Smiling, she pushes my hair from my forehead and nods. “We are,” she tells me. “We both made mistakes last night, so you can’t shoulder all the blame. Just…promise me we’ll work on our communication skills?”
I chuckle dryly. “Absolutely,” I agree, kissing her forehead lightly. “I’d still really like to make it up to you, though.”
Obviously feeling giddy, she arches an eyebrow. “Oh?” I nod. “And what, exactly, did you have in mind?”
My lips curve up into a devilish smirk, clearly piquing her curiosity even more, and without another word, I scoop her up and carry her to the bedroom where I toss her on the bed and continue to show her just how sorry I am.
Epilogue. Once in a Lifetime
Over the years, Owen and I have had our share of difficulties…but what relationship hasn’t? Every uphill battle we’ve had to fight has only brought us closer and made our relationship that much stronger.
His divorce was finalized a few short months after Gretchen had found out about us. Sure, she tried to claim that Owen and I had been sleeping together for weeks before he filed for divorce, but when her affairs were proven to have gone on for over three years, the judge immediately ruled in Owen’s favor. He didn’t have to give that gold-digging bitch a dime. He sold her car, after offering it to me. While the idea of a new car was definitely appealing, I would have felt weird driving around in the ice-bitch’s car.
Instead, he took me to a dealership, where he complained and tried to reason with me about letting him buy me a brand new car because the “warranty would be better.” I told him I couldn’t afford it and I wasn’t going to accept handouts from my boyfriend. I found a great little car, and after some compromising, I let Owen put a small down payment on it in order to secure me a lower monthly installment.
I have plans to pay him back, and have been squirreling money away to do so. He’d never accept a handful of cash from me, so instead, I’ve slowly been letting it build in an account that I plan to merge with his in the future. I know his intention isn’t to have me feel like a kept woman, and I don’t, really, but I also feel bad that he spends the kind of money he does on me…especially after Gretchen took advantage of him the way she did. I want our relationship to be as close to 50/50 as possible, so if that means I’m saving this money with the intention of one day merging it with his, then that’s what I’ll do. I never want him to feel like I’m siphoning off of him the way she did.
There’s a knock on the bathroom door before it opens a crack. “You almost ready? We’re going to be late,” Owen says, slipping into the room when he sees me fussing with my hair. He takes my hand and pulls it away from my head. “You look perfect.”
My nerves are shot as I turn to him. One look at him in his tux, and I feel calmer—but only mildly. “You look amazing,” I tell him. I bite the inside of my cheek, suddenly filled with the urge to remove his clothes and take him back to the king-sized bed in our hotel room and have my way with him.
He must recognize the look in my eyes because he laughs. “Not nearly as amazing as you.” I glance down at the floor-length blue gown I’m wearing, admiring the way the bodice fits snugly, but the skirt flares and flows from my hips.
“You sure?”
Owen takes me to the full-length mirror in the hall and stands behind me, hands on my hips as he presses a kiss to my bare shoulder and straightens up. His tie matches the color of my dress, really bringing out the color of his eyes. I relax a little more,, my stomach flipping—a feeling I’ve become accustomed to these last few days.
It’s been three years since that thanksgiving we admitted our feelings for one another, and in that time, I’d finished up school and secured a sweet journalism position with a local news station. Owen and I had been to a few counseling sessions in order to understand one another and how to communicate better, and while I was reluctant to go initially, I have to admit, they’ve done a world of wonders for our relationship. It’s helped Owen overcome his feelings of mistrust and insecurities that his marriage to Gretchen had forced on him, and it’s helped me understand these feelings and how I could help to not trigger them. We both slip up from time to time, sure, but for the most part, we are rocking this May-December romance.
The subject of marriage and kids has come up a few times—more recently as of late. Owen has wanted a family for a while now, and now that I’ve finished college and have started my career, I’m definitely entertaining the idea a little more…especially today.