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We all head out our separate ways, and Everleigh pulls me aside in the parking lot. “Are you coming back with me or going with Cash?”

I glance at Cash, and he nods.

“Come with me,” he says softly.

I turn back to Ev. “We have some more things we need to talk out.”

She glances at Maverick. “Okay. Just, you know…text before you walk in.” She wiggles her eyebrows, and I laugh.

Cash and I make our way toward his hotel, and he takes me up to a gorgeous, spacious suite with a view of the city. The door opens into a sitting room with a couch pointed at a fireplace and a television hung above it, and there’s another doorway that leads into the bedroom.

I walk over to the windows and stare at the view as I contemplate everything that’s happened.

“Talk to me,” he says quietly.

I turn around and face him. His dark eyes pin me to my place, and I’m struck once again by how handsome he is. But it’s not just the physical outer package that’s attractive to me.

It’s the way he treated me when we were together. It’s the way it always felt like a real marriage despite the “contract” that was never really a contract at all.

It’s the way he treats his own mother and never wants to disappoint her. It’s the way he’s a simple, kind Minnesota boy deep down—even if he makes poor decisions in drunken moments with his teammates.

We all do, I suppose. Even me, the woman who rarely drinks and even then still prefers vodka Sprite with extra cherries.

Seeing the banter between him and Dex at brunch, and even thinking back to the banter he has with West and Kellan, gave me a bit of a fresh perspective, I think. It’s not excusable with the boys will be boys mantra of days gone by, but it’s in how we make things right once we realize how very badly we’ve fucked things up.

And today, being here with me on this day when every single one of my siblings showed up and had a partner show up for them…it feels monumental. He made a sacrifice to be here. A big one. He’s the team leader, and he put me first.

He showed up, and that’s not the work of a guy who made a bet with a friend and feels bad from the fallout of its discovery.

That’s the work of a man in love.

“I just need to know one thing,” I say, and it feels like his answer will dictate the course of our future.

“Anything,” he breathes.

“When you agreed to that bet, was it really ever about me?”

He presses his lips together and averts his gaze to the window for a beat. He shakes his head. “West and I have made countless bets. We’ve pulled hundreds of pranks on each other. It’s never about whatever we’re betting about. It’s always about the competition. The biggest ego.” He winces a little as he says it.

I shake my head. “No. That actually makes it better, Cash. It was never about me. You two might’ve made a bet over any woman you saw that night.”

“We might have,” he concedes.

“So why me?”

“Because you’re a Bradley,” he says softly. “The bet started with West saying I couldn’t get you into my bed. When I didn’t the first night we met, it escalated into the marriage thing. At the time, I fucking hated Dex. I hated your whole family after I was at the casino the night it was raided. If I would’ve been caught downstairs, it could’ve been the end of my career. But that was before I got to know all of you. It was before Everleigh gave me you as my brand strategist. It was before Dex showed up and told me where to find you. It was before I realized that you were becoming everything to me, and that was the scariest part of all.”

I tilt my head. “Why was that so scary?”

“Because when we lost my dad, my mom fell apart. She always said that it was worth it for the time she had with him, but I never really believed that. I vowed I’d never put so much into another person that losing them would break me, and then I lost you, and, well…” He shrugs.

“And?” I prompt.

“It broke me,” he murmurs.

Tears pulse behind my eyes. “It broke me, too. It hurt me, Cash. And I don’t want to lose myself in you only to find out there was some other ulterior motive or bet or prank. I’m terrified that’s going to happen.”

“It won’t.” His voice is firm, and he closes the gap separating us and pulls me into his arms. “I promise you with everything I have and everything I am that it won’t happen again. I have no ulterior motives. No bets. No pranks. I want you to be my wife. I want to be your husband. I want to choose you, and even if it breaks me in the end, then it was worth it for the time we had.”