EPILOGUE
EVIE
Five years later…
It’s Friday night, and I’m in the kitchen plating up some garlic chicken.
Not just any garlic chicken, either. Dawson’s mom’s famous recipe. The one he made for me on our first real date, back when my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold a fork.
I’ve gone on and tweaked it just enough so the seasoning is just mine, which Dawson of course says is better than the original. I’m sure he tells his mother the opposite, of course. He’s a smart man.
Through the window over the sink, I watch his truck pull into the driveway, and just like that, my body responds. A warm flush creeps up my neck, my pulse ignites, and I press my legs together out of pure instinct.
Five years. Five whole years, and my body still reacts to this man like it’s the first time he showed up at my door in that Henley.
The engine cuts, and I hear his boots hit the gravel. I wipe my hands on my apron—an apron that saysKiss the Designer,abirthday gift from Reese—and wait for the sound that still makes my stomach flip.
The front door opening. His heavy footsteps crossing the hardwood. And then his voice. Deep and warm, filling every corner of the house he built for us.
“Something smells incredible.”
“That would be me,” I reply without turning. “The chicken smells pretty good too.”
His laugh rumbles through me as his arms wrap around me from behind. I cave into his strength. He smells like sawdust, and even after all this time, his scent still makes my legs go weak.
“How was your day?” he asks, his thumb tracing a circle on my hip. The same slow circle he drew on my knee back at Vincenzo’s on our first date. I don’t even think he realizes he’s doing it anymore—it’s just muscle memory.
“Good. I finished that rebrand for that restaurant chain, and they said they loved it.” I lean back into his broad chest. “How was yours?”
“Long. We broke ground on the Graham project.” He kisses the top of my head. “Would have been a lot shorter if I wasn’t thinking about you the entire time.”
I giggle and scoff. “You say that every day.”
“And I mean it.”
Finally, I turn and look up at him. Dawson is thirty-eight now, with tiny hints of gray showing at his temples. Salt and pepper, they call it. He has tiny lines beneath his eyes when he smiles, yet somehow, he’s managed to get more handsome over time.
His construction company has tripled in size since we first met, and he runs it the same way he runs everything in his life: with quiet authority and no tolerance for bullshit.
And me? I’ve changed too. I’m a wife, a cook, a partner, but most of all, I’m not the girl who used to lock herself in her bedroom and reach for a drawer anymore.
My freelance design business turned into an actual company two years ago. Dawson added a home studio wing onto the house that holds a drafting table and three monitors. My client list now would have made twenty-one-year-old me pass out just looking at it.
Last year, we merged our businesses. He builds, and I design. Clark Construction & Design. Our name is on the same door, our desks in the same office. Which means he watches me chew my lip as I stare at the screen, and I try not to focus on him rolling up his sleeves, which is honestly painfully distracting.
We got married four years ago in a small ceremony by the water. Reese was my maid of honor, and Trevor was his best man. She cried harder than my parents but still denies it. Dawson’s vows were short and sweet and had everyone in tears. Mine were longer, but I was already sobbing and barely managed to get through them.
I’ve grown. I’ve changed.
I haven’t touched a vibrator in five years. I haven’t even thought about it. Why would I? I have Dawson.
Although I do occasionally think about how we buried Charles back at our old place and smile.
“Dinner is almost ready,” I tell my husband, ushering him gently toward the table. “Sit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and by the way his eyes narrow when I give him an order, I already know he’s thinking about what he’s going to do to me after dinner.
Good. I can’t wait.
