Page 114 of The Passion

Answering it, he raises it to his ear. “Have I told you how annoying you are yet, this morning, my dear?” His voice is laced with sarcasm but still love. “Yes, he is okay, yes, they are still together, yes, you can reach out to Felisha now and I won’t get mad at you for interfering, and yes, I would love to meet you for lunch, but sadly, I can’t because Flynn and I have a meeting.Does that answer all the questions?” I can’t hold my laughter in, hearing her chastising him through the phone. “And yes, you are right, dear, I am an asshole, but you love me anyway. Now can I get on with my day?” He smiles as he listens to her talk and then says goodbye.

I look at him and so many things start falling into place.

“You know, I never understood the way you and Tori argue with so much fire but love with so much depth. But I have to say, I get it now.”

He holds out his hand to shake mine. “And that, my friend, is your welcome to the happy wives’ club. Don’t ever let the day-to-day things overpower the truly important thing in your life and that is Felisha and your love for her. Everything else is just dust in the wind, it blows away freely and settles when it’s ready.”

“But she’s not my wife,” I say to him as he starts toward the door, his back to me.

“She will be.”

“How do you know?”

He stops at the door and looks over his shoulder. “Tell me I’m wrong.” He’s wearing that cocky satisfied grin on his face that he gets when he knows he’s right.

“Fuck off, I hate you.” I wave my hand it him, telling him to get out of my office. “And technically, you’re still wrong, she’s not my wife yet.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he yells over his shoulder as he is walking away.

He might be right, and I will marry Felisha one day, but not yet. We have a long way to go, and to be honest, I’m just happy we are still living under the same roof.

One step at a time, one day at time. When the time is right, we will know. And until then, I just can’t wait to explore us and our imperfect relationship.

Including every wicked sexual desire that is brewing inside of Felisha’s beautiful mind.

I’m all for exploring every single one of those.

I’ve chased perfection for so long in my life. Love’s given me the permission to stop that tiring battle.

Felisha gives me the space to just be me, and I can’t ask for any more from the woman I love.

As tough as it has been, I’d go through it all again if it brings us back to here. Together and bound by our love, which is all we need.

Damn, Luchia is right, I am mushy on the inside!

But luckily, I’m also hard in all the right places.

Epilogue

FELISHA

“At least we know why my father was in such a rush to make that trip to Switzerland just as everything was blowing up between him and me over the company.” I sigh as I take my first sip of the scotch that Flynn has just handed me.

“Bastard, he first tried to make you look bad because you weren’t organized for the job that was supposedly urgent, when in fact he purposely created it, which then gave himself the excuse to fly there without any questions. All the while he was just over there setting up bank accounts and hiding money from you before you got access to everything. I don’t hate many people in my life, but that man is the top of my very short list.” Flynn’s feelings come across very clearly in his voice.

Harper snorts. “Oh, I only have two people on my list, my father and hers, and I hate them equally.” She starts laughing as she holds up her glass in the air, and we both follow suit. “Here’s to never having to deal with either of them in our lives again.”

“Cheers to that.” I touch my glass to hers, but there is still a part of me that is sad on the inside. Her father is dead and minemay as well be now, because there is no way I want to see or speak to him again, unless it’s through a lawyer.

It has been a few months since the day I removed him from the company, and thankfully, he just slinked away into the background without any commotion. Within a week he had left the country and is now living in Switzerland from what Broderick has told me. Flynn insisted we assign people to keep an eye on him, and I have a feeling that will remain for a long time into the future.

By the time the forensic accountants had finished looking through our books, they had found money was being siphoned to numerous bank accounts over the years and some questionable dealings with companies that I will no longer be associated with. My guess is there were more deals done over a poker table over the years, and my father was dragging the business into places I certainly don’t want to be.

Harper and I have been working so hard these last few months to strengthen all the black holes, and I know we are in a better place heading forward.

I didn’t ask for the money back from my father. I will succeed on my own and don’t want to waste the energy of the fight it would have caused. I just want to move forward with the clean company and my staff and board around me who support me. But the money Flynn paid to buy out the other shares is still up for debate between the two of us. I want to pay him back, but he is insisting it’s a gift. But I won’t back down. I don’t want any man to have that sort of hold over me, even if he doesn’t mean it to be.

Flynn and all the Darby team have been amazing. They may be competitors, but first and foremost, they are my friends and have been the first to ask what they can do to help. But the funny thing is, even though we are competing in the same market, there are ways we can work together that can benefit us both.There is a lot of talk about things in the future where we can help each other. Which, I’ll be honest, was one of my concerns being with Flynn. I don’t want us to keep secrets from each other, but when it comes to business, we know that is a different matter. That part of our life isn’t a secret, it’s just information that we don’t need to share with each other, and we’re both okay with that.

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