Page 131 of Princess of Pride
With her chin down, Tessa peeks up at Wes with shame.
He stops a foot away from her and peers down his nose. “Do what you’re supposed to do, or you’ll end up back in Londonalone. Don’t think because I’m not here, I won’t know what you’re up to. What you did was?—”
“Wes,” Lachlan calls out. “She knows.”
I don’t like how Lachlan is defending Tessa, but I’m not worried it’s because he still wants her. Lachlan can’t look at her without showing his disgust. Cross these men in the wrong way and they will make you work to earn back their trust,ifthey allow you to at all.
I certainly crossed lines with Lachlan, and yet, here he is holding my hand and ushering me into the backseat of the Range Rover.
I slide in, excited to start a new chapter of our lives back in America but also sad to leave behind the beginning of us, which like he said, happened in this castle.
To my greatest surprise, life gave me my very own enemies-to-lovers romance. One where I fell for the beast, challenged him at every turn, and showered him with enough sunlight that he came out of the shadows and fell for me too.
I wouldn’t say my beast is transformed. He will always be a bit of a monster, but I wouldn’t want him any other way.
EPILOGUE
Eleven months later
Connecticut, July
I stroll across the green lawn in the backyard, my gaze on the rippling water of Long Island Sound. Our new home isn’t a castle, or even historical, but to me the mansion is better with French Normandy architecture done by Douglas Vanderhorn. I describe it as a stone cottage from the Cotswold’s meets French rooflines and windows. Blooming flowerbeds scatter throughout the yard, the vibrant colors from spring still holding into the summer.
The estate isn’t on a cliff, but it’s surrounded by ocean and on its own secluded island with a private causeway connecting us to Greenwich. The lot is big enough to have a wooded area, but my favorite spot is the rose garden in the backyard, which now has the ashes of my mom and my twin. Lachlan gave it to me as a second wedding present. Neither of us counted the first ceremony as ours for several reasons.
It was a disaster.
I hated him.
He got off on irritating me and wanted togethimselfoffon me.
I’d just learned he wasn’t gay.
The wedding was for my mother more than it was for me.
But this time, he picked my ring—a beautiful yellow diamond surrounded by smaller black diamonds. Sun and shadows—and we planned the wedding without my mom’s help. It took place at Adelaide’s hotel, the Sea House, which is her hotel now. My boss bitch bestie.
Bitch is far from what Adelaide is. And Kingston… boy, does that man love her—as in he’s obsessed. Apparently, he always has loved her, only his father was a tyrant worse than anyone I know, except for maybe Angus. He used his son for his own advantages and Adelaide’s dad got involved too. Everyone was lying to her, including Kingston, but everything he did was to protect her.
She told me all this over a glass of wine and a weekend at her hotel after Lachlan and I moved back to America. During that weekend, Lachlan had my birth mom and brother moved to our estate. It might not be romantic to some people, but to me, it was everything.
Mom strolls over to where I stand admiring the red blooms—the most beautiful roses I’ve ever seen.
“I never hated them.” She eyes the urn-bench and tips her glass of champagne in its direction. At least she’s sober. She is more than not nowadays.
This luncheon is to celebrate my new bookstore. We had the opening at the town square yesterday. I didn’t want family drama so I kept it to the public only but invited Adelaide, of course.
Today is for everyone else, although Adelaide and Kingston are here since they stayed at the house with us last night. Younever know how the menfolk will hit it off. Luckily for us, when Lachlan and Kingston met, they wasted no time discussing businesses and their plans for world domination.
Mom sniffles, and I rub her back. “It’s okay if you did.”
The day I told her I knew the truth about my birth mom and twin was shortly after Lachlan and I left Scotland. I broke the news that he no longer owned a castle and how, despite my will not to, I’d fallen in love with him.
She brushed my hair from my shoulders and tenderly said, “I don’t blame you. No woman could resist those eyes. And the way he looked at you at the wedding…” She fans herself. “I knew you were in for it.”
We were in her book club room. I didn’t come to tell her I wanted my biological family moved. I just wanted to tell her I knew about them. I let her finish her white sangria first, then I explained everything I learned, and do you know what she said…?
“I know. I sent it all to Lachlan.”
