is fine, sir. She's asking for you."

Giorgio couldn't get out of that room fast enough. Rhonda and Frank were happy for him. They'd been waiting at the hospital with him for nearly six hours. But they were also applauding, along with the audience on the television screen, as Giorgio's name was called as the winner of the designer of the year award.

But Giorgio didn't hear any of that. He was rushing to his wife's hospital room. He was rushing to see his wife and baby boy.

Vivian took a chance on him over a year ago. She married him despite his past. She loved him despite his reputation. And he proved to her, day in and day out, that he was the safest bet she could have made.

He swept the door open with anticipation in his eyes. And when he saw Vivian lying there, smiling at their little boy in her arms, his heart soared. That was what he always wanted, and what he had been searching for all his life: A family. A family of his own. And his family, his wife and his son, were now looking up at him and beaming with joy.

"Come see our brand-new Giorgio Janardi, Junior," Vivian said to him. She was overjoyed too. "Come see our beautiful baby."

Giorgio walked into that room so slowly that he felt as if he was climbing a mountain. He felt so much gratitude he could hardly contain it. He could not have asked for anything better.

And when he took the boy from Vivian's arms and placed him in his arms, tears escaped and trailed down his face. It was the second sweetest moment of his life. The sweetest was when Vivian forsook all the awful things the world was telling her to be true about him, and married him anyway.

"He looks like both of us, Jonni," Vivian said happily.

"More like you," Giorgio said, shaking him as he held him. "He's gorgeous."

Vivian laid back and was teary-eyed too. They'd come a long way from their first encounter nearly eleven years ago. It had been a long road. But they made it.

"Roger called," Vivian said.

Giorgio looked at him. "When?"

"While the nurse went to get you."

"What did he say? He's still coming over for the barbecue this weekend?"

"You know he is. He hasn't missed a weekend at our house since we got married." That was the icing on the cake for Vivian. After she married Giorgio, Roger's father decided she wasn't a bad influence anymore and allowed him to spend weekends with her and her new (rich) husband. She and her baby brother were close again. "He says he's excited to see his little brother this weekend."

Giorgio liked Roger too, even though he didn't think he would. But he did. "He's a big brother now," he said. "He'll be a good one."

Vivian couldn't agree more. "Nayla's coming this weekend too. After losing HOJ, other contracts weren't renewed, so Mason wanted nothing more to do with the company. He signed it over to Vivian. She now owns a hundred- percent of the company. And she's doing good. She's out there hustling and enjoying it for a change. She's got seventy maids working for her now, and new contracts. But what I love is that she's back with Joe and her children. They're coming this weekend too."

"I like Joe," Giorgio said, nodding his head. "He's a good guy. But that Nayla? Not so much. But you guys are trying to mend your relationship, and I'll stay out of the way. You think she's worth it and I'll leave that up to you. But you'll never go in business with her again. That's off the table."

Vivian smiled. "No worries there," she said. Then she remembered. "That reminds me, Jonni. Did you win?"

"Win?Win what?"

"The designer of the year award."

Giorgio looked at her. He hunched his shoulders. "I don't know," he said. "I don't care," he added, as he looked back down at his little one. "This is my designer of the year award. You and Junior. I don't need a trophy."

Vivian smiled. Giorgio used to love trophies. "That's a change," she said to him.

"I told you to watch and see," he said to her. Then he looked at her with pure joy in his eyes. He'd been a wanderer all his life. Never settled down until he committed himself to Vivian.

Now she was his peace.

She was his safe place.

She was his home.