Page 173 of Mess With Me

I see it all happening, but it’s like it’s in slow motion, because my attention has fully turned to Sasha, whose eyes are on mine. I’m on my feet without knowing how I got there, my heart beating hard.

“In case anyone didn’t know,” Sasha says to the group without turning from me, “I’m in love with your brother and son…and brother-in-law, and uncle—I’m in love with Griffin Kelly.”

Chelsea’s hands are at her mouth. Cass smiles, tipping her head to Dad’s shoulder.

“Reading that diary entry,” Sasha continues, “made me realize just how much.” She clears her throat. “Griffin,I don’t want to breathe a breath of air that you don’t.” She takes a soft breath, like she’s proving the line she just spoke. “I want to make our life together, Griffin. Wherever that is.”

“What about you?” I croak, trying to grab hold of my runaway heart. “You’ll get bored in a small town.”

“I didn’t get bored here, did I?”

“You had a job. Friends. A mystery to get involved in.”

“Who says I can’t find those things there?” She smiles. “Griff, it doesn’t matter where I am. The most important thing is with you, I’m not alone. I’ve never felt less alone than since knowing you. And I know I’ll always feel that way so long as you bring me with you wherever you go.”

Her eyes are on mine, and I know she’s not talking about revealing my company secrets or bringing her along into dangerous situations. She’s talking about me opening up to her. Talking to her the way I do with no one else.

Letting myself feel, the way I can about no one else.

I grasp her face, thumbing a strand of hair off her perfect cheek. “I promise, Angel,” I whisper. “For you, I’m an open book.”

Sasha lets out something like a laugh and a sob together. Then she buries her face in my neck.

“I love you,” she whispers against my shirt.

I tilt her face up to mine and kiss her, longer and more deeply than I feel like we ever have before.

That is, until Cass says, “Not again!”

Cheering erupts around the table, though I think my family doesn’t quite know why we’re celebrating, when, by all accounts, we already have everything we could ever ask for.

I break the kiss. “I love you too,” I whisper.

Sasha’s eyes brim with tears, but she’s smiling. Then she rises up and whispers in my ear, “And you’re going to fuck me tonight, right?”

I grin, sliding my hand as far as I dare down her back in front of my family. “That’s a fucking promise.”

Epilogue

GRIFFIN

SIX MONTHS LATER

“Ido,” Sasha says as I squeeze her hand.

She does the same, and I’m there before the celebrant even tells us to kiss, clasping her against me and pressing my lips to hers.

The small crowd around us cheers. Seeing as we don’t know most of them quite as well as my family, I spare them too much tongue.

“You look beautiful, Sash,” Leila says.

Sasha’s older sister, a tall, dark-haired woman in her early forties, embraces her as soon as we come down from the gazebo. Her other brother Cal follows and does the same after shaking my hand.

This one was supposed to be just the two of us, but once word got out to our local friends, Sasha made a point of inviting the two siblings she didn’t know as well as Sam growing up. They were both honored enough to fly into Columbus and drive here to the tiny town of North Road for the small event.

None of them talk about the absence of their oldest brother. Probably because Sam is on trial, looking at time for his connections to Creelman’s criminal organization.

Creelman, meanwhile, hasn’t been found. Just like Lionel. But I’m the executor to Lionel’s estate—along with Chester’s. Between their estates—which they both left to me—and my savings left over from financing this new operation with Ford, I still hope to see Lionel’s vision for Laura’s school realized in some form.

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