Page 27 of Her Innocent CEO

“All I know is I love you Maddox, and I’ll never take this off, not as long as I live. I’m yours forever.”

“I love you too Jasmine, today and every other day. Now and forever.”

Epilogue

Six Months Later

Maddox

Finding a new partner for the firm was easy, she was right in front of me at the altar.

“But I’m not a lawyer, Maddox,” she says, looking uncomfortable.

“So? Look at the last guy, he was a god damned criminal! You can become a lawyer if you want, but you don’t need to be one to be my business partner as well as my wife,” I scold her gently, kissing her after lifting the veil.

The priest cleared his throat, staring daggers at me with his eyes before raising both brows.

“I do,” I finally remember to add. Always thinking about three or four things at once, I figured why not ask Jasmine to be my partner in business as well as in everything else as we tie the knot.

“Can I really be a lawyer though?” she asks, looking thoughtful now.

“Sure, it’s a lot of work, but if you want.”

She makes a face, taking my arm as we walk back down the aisle, flowers and confetti under our feet, but from the wedding a half hour before.

“Maybe you can just chase me around the desk and I can look brainy with my glasses on, biting the end of a pencil,” she adds, making me growl at the very thought.

“And anything else I can find to put in your mouth,” I caution her.

Not wanting to spend money and with nobody either of us really had in mind to join our celebration of marriage, we decided to have a shotgun wedding in Vegas, baby bump and all.

Maria’s dress was, and still is beautiful. A modern take on a classic design. I don’t know if it shows, but I think she actually gave Jasmine her old wedding dress that she’d kept her whole life, having no children of her own, she modernized it and gifted it to Jasmine and me for our special day.

I made a sizable donation to an animal shelter Jasmine supports instead of hosting a huge reception for a bunch of people none of us liked let alone knew and we spent our honeymoon in our Vegas hotel in bed. On the balcony, in the shower… you get the idea.

Steak dinners, burgers and real milkshakes at the roadhouses on the road trip back home and stopping where and when we felt like for the remainder of our honeymoon, which I swear will never end, not if I can help it, just what Jasmine and I want.

About a thousand miles from nowhere we both spot a ‘for sale’ sign along the highway. An arrow pointing to a vast expanse of nothing beyond. Before the mountains start.

Shrugging in unison after slowing to take a closer look at the sign and open gate, I turn up the long dirt road and drive for about five miles until we see it.

A sort of cough, mixed with a gasp escapes me. It’s the house I saw in my mind the first night I was with Jasmine.

“I feel like I’ve been here before,” Jasmine murmurs, reaching out to clutch my hand as we take a closer look.

The old farmhouse has been lovingly restored, a few bits and pieces of farm equipment and antiques litter the wide porch, which stretches all the way around the house.

“This, we’ll have to keep,” Jasmine says, pulling out a faded but very fixable white wicker bassinet from behind some old boxes by the front door.

I try to open the screen door to knock, but notice a bunch of cards stuffed in there instead.

“Land agents,” I observe, creasing my mouth as I watch Jasmine squatting over the bassinet.

“We can’t just take it,” I tease her, holding back the undeniable sense of already living here as well as having been here before. Already having our family and having Jasmine and me, right here on the porch with iced tea and thunderstorms. With sunshine and hot days, with winter frosts and everything else that comes with living close to the land.

“Then we’ll leave it here, you can clean it up when we come back, once we move in,” she says knowingly and right there, right at that moment I know that’s why she’s the one. I know it’s why she’ll be the mother of our children, the brains of our business and the best friend I’ll ever have.

What little I know of real estate, I figure there’s one tucked away around here someplace, just like the business cards… and sure enough I find it.

On our way out, before I call the agent, I stop long enough at the sign out front to peel the backing off the ‘sold’ sticker and smooth it across the sign by the gate.

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