Page 136 of Truth or Dare

“I love you,” he said and then his lips touched mine as he slid the engagement ring on my finger.

Epilogue

We got married in a beautiful little church with his family around us. He wore a tux. He was beautiful. I wore a white strapless wedding gown and a veil and left my hair loose and curly. He’d also bought me a new necklace for my birthday a few weeks before, which I wore on our wedding day. It was simple, white gold, and consisted of three chains with a pendant of two hearts linked together. When he lifted my veil, he fingered a curl and gave me a dazzling beautiful smile as he gently poked the side of my nose on the tiny diamond. I had put my nose piercing back in the night before.

Maybe after everything I’d been through, I wasn’t Angie Macleod any longer, but I was looking forward to being Angel Ferrano.

The wedding happened a month after he’d proposed. He’d been busy with work during the day and at nighttime he was always there, always attentive. Sometimes we played rough and sometimes we played gentle. He seemed okay with the rough, okay with my submissive tendencies. We were very compatible sexually.

I was thinking about my future. I wanted to get back to teaching, maybe. Dare asked me to hang tight while he finished sorting out some business stuff. He didn’t know how long until they’d be free of Kruna. He said there’d been complications with a few business areas that he was trying to get out of but was kind of tight-lipped about it. I didn’t push. I was busy trying to find myself in my new life after being a sex slave. I didn’t ask him about the partner summit, but that date had come and gone.

I took an art class a few blocks away. It was only once a week, but it was fun. I walked there and back alone and I often walked to the library, to the park to watch kids play, to feed the ducks by myself, and occasionally I stopped by the office to bring Dare lunch, a cup of his favorite coffee, or just to give him a kiss.

One day just a few days before our wedding I walked through the park at lunchtime and saw Dare’s ex there. She was sitting with a few girls eating lunch. It was the same place I’d seen her the first time. She glanced at me. She recognized me. She looked to her lap and said nothing to me. So I kept walking. I glanced over my shoulder when I was almost past her and saw her looking at me, a sad look on her face. She really screwed herself when she screwed him over. At least she was smart enough to heed his warnings to stay out of our lives. Poor stupid girl. But it was my boon. If she hadn’t shredded his heart, he’d never have been at Kruna, picking up his birthday gift.

Me.

Lisa wasn’t at our wedding. She was away at a retreat but she and I had been texting. The night before our wedding, when I was having a girls’ night in with Tia, Tess, and Luc for my bachelorette party. Lisa phoned me and I slipped into a bedroom at Tessa and Lisa’s place to have some privacy. She said the therapy was helping and said that she wanted me to do the same, to not bury what we’d been through. She said she was getting so much out of it that she was thinking that after Dare and Tommy were clear of the Kruna world maybe she and I could start up a charity of some sort to help those who’d been through what we’d gone through.

I didn’t know how soon the guys would be clear of Kruna. I didn’t know if it’d ever happen, and if it did, I doubted we could be so public about our truths. But I didn’t want to burst Lisa’s bubble. She seemed confident we’d find our way out. She wished me a happy wedding day and said she’d be home as soon as she could be.

The wedding was a dream come true. We had a little reception afterwards where we danced together to the song “Make Me Do Anything You Want” as our wedding dance. It was perfect for us. And then the music got upbeat and me, Tia, Luc, and Tessa danced our asses off until my new husband whisked me away for our wedding night, which had a whole lot of loud and energetic drunken marriage consummating. And for some odd reason there was nothing submissive about me that night.

The day after our wedding when I woke up my Master, my husband, the love of my life … was coming into the hotel suite. He sat down in front of the window looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“Good morning, hubby.” I stretched and smiled, wondering where he’d been. “Guess what?”

“What, baby?”

“I did something as a wedding present.”

He looked at me, but he wasn’t smiling.

“When I had the stitches out from my leg and I told you the doc referred me to that plastic surgeon? I didn’t tell you everything. I also got a referral to another doctor and the day Luc took me to the appointment for the plastic surgery consultation I had another appointment, too. I had the doctor take my IUD out. Surprise! Never know… we might’ve made a baby on our wedding night.”

He was looking very troubled.

My heart sank. “I thought you’d be happy. Is it too soon for that?”

I couldn’t wait to give him babies. Maybe I shouldn’t have made that decision on my own.

“I am happy. I’m gonna be so happy when we start our family, my baby. I’m sorry for my anticlimactic reaction but I got a call a little while ago and had to go down and meet with Zack in the lobby. What I’ve gotta tell you is gonna be hard. I can’t keep it from you. That wouldn’t be right.”

I sat up. He put his hand on the back of my neck and squeezed reassuringly.

“I wanted to find a way to get you and your sister in touch safely like. So I got Zack’s team on it weeks back. Told him to look her up and feel out the situation. Would’ve loved to have had her here for yesterday, baby.”

My mouth dropped open. I felt the panic trying to set in. I pushed it back. He kept talking.

“Zack couldn’t find Holly in Alaska anywhere, so he did some looking. As it turns out, her grandmother got sick and your mother got wind of it and called CPS and CPS had returned her to your mother before the Kruna scumbags had people kidnap her.”

“She…” I could barely breathe, “She’s not in Alaska?”

“Whoever picked her up from your mother didn’t return her. Your mother never reported her missing. The grandmother didn’t get better. Died a few months later. Your mother figured Holly ran away. Holly has been gone for almost as long as you have.”

The world stopped turning. Holly. Oh God.

“We think we know where she is, though. I’m gonna find out, Angel. I’ll do everything I can to find her for you.”

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