She nodded before I even finished the question, fast, frantic little nods that turned into one big yes. “Yes. Yes, Asher. God, yes.” And she threw her arms around my shoulders and hugged me so hard, I almost tipped over. I had to pry her arms off my neck so I could slide the ring on her finger.
It fit perfectly. She launched out of her chair and into my arms again, this time knocking me back on my heels, laughing and crying against my neck while the room broke into soft applause.
I held her tight, breathing her in.
It didn't matter what it had taken to get here, or that I'd spent a million dollars to silence my brother once and for all. Veda Porter was worth every single fight, every up and down, and I would spend every day for the rest of my life fighting for her and loving her.
EPILOGUE
Veda
I sat in the soft rocking chair in the corner of the Locke Global daycare, the one with the pale blue cushions that matched the walls we'd painted ourselves last spring when I came on as communications lead. Little Asher—AJ, we called him, because Asher Senior refused to let our son be a junior in any official sense—latched on to suckle, just as fiercely as he had the first day. Three months old today, and already, he nursed like the world might end if he didn’t get every drop.
The nursery for mothers with young children didn’t exist a year ago. Asher had made it happen because he wanted me here, not home alone while my talents were wasted. He pushed it through the board, hired the best early childhood staff, turned an unused conference room on the executive floor into a sanctuary for working mothers. Because of him, I could walk twenty steps from my office and be here whenever AJ needed me.
I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and wondered if it was the update from the wedding planner. We'd been going over last-minute plans for next month's ceremony, which seemed to come up faster than I had planned.
I shifted AJ carefully, pulling my nursing cover a little higher even though the room was empty except for us and the childcare worker dozing in the corner rocker. Everything suddenly felt too big. The venue in Connecticut, the string quartet, the custom gown hanging in my office closet because I didn’t trust leaving it at home, the guest list that had ballooned to nearly five hundred once Asher’s business contacts heard the CEO was finally tying the knot.
I was spiraling a bit, though I had tried desperately to hold things together. What if the flowers were wrong? What if it rained? What if Clayton showed up to make trouble? What if?—
The door opened and Asher slipped in, closing it quietly behind him. His jacket was absent, tie loosened. The top button of his shirt was undone like he’d been tugging at it in meetings all morning. His eyes found me immediately and softened as they dropped to my lap where AJ was covered.
“Hey, pretty girl,” he murmured, crossing the room slowly. The man I’d met almost exactly one year ago would've stormed in here demanding attention, but this version of Asher Locke was a stranger to that chaos. He was calm and peaceful and so gentle with our little boy.
He knelt beside the rocker after pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Thought I’d find you two here.”
“I’m freaking out,” I whispered, grimacing at the thought of opening that email. “The planner sent the final seating chart earlier and there’s an issue with table fourteen and the florist called about the peonies being late because of some supply chainthing and your aunt called and I still haven’t figured out what to wear when I meet her at the airport and?—”
Asher’s thumb brushed my cheek, silencing the spiral. “Breathe, Veda.”
I did, but it was shaky and shallow.
He smiled, and it still made my knees weak even when I was sitting down. “It’s going to be perfect because it’s us. The flowers could wilt, the sky could open up, and I’d still marry you in a courthouse with rubber rings if that’s what we had to do. But it won’t come to that.”
I swallowed hard. “You’re so calm. How are you so calm?”
“Because in four days you become my wife, and then we get on a plane and disappear to Europe for an entire month. Just you, me, and this little guy.” He traced a finger along AJ’s tiny fist where it rested against my skin. “We’ll drink espresso in Paris and eat gelato in Rome and sleep until noon in Santorini. You’ll forget what stress even feels like.”
I chuckled at him as the ease of it soaked into my being. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple.” He leaned in, pressed his forehead to mine. “You gave me everything, Veda. A year ago, I was drowning. You pulled me out. Let me carry this part.”
AJ unlatched with a soft pop, milk-drunk and blinking up at me with those serious blue eyes he’d inherited from his father. Asher scooped him up as I repositioned my bra, settling our son against his shoulder gently. He patted AJ’s back as he began swaying in place and smiling.
“Look at him,” Asher said softly. “He doesn’t care about peonies or seating charts. He just cares that his mama’s happy.”
I watched them together—my whole world—and felt the panic ebb away like the tide going out. The difference in this man from the one I’d met that first day in his office was staggering. That Asher had been broken, lost in grief and rage. This one was whole, sober almost ten months now, and steady as bedrock, the kind of father who sang lullabies off-key and got up for every three a.m. feeding without complaint.
He leaned down carefully, mindful of the baby, and kissed me slow and sweet as he held our boy. I tasted coffee and the mints he kept in his desk drawer. When he pulled back, his eyes were serious.
“My aunt is going to love you,” he said, reading my mind the way he always did. “She already does from everything I’ve told her. She’s bringing this awful Spanish lace veil she wore at her wedding—says it’s tradition now. And she cannot wait to hold her great-nephew.”
I bit my lip. “And Clayton?”
Asher’s expression flickered and a shadow of doubt crossed his forehead. “He RSVPedYes. That’s something.”
It was more than something. Clayton hadn’t spoken to either of us since the sale of his shares and everything imploded. The invitation had gone out anyway—Asher’s quiet olive branch. An acceptance felt like the first crack in the wall.
