“The next part?” I asked in a scared whisper.
“The next part is more of a story or a fortune telling. Imogen, if we’d had never met then right now, I’d be at a party. Or still sleeping off a hangover from a party the night before. Sure, I’d schedule a few meetings here and there to sell more of Corbin’s work, but really it was one meaningless experience after the next.”
“Yes, I can see how that may get boring after a while,” I said without even a hint of sarcasm in my voice. What kind of existence was it where you jumped from one party to the next? Cyrus was obviously a man who enjoyed a good time, but everyone’s life needed meaning—something deeper to keep you going.
“If not for you and this crazy whirlwind experience we’ve shared, I don’t think I would actually know what love is. Sure, I love my brother and my parents, but what I experience when I look at you is so much deeper.”
I wanted to shake my head and argue the validity of his words. We hadn’t known one another long enough, but I believed him. I believed every word Cyrus said because I felt it, too.
“Just to be aware, I’m not saying it back because you said it first. I love you, too, Cyrus Kensington.”
He laughed and then kissed me squarely on the lips. And even though it had happened a million times the last week, I still tingled from it deep into my toes. “Well good, now that that’s taken care of, we need to decide where we’re going to live.”
Oh. I normally thought out every step of my life, but with a few other things going on, I hadn’t taken time to think about how I lived in North Carolina and Cyrus lived… Everywhere. How would the two of us even make a relationship work? There was long-distance and then there was halfway across the world distance.
“Don’t look so freaked out,” Cyrus said, resting his hand against my chin again. “We can live wherever you want. I’m not attached to any place in particular.”
“North Carolina,” I said, not having to think about it for long. My mother lived there with all my other family. My job. All my stuff was in North Carolina.
We brought my mother to Pelican Bay with us and got her a room at the bed-and-breakfast. She took the week as a vacation to relax. While her kidnapping wasn’t as scary as mine or what I first expected when I raced in to save her, she’d still experienced a traumatic event. The Braves almost lost the baseball game. She and Cyrus got along so well. Like they’d been friends for years and they were even planning a trip to New York City to meet his mother and father. In fact, I worried about leaving the two of them alone because every time I did, I came back to another adventure they had planned. And quite frankly I was about done with adventures.
And while I found Pelican Bay to be the cutest small town ever, and I especially loved the fact they put me on the third page of their newspaper, it was the middle of summer, and the wind off the ocean was already chilly. We were sitting on the beach, but a gust blew up. It gave me a chill across my skin.
“Done,” Cyrus said, not arguing with my decision at all. “But no more hospital parking garages.”
“Deal.”
EPILOGUE
CYRUS
Alittle more than a year later.
“BETyou never thought we’d get here. Did you?” Corbin asked, as he found a spot to get comfortable in the lounge chair beside me. I grunted in agreement and waited for him to pass me my cocktail.
“It has been one hell of the year,” I agreed. Somehow, not only did we survive, but we both ended up with our soulmates.
It helped that Imogen and Hazel got along like long-lost sisters.
Cyrus adjusted the umbrella, putting us both back into the shade, and then waved to his girl as she ran toward the crystal-clear water of our favorite place to visit. “At least we survived and had an exceptional year,” he said, echoing my earlier thought.
I scowled at him. “Don’t say that shit out loud and put it into the universe. It’s only October.” Sure, things had stayed calm the last few months, but that didn’t mean we made the entire year unscathed.
After confirming the Grandmaster wasn’t involved in my abduction and making sure Bernard was taken care of, Corbin and I went back underground. Having a home base too long became a risk. We still had our home in Pelican Bay when we wanted to return, but we could no longer stay in one place. It wasn’t just our safety on the line anymore, but Imogen and Hazel as well. It was our job to look after them, and I didn’t take it lightly.
“Relax, brother,” Corbin said, sounding very much unlike him.
So much so, I turned in my chair to glance at him completely to make sure he hadn’t swapped with someone else who looked exactly like me. “Aren’t I usually the carefree one and you the anxiety-ridden over-planner?”
Corbin decided we needed to mix things up and go back underground. He’d never admit it out loud, but we were twins and had a deep connection. The fact I’d been kidnapped because someone thought I was him was a hard pill to swallow.
It wasn’t his fault, and the only person blaming him was himself, but I wasn’t ready to share Imogen with anyone else yet either, so I didn’t argue. As far as her mother understood, Corbin and I were reclusive billionaires who spent our lives on boats partying. It was a façade we played well for years and we picked it up again quickly.
There were fewer parties, though, and more gorgeous locations on tropical islands. After this visit to Ibiza, we were set to meet her mother and spend a month in Jamaica.
After that, who knew where life would take us? It didn’t matter where we landed as long as I had Imogen by my side.
“I’ve been thinking,” Corbin said, taking a long draw from the straw shoved into his fake coconut.
