𝗔 𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬 𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗞𝗬 𝗚𝗔𝗠𝗕𝗟𝗘

epilogue | four years later

I was perched on the edge of my windowsill, holding a deep blue graduation cap in my hands, when a car horn almost startled it out of them.

Freaked momentarily, I glanced down.

Parked in the driveway of the house I'd been living in for the past two years was a very familiar Porsche.

Jameson was inside.

And then he was out.

Before I'd even had a chance to smile at my boyfriend, he'd started scaling the side of my house by merely grasping ivy and wedging his fingers into the crevices of stones.

"Hi," I murmured when he reached me.

Jameson kissed me once, hard, before I slid back into my bedroom and allowed him to follow.

Except for a mattress balanced on a wooden frame, I'd stripped the room bare of my belongings. After graduation, I was headed back to Hawthorne House mostly on account of living with Jameson again. After his graduation just two weeks from now, we finally had the freedom to do that.

I couldn't help a bittersweet smile.

Life was about to chance again - but this time for the better.

Once we'd both landed in my empty, airy bedroom, Jameson grasped my waist and kissed me twice more. "Hi," he murmured, and I smiled against his lips.

Had I not been wearing a tight, short white dress, I figured Jameson would've kissed me longer. Instead, he circled me predatorily.

"You know, Heiress," Jameson said, running his fingertips over the lace of my hem, "you're not the only one graduating today. You're doing your classmates a disservice."

"Why?"

"Because you're wearing this," he said, "and no one's going to bother looking at anyone else."

I rolled my eyes and directed his attention toward my bed, where the rest of my outfit lay. "I'll be wearing a gown, Jameson."

He backed me toward my bed, smirking. "I hope you'll take it off for me later."

"The gown? Or the dress?"

He grinned. "Either."

I looped my arms around his shoulders. "You drive me crazy."

"And you drive me wild."

"I noticed." Kissing him again, I breathed in his heavy, pine-scented cologne.

Jameson's fingers skated to my neck. Or rather, the locket strung around it. Ever since he'd given it to me four years ago, I'd worn it almost everyday.

"Nice necklace," he murmured, as if he hadn't seen me wear it a thousand times.

"Thanks," I said, smirking. "My boyfriend got it for me."

"Sounds like a good man. Hot, too?"

I kissed Jameson to avoid answering, but that, in itself, was an answer.