“May we all live happily ever after,” I added.
“Cheers!”
We sat in the grass, drinking champagne and listening to the night symphony of laughter, music, and spring peepers.
Lucian pulled me into his lap and nuzzled my neck.
“Married, married, engaged, engaged,” Knox said, pointing at each couple in our little circle. “Shit sure happens fast round here.”
“Have you two set a date?” I asked Stef and Jeremiah.
“Stef wants at least a year to plan ‘the wedding of the century,’” Jeremiah teased.
“Hey! Naomi and I have been dreaming about our weddings since we were infants,” Stef said defensively.
“Just don’t get married on Christmas Eve,” Lucian said, picking up my hand and kissing my engagement ring. “That date’s taken.”
Lina and Naomi squealed. “You set a date!”
“None of you are invited,” Lucian teased.
“You’re all invited,” I corrected.
Lucian “Lucifer” Rollins was going to be my husband. And I was going to be his wife. We were going to spend the rest of our lives building a family…and driving each other absolutely insane.
Maybe it was the champagne or the happy tears, or maybe it was my dad working a little heavenly miracle, but I’d never seen the stars so bright.
“I love you, Pixie,” Lucian whispered against my hair, his thumb brushing the scar on my wrist.
Epilogue
A Christmas Wedding
Sloane
December 24th dawned crisp and cold with an accommodating amount of snow that had fallen earlier in the week. Perfect for the Christmas effect but without impeding guest travel, according to the wedding coordinator Lucian had hired, what with Naomi and Knox being distracted with fertility specialist appointments.
Wedding coordinator Tiffany had coordinated us to within an inch of our lives.
Our house was full. Even now, laughter rose up from the first floor as the people I loved most in this world got ready to celebrate with us. Lina was probably comparing pregnant bellies with Nolan’s wife, Callie, while everyone else broke into the champagne.
We’d decided to get married at home where Lucian had spared no expense on decking our halls for our first Christmas together. The ceremony would take place inside, and then the reception was in the backyard. Lucian had somehow managed to get the entire yard under a large, heated tent filled with all the glamorous fixings for an event to remember. The aisle was blanketed in cherry blossoms, which were so far out of season I didn’t even want to know how much Lucian had spent arranging it. The man had probably paid scientists to clone our tree.
Tiffany had been in wedding coordinator heaven with an unlimited budget and a groom who wanted the best of everything. She was terrifying in her detail management and time schedules, which was why I was hiding in our bedroom.
I’d sent my half of the bridal party and my mother downstairs to welcome Mary Louise and Allen, who had just arrived, while I took a private moment to freak the fuck out.
I was dressed, made-up, shoes on, ready to go. And starting to panic.
Not seeing Lucian since the—thankfully drama-free—rehearsal dinner had stirred up my nerves.
I paced in the most romantic, perfect wedding dress in the history of wedding dresses and thought about how far we’d come in the past several months.
Lucian had set his sights on making every wish I’d ever had come true, starting with renovating our bathroom and installing not one but two rain showerheads and a platoon of body jets and continuing to complete the library in record time with new bells and whistles the entire town was still swooning over.
I nervously smoothed my hand over the ball gown satin skirt as I wandered our room.
As happy as I was for this particular occasion, I still felt the hole of my father’s absence. Knowing how proud he would have been to walk me down the aisle, how he would have loved quizzing Kurt, now Maeve’s fiancé, about his curriculum for the year, how he would have danced with Mom until their feet hurt, my heart was still just a little bit broken.
“Shit. Don’t freaking cry now and wreck the eye makeup,” I warned myself.
Tiffany would kill me if the makeup artist had to come back.
I fanned my hands in front of my eyes and thought about not sad things. Like the fact that Wylie Ogden was in prison and would never have the opportunity to hurt anyone I loved ever again. And Lucian was working from home two days a week and commuting—often by helicopter—on the other days. And about how the entire town had turned out for the grand reopening of the library.