“Make sure to delete the picture you send me,” he said over my head.
She laughed as she walked away, and he growled slightly.I elbowed him.
“No growling at my friends.I’ll get jealous.”
The gold in his eyes promised a night of compensation ahead.
But then he surprised the hell out of me by stepping back and getting down on one knee.
A hush fell over the room.
“Sophia Elmantas.From the moment I saw you, I knew you were my destiny.Background.Wealth.Connections.None of it compares to the thought of waking up next to you every morning for the rest of my life.”
He opened the box he held, showing me an impressive engagement ring that matched the bracelet he’d given me.
“Will you marry me?”
“If you don’t say yes, I will,” Miranda shouted from the back.
Grinning, I nodded to Konni and held out my hand.
He slipped the ring on my finger, stood, and pulled me into his arms.The applause in the room was deafening.
EPILOGUE
“I finally getto hold my baby,” Miranda said, a bundle of energy next to me.“When they bring it out, no matter what it looks like, I’m going to love it.”
“You would think you’re talking about Wrenly’s kid, the way you’re talking,” I said distractedly while looking at a Zellon necklace I wanted to buy for my upcoming fashion show debut as a designer.
“I’ll love her baby, too, but mine will be prettier.Be happy for me, Sophia.After all the scrimping, saving, and waiting, I’m finally going to hold my custom Zellon piece for the first time.”
“Scrimping?Pfft.You mean pimping.”
She scoffed.
“What you call pimping, I call babysitting, and I earned every penny Konni paid me.We need to go out again soon.It’s been a month.”
“You stopped asking me out for drinks at Lunar once you placed this order.”I tore my gaze from the necklace and narrowed my eyes at her.“Let me guess.You want to order another piece, don’t you?Count me out.Get another friend drunk.”
“But my only other friend is pregnant and not a freaky, horny drunk like you are.”
The clerk, standing nearby in case we wanted to try something on, snickered softly.I shot Miranda a “behave” look.
“Don’t act shy now,” she said with a smirk.“Pretty sure everyone in Lunar heard your spankathon plans last time we were there, and that was before you got drunk.”
“I’m still questioning why we’re friends.”
“Because I slapped the sense back into your father.Twice.”
I smirked because she wasn’t wrong.I loved her for the first slap at the welcome ceremony, but even more for the second one.
After his charges were dismissed and he divorced Charlotte, he’d tried contacting Mom.To “make amends,” he’d wanted to return her portion of TAS shares—the company they’d built together.The same company the Steeles had blacklisted the day he and Charlotte had been taken away.
Miranda had driven to his house and sent Mom and me a video of him on his knees with another handprint on his face as he promised never to contact us again.
In the months since, he hadn’t.He’d been too busy liquidating assets and sending poor Charlie to live with Frances so he could vanish from Motan.
My life was better, calmer, without Dad in it.
