Page 90 of Without Regret

EPILOGUE

Trevor

The knock sounded on my bedroom door. “Come on in.” I was expecting my sister, and she didn’t disappoint. Her expression went astonished when she came in and saw everything that was lying about in my childhood bedroom.

“Holy shit, Trevor. What is all this?”

I smiled, looking around the bed covered in items, boxes, tissue, wrapping paper, and bows. And I could swear I had tape and scissors around here, too. “Christmas gifts for Emma.”

She met my gaze. “How many are there?”

Yeah, so I’d had an idea of what to get her for our first Christmas together. “Twenty-seven of them. One for every year she didn’t have a present under the tree.” It was a far cry from making up for her rough childhood, but I sure as hell wanted to give her the best holiday of her life.

The last few months with her had been every fantasy come true. We’d developed a good balance between working together in the new real estate venture and our personal lives. Since we’d started living together almost six months ago, we’d only grown closer.

Avery’s eyes welled up with tears. “That’s so sweet. I take it you need help wrapping them.”

“I’d be forever grateful.” It had taken me fifteen minutes to do only one. And the result wasn’t very pretty if I was being honest.

I’d driven to my childhood home two days ago and had been going through each of the packages, most of which I’d ordered online. There was one last important item I needed to get from my father.

Two hours later, we were finally done with wrapping. My sister sat back and surveyed the packages which, thanks to her, looked like they’d been professionally done, with ribbons and bows and sparkly shit that she’d gone to her room to get. In all, the effect was dazzling.

“You aren’t planning to have her open these gifts in front of everyone tomorrow, are you?”

I had. Emma was flying into Houston tonight, and we were spending Christmas Eve and Day at my house. Avery had decorated the place all up the way my mom would’ve if she’d been alive.

“What’s wrong with having her open the presents?”

She frowned. “I just think she might be emotional over it.”

Shit. She was right. “I wanted to have everything under the tree.” I’d pictured her waking up to that.

She laughed. “How sound of a sleeper is she?”

Thankfully, Emma slept heavily unless Rufus chose to lick her face. “Very. And I like where you’re going with this.”

That night, I picked Emma up at the airport. When she walked out to baggage claim, I thought she had to be the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, wearing her skinny jeans, knee-high leather boots, and cream-colored sweater. But it wasn’t until she fixed her smile on me that my world tilted. From the moment I’d first met her, I’d known she was it for me.

She didn’t hesitate in putting her arms around me. It might have only been a couple of days since we’d seen one another, but we’d definitely missed each other.

“Hi, cowboy.”

“Hi, yourself, sugar.”

“It felt strange in the house all by myself the last couple of nights.”

For the last few months, we’d been living together in a rental house. I intended to propose a few months from now, on the anniversary of our meeting at the gym. After she hopefully accepted, we could start to build a house.

We both liked the Dallas area as it was close enough to my father’s home and allowed us to work with Simon on our new real estate investment company. Yep, Simon and I were officially partners, and Emma was the glue that kept us organized. Our first commercial building had broken ground just last month.

As for my father, he’d been elected Mayor of Houston and had brought in a new CEO for Newhall Oil and Gas. The guy was doing a great job, and best of all, I no longer felt guilty about not taking over the family business.

“Rufus whined all night as if to say, where the hell is she?”

She kissed my lips in a display of affection I never took for granted since she had never given them to anyone before me. “Aww. Good thing I’m here for Rufus, then.”

I laughed. “He is rather gone for you.”

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