Chapter 10 - Ever After
One year later.
The sun was setting over Lake Michigan, casting brilliant shades of gold, pink, and deep violet across the water.
Harper stood on the private bluffs behind the Vance Estate, the cool autumn breeze playing with the soft fabric of her sweater. She placed a hand over her stomach, a radiant, quiet smile gracing her lips.
A pair of warm hands gently covered hers.
Julian stepped up behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder as they looked out over the endless horizon together.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.
“I was thinking about eight words,” Harper replied, turning her head to kiss his cheek.
Julian smiled, his fingers intertwining with hers over her belly, where a tiny, unmistakable bump was just beginning to show.
“'He broke my leg. Please come before he returns,'” Julian quoted from memory, his voice thick with emotion. “The best mistake of my life.”
“It wasn't a mistake,” Harper echoed his words from the night they met, her eyes shining with tears of absolute happiness. “It was fate.”
Julian turned her around in his arms, cradling her against him as if she were the most precious treasure in the universe. He looked down at her face—the face he had come to love more than life itself, the face of the woman who had transformed his dark, violent world into a life filled with purpose, light, and real love.
He leaned down and kissed her deeply, a sweet, lingering promise beneath the painted Chicago sky.
May you like
The wrong number had led her out of hell.
But it was the right man who had brought her home.
