Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Adeline

Four years later

"Okay, one last final touch, and we'll be ready."

Ember sweeps her makeup brush across my cheek once more, adding another layer of powder. She stuffs her brush back into her apron and pulls out a small, black bottle. She holds her index finger over the top and points it in front of my face.

"Close your eyes and mouth."

I do as she says, trying my best to stay still as she spritzes a layer of setting spray across my face.

"You can open now." She sighs.

When I crack open my eyes, she's fanning my face with her hands.

"Perfect." She drops the bottle on the vanity and plants her hands on her hips, studying her work. A slow grin grows on her face. "You look absolutely beautiful."

Ember steps aside and allows me to see my reflection. "You did an incredible job," I tell her, turning my face to the side to run my fingers gently over my scar, amazed with how she's able to apply the makeup without completely hiding it.

It took another six months after Micah first stood me in front of the mirror for me to consider stepping in front of a camera again.

I spent the first few months considering switching careers, maybe even diving into horticulture, but I couldn't deny the power that came with the idea of going back to work as a model. Deep in my soul, I couldn't let Maddox win. Even if he would never know, I couldn't spend my life giving him the satisfaction of getting what he wanted. I took back control of my life and was unafraid.

Ember's strawberry blonde hair shimmers in front of the vanity lights. Her white teeth are revealed behind her wide grin.

Large, round bulbs frame the mirror in front of me, making me feel like an old Hollywood starlet. Subtle, gold, shimmery eyeshadow frames my eyelids. My hair is curled and pinned like an actress from the nineteen-forties.

"I love this cosmetic brand." Ember holds up the gold tube of lipstick, reading the label on the bottom.

"I do, too," I agree, smacking my lips. "You did an incredible job making everything fit."

"Well!" She winks. "It is my job."

"Mrs. Harding, we're ready for you."

I roll my eyes and slide out of the chair.

"I'm not Mrs. Harding yet." I shoot Ruby a playful glare. She's been teasing me for weeks, calling me Mrs. Harding .

I raise my hand, reminding her that I don't have a ring, and I'm not keeping a proposal story from her or Ember.

She pouts, sticking out her bottom lip as we walk over to the studio backdrop. Ember's London studio is littered with photographers and makeup artists.

"I swear…" Ruby shakes her head in disappointment. "When is that man going to propose?"

I shrug. "I haven't really thought about it, Ruby."

"You've been with him for more than four years, Adeline. He's thirty-seven years old. You'd think he'd have proposed by now, especially since the man worships the ground you walk on and talks about making a million babies with you."

"He doesn't worship the ground I walk on. But I wouldn't mind making a ton of babies with him." I blush, suddenly hoping this photoshoot won't take as long as I think it will. "Besides, we agreed we weren't rushing things. All I did as a kid was rush things. I love Micah, but I don't want to pressure him just because we think it's what we should be doing."

"But you wouldn't be marrying him because you should," she argues. "You'd be marrying him because you want to."

"He knows that," I reassure her. I wrap my hand around her arm once I step onto set. "And I know that, Ruby. Of course, I want to marry him. I promise I will tell you when he proposes. And when he does, I already know I won't hesitate to say yes."

"Fine." She rolls her eyes and moves behind the photographer.

After I finish the photoshoot and leave Ember, Ray gives me a ride to the airport. He drops me off just outside the hangar, where Micah and Archer are waiting for me outside of the private jet. The stairs leading to the airplane door are ready for us. The stars are out against the backdrop of London in the distance.

I can't deny that I haven't gotten my conversation with Ruby out of my head.

"Fuck," Micah says, bending over at the waist with his hands tucked in his pockets. The sight of him still makes my heart flutter. "You look so fucking beautiful."

I changed my outfit at Ember's studio, but I decided to keep my hair and makeup intact. I always hated washing it off after a shoot, anyway. Feels like such a waste.

"Well, thank you," I coo, wrapping my arms around him when he meets me halfway to the plane. My lips immediately land on his, and the familiar sensation of safety fills me. Micah is my home, and I missed him today.

He kisses me as if he hasn't seen me in days. Reality is I saw him this morning when Ray dropped me off at Ember's studio before taking him to a meeting with a client in the heart of London.

I moan when his hands slide down the length of my back, pulling me against his tall, muscular frame. He growls against my mouth and tugs my bottom lip between his teeth before he pulls away.

"I missed you," he says, pressing his forehead to mine.

I giggle. "I missed you, too."

"All right, all right." Archer groans behind Micah. "That's enough of that. No one wants to see it."

I pull away but keep my hands wrapped around Micah's neck, tilting my head to get a view of my brother behind him.

"Archer." I give him a pointed look. "We've been together for four years. You should be used to it by now."

"I know." His eyebrows flatten, creating a shelf above his eyes. "It doesn't change the fact he's still my best friend and you're still my little sister."

I stick my tongue out at him the way I used to when I was a kid.

I laugh, but Archer doesn't find it as humorous. He makes a face.

We've worked to heal our relationship over the past several years. Forgiveness didn't come easy. It took me several months to reach out to Archer after he'd confessed about Micah taking the fall for him. I couldn't get past the fact he allowed him to go to prison, knowing the lasting consequences it would have on Micah's record. But at some point, I let it go.

Micah's sacrifice came from a place of love and loyalty, because if there's one thing that's well known about the Hardings, it's their determination and faith in loyalty.

And Micah Harding is absolutely loyal.

That's what I've focused on.

That, and the fact Archer's left his drug dealing life behind, even going as far as to cut our father off completely.

I pull away from Micah, and Archer pulls me in for a hug. "It's all good," he says, scratching at his chin. "This is where I leave you both, anyway."

"Oh?" I trade glances between him and Micah. "I thought you were coming home with us."

"No." He shakes his head. "I need to get back to Austria. This trip is just for you two." He looks at Micah once more before bringing him in for a quick hug, clapping him on the back.

Archer leaves us and climbs into his own car. Micah wraps his arm around me and ushers me toward the plane.

"How was your shoot?" he asks. We're still several feet away from the stairs when he starts slowing his steps.

"It was good," I tell him, eyeing him with suspicion.

"Just good." He arches his eyebrows and pulls us to a full stop.

I smile and laugh. "Yeah."

"You don't sound so sure." He bends at the knees slightly, his hands still dipped into his pants. I search his beautiful face, giving in to tell him what's been on my mind for the past several hours.

"Fine." I groan, stabbing my heel against the pavement, hating that Micah can see right through me, but also loving that he notices. "It's stupid, but I can't get something Ruby said at the photoshoot out of my head."

"What did she say?"

"It's dumb, Micah." Suddenly, I'm embarrassed—a feeling I'm not completely foreign to when it comes to Micah.

"I doubt it."

I roll my eyes and inhale a deep breath, blowing it out between my red-painted lips. "Ruby called me Mrs. Harding because she thought you'd proposed to me and I'd been keeping it from her."

Yep, I definitely feel stupid for bringing this up now.

My heart races, and my cheeks heat. I swallow my nerves, hating that I've brought this up. Micah has spent most of his adult life thinking he's behind. He's thirty-seven now, still unmarried, still childless. And while I've wanted to give him all those things, I didn't want to rush him. I wanted to marry him years ago, but I didn't want him to feel like he was only doing it to check a box off his list.

He's also thought it's what I've wanted since my early twenties. I constantly remind him that I don't care what age I am. Since he felt like he'd wasted his twenties, he didn't want me doing the same.

But I've always known I want to marry him, and as the years have gone by, I don't think I've ever been more ready than I am now. As I look into his blue-gray eyes against the backdrop of a city far from home, I realize this is all I've ever wanted.

"Huh." He frowns in thought. The lines in the corner of his eyes deepen as he jerks back, trying to get a read on me. "And how did hearing her call you that make you feel?"

"What?" I ask, my heart racing even faster.

"How did it make you feel? Her calling you Mrs. Harding?"

I smile, my nerves higher than they've ever been. "I liked it. It felt like it's been my name all along."

"Oh." He removes one hand from his pocket and rests it on his chin in thought. "Kind of like how you used to doodle Adeline Harding in little hearts all over your notebook when you were eleven? That kind of feeling?"

"Micah." I gape, playfully slapping him on the arm, but he catches my left hand before I have the chance to pull it away and drops to one knee. "Micah?" My giggling subsides, but my cheeks remain heated. Tears immediately prick the backs of my eyes.

"I've loved you for years, Adeline, and when I look back on it, the only regret I have is not having asked you this before."

"Don't regret it," I whisper. "Any amount of time with you isn't a regret."

"It isn't," he says, staring up into my eyes. "Not one single moment. I used to spend my years counting the days of what I missed, thinking I had to check off milestones by this year and that year. But I don't. And then I thought because you were in your twenties, you shouldn't live your life tied down. You deserved to spend your twenties not rushing. But I'm only lying to myself."

"We are lying to ourselves." I giggle.

His smile hasn't left him. "You've given me more than I could have ever hoped for. So much of my life was spent living in the darkness, but all you've given me is light. You saved me. I don't need to count my days with you, Adeline, but I won't waste another pretending I don't want nothing more than my ring around your finger and my last name doodled in a heart in one of your notebooks."

I laugh as tears spill down my cheeks. Micah stands and pulls a box out of his front pocket. He lifts his free hand, wiping a tear from my scar with the pad of his thumb.

He opens the box, and the air is knocked out of me when I see the ring: a pale pink stone surrounded by hundreds of tiny diamonds.

Micah holds the ring between us and looks into my eyes.

"Will you marry me, Addy?"

The word doesn't leave my mouth before I'm frantically nodding, a sob escaping my chest. The light in Micah's eyes is the last thing I see before he crashes his mouth to mine, slipping his ring on my fourth finger, giving me the only thing I've ever wanted and known I've wanted my whole life.

To be a Harding, and to be loved.

READ AN EXTENDED BONUS EPILOGUE FROM ADELINE AND MICAH HERE