Epilogue

Two Years Later

LongIsland

Thanksgiving Day

The house overlooks the water,and as I peer at the horizon, the sky resembles a potpourri of pinks and blues.

Birds fly across the sky while the trees outlining the property proudly display the fiery colors of the fall.

We've been blessed with a long summer and now a gorgeous fall.

"I love this place," Alice says, moving closer to the windows. "It's perfect to raise a family."

"That's what I said," I murmur, shifting my gaze to her.

Alice is pregnant with twins and lives not far from us.

She wears a cute flowing dress and a sweater.

"How is life at home?" she asks, moving away from me and claiming a chair by the window. "I'll sit if you don't mind."

"Please do so. Do you want something to drink? Before dinner? Milk? A cookie?"

She smiles and gestures at me.

"No. I'm good."

The house is quiet. Jax is in the nursery with our daughter. My parents are in the guest room getting ready for dinner. And the food is downstairs, probablyreadyto be served. I have people helping me these days.

Life is good.

"I really can't complain," I say, sitting across from her."I thought staying home would be horrible. Especiallysince he is so busy. But he's always home in the evenings. Sometimeseven during the day.He never misses a holiday and never goes out unless it's for work. This was our understanding from the beginning. But you know him."

Everybody knows Jax. And everybody loves Jax.

One thing I can say about him is that he's never let anyone down. He told me never to leave his side. He said he would protect me and make sure nothingbadhappened to me again, and he had kept his promise.

After that harrowing night with Ellis Wilton, a lot of things happened.

I've never spent another night over there.

We lived in a hotel for a few days so I could be close to work, and he could run his business in Manhattan.

I closed on my apartment, and we lived there for a while before he formally proposed to me, and we started to look for a different home.

He didn't want us to live in a place I had bought for myself, and I didn't want to live there either.I had a different plan in mindwhen I set my eyes on that apartment.

We still own it, but our home is here in Long Island.

He doesn't mind commuting.

And I commuted in the beginning as well.

We had a car and a driver.

Jax always dropped me off at work before picking me up in the evening. It had worked for a few good months before I found out I was pregnant.

We set a wedding date and didn't wait any longer.

My wedding dress was gorgeous, simple and it hit above the knee, and I had flowers in my hair.

Jax was stunning in a three-piece gray suit, and the wedding reception was a success. The only noticeable absence was his father. He sent us a card, which I'm sure had been his wife's idea.

Renata London couldn't be prouder of her son, and my parents were over the moon.

My father had always trusted my mother's intuition. She was already a goner for Jax London since she met him at the restaurant.

I never thought I'd be a stay-at-home mom, but we discussed this possibility, and he made it look appealing to me.

I thought I'd be restless. Noneof that happened.Maybe it had to do with this house.

Before the baby came, he showed me this place.

He wanted to buy it for me, and I loved it from the moment I laid my eyes on it.

It reminded me of that inn in Connecticut where we spent a night together.

The plot of land is sizable, and the property is very private, away from the main roads.

Nothing made me happier than finding out Alice and her husband had planned to buy a place nearby.

We are not far from Queens, where he moved his family into a bigger house, and not far from my sister, who I'm still trying to convince to move hereas well.

That night in Manhattan, Jax took over many things as I was finally comfortable delegating those things to someone else.

He talked to the landlord and convinced him nothing happened in my apartment.

Cops were never called, and Ellis Wilton had been removed from my place and, um… taken home? I think.

What Jax had told Wilton was anyone's guess.

We had enough material to file charges and make noise in the media, but that wasn't the best course of action.

I didn't want that.

And Jax didn't want to be part of an investigation either.

The good thing was no one liked Ellis Wilton.

Using his connections, Jax found out the cops knew about Ellis Wilton.

There had been complaints before.

So when, months later, he was beaten to a pulp in the back alley of a club, no one worked overtime to overzealously find the perpetrators.

To this day, I have no idea if that had anything to do with Jax and me.

We never discuss these things.

Not far down the road, his family had to file for bankruptcy, and Ellis Wiltonkind offell off the face of the earth.No tabloid was interested in his whereabouts once he could no longer supply juicy headlines.

And that was that.

My neighbor Marlowe did, in fact, move out soon after Jax put him in his place, and Thomas Everett is still dating.

And Emile, the Frenchman…I don't know much about him.

Perhaps he's never come back.

And I hope that woman, Joanna, has moved on.

Aretha Stenson is still very much booked, and every time I walk past her building, I look up. And if it's a nice quiet evening and I notice the dim light in the main room, I see myself there—nervous, craving a cigarette, listless, and unable to find a man—my man.

A high-quality man, as she had said.

Eventually, I did find that man.

Or he'd found me.

He is everything Aretha Stenson told me a high-quality man would be.

He pays attention to me,makes sureI have everything I need, and has my back.

He wants stability, and I crave thattoo.He knows he can trust me, and I'mas solid as he is.

We were ready for each other from the get-go, but I was blindsided by my preconceived notions.

And then they started to erode.

With patience, hewaited for me toget toa point where I could see what he had already seen.When I finally caught up with him, we knew we were meant to be together despite our differences. What we had in common was stronger than anything else.

Footsteps echo in the house, and a smell of cinnamon rolls floats upstairs.

"I'm convinced dinner is ready," I say just as the floors creak outside, and Jax looms in the entryway with our daughter, Ana, in his arms.

"Oh. Look who's awake," I say, rising from my seat.

Alice follows me, and we both stop in front of Jax, who flashes a smile.

I kiss him while Ana tries to grab my hair, cooing.

"She's adorable," Alice says, giving her a finger to play with.

Ana grabs it with both hands, laughing.

She looks like him with a little bit of me.Her eyes are greenish-gray, and her hair is dark.

We're amused by her reaction, and soon after, my parents enter the room, and we all head downstairs.

Just as we walk into the dining room, a car pulls up in front of the house, and I take Ana from Jax while he goes outside to greet Renata, Rylee, and Noah.

My sister, her husband, and the twins arrive shortly after, and minutes later, we are all around the table.

This isprobablyone of the best Thanksgiving dinners I've ever had, and I hope to have many more like this.

People are loud around the table, and the kids garner all the adults' attention, but I still find time to study the man sitting next to me.

It's easy to spot a happy man, and it"s satisfying to know you have something to do with it.

My furtive stares don't go unnoticed, and often, he squeezes my hand under the table and kisses my cheek.

At times, I catch my mom or my sister noticing his gestures. Sometimes, it's Alice or my Dad. I'm so grateful to have so many people around me who are happy seeing us happy.

It's a fantastic moment in our lives, and I want to hold onto it for as long asI can.

Later, when we all retreat to our rooms, and Jax and I slide under the covers in our matrimonial bed, he brings me close to him and thanks me for all the effort that went into organizing the dinner party.

"You liked it?" I ask.

"Everybody liked it," he says before putting his lips to my temple.

The wedding band glinting around his finger reminds me of something Ineed to share with him.

Heoffersme a glass of wine, and I couldn't think of a better moment.

"No, thank you," I say.

"You didn't have any wine this evening," he says, looking at me with a tentative smile.

I keep quiet, barely pushing back a telling grin.

He splays his fingers over my neck, biting his lip.

"Is there a special reason for that?" he asks in that smoldering voice of his that got me pregnant the first time around.

"Mm-hmm," I say, nodding and rolling my bottom lip under my teeth.

His expression shifts, going from hesitancy to joy.

"Are you sure?" he asks, pulling up a little and looking straight at me with incredulous eyes.

"Yes. I'm pregnant."

He gives me a gleeful smile as he opens his arms and pulls me against his chest, covering me in kisses.

Emotions simmer in my heart and a deep hunger for him that has never died down.

"You're making me so happy," he says quietly, and I kiss him in response.

"So are you."

Within moments, we love each other with passion and care, living the next chapter of our lives.

There is hope.

There's always hope that good things will eventually find us, and we are living proof of that.

Thankyou so much for reading The Last Good Man (Cashmere and Ink).

If you haven't done it already, please check out some of my most popular series. The Night of The Kings, Night of the Diamonds, and Shades of Love Series.