Page 75 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
“Have you been tested lately?”
“Last year, but it’s just been me and my hand since then. And you. Man, that was a wild night.”
“Lock the door.”
She didn’t need to tell him twice. He leapt up and turned the key as Phae peeled off the green dress and stared down at herself in horrified incredulity. Marc gave a low whistle when he saw the barely-there thong underwear and the see-through brassiere that did everything for Phae’s breasts and turned him to granite in an instant.
“I like it.”
“Ugh, they dressed me up like a damn doll.”
“I should send your friends a thank-you card. After we yell at them, of course,” he added hastily.
“Hurry up and fuck me already.”
Marc freed his cock and backed Phae against the wall, pushing her underwear aside and sliding his shaft through her slickness. “Fuck” was the wrong word for what he was about to do to Phae. He was going to worship her, today and every day for the rest of their lives.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Phaedra.”
“In case it isn’t obvious, I do still love you.” She moaned as he thrust into her bare. “Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Gregory.”
Epilogue - Phae
“Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh! You’re never going to believe this.” Salma, Edie’s assistant, fanned herself with her hands. “I heard a rumour that Polly got engaged to Damon. Her parents are going to lose their minds.”
I stared blankly. Polly? Damon? I had no idea who these people were. This was the first time I’d been out with Marc in semi-public, and by “semi-public,” I meant dinner with his friends in London. He’d been spending more and more time there, he said, because he’d finally found a place he could be himself. Friends who treated him like a human being and not a big-name star. Friends who would celebrate his successes because they were genuinely happy for him and not because they thought he could get them a part in some movie. And tonight was a celebration. Shooting—not literal shooting, not this time—had just finished on the Whispers in Willowbrook summer special, filmed on Malati with appropriate security plus a crew of conservationists on set. Heath had led the security team, so at least I’d been able to sleep at night.
As for Malati, now the builders would be moving in. No, not those kinds of builders. When the locals agreed to sell their homes, they’d been swayed by a promise of investment on the island—solar power for the town, a new jetty, a mini desalination plant, and a dozen or so jobs taking care of the single-family home Lonnie McDonald had claimed he wanted to build. Then the home morphed into a hotel, and the rest of the investment evaporated.
Emmy’s charitable foundation was funding the infrastructure, and the resort had been downgraded to a small eco-village—half a dozen buildings to accommodate tourist volunteers and the local employees who’d teach them about the ecology of the island. Marc wanted to visit someday. And maybe…maybe I’d go with him.
Lonnie McDonald had been quiet since his escapades in Thailand. Echo was keeping an eye on him, and I knew Emmy’s team was doing the same. Honestly, I didn’t care if he fucked up—paying him another visit would be fun. Echo was monitoring Kamryn too, but so far, she’d stayed true to the promise she’d made to Marc and kept quiet about our connection. After her release last week, she’d flown back to New York, and I hoped she stayed there.
As she travelled to New York, I’d been en route to Marseilles, where I’d terminated a businessman who kept sticking his fingers in the wrong pies. The job had gone well—everyone thought it was an accident, and only his mistress seemed particularly upset by his death. The wife and the family were too busy rubbing their hands together as they divided the spoils from his estate.
Since I was only a hop, skip, and jump from London, I didn’t have a great excuse when Marc asked me to come for dinner tonight. A dry dinner because Janie was breastfeeding and Edie was three months pregnant, and damn, I needed a drink. But here I was, complete with my “nice” persona, sipping orange juice and making excruciating small talk. Which was even more awkward than it should have been because Serena and Heath had both seen me in Indonesia, and I was almost certain they’d mentioned my proclivities to their significant others. Both Edie and Owen were more wary than I’d expect, given the circumstances.
I ignored that.
“Who are Polly and Damon?” I whispered to Marc.
“Polly is an old friend of Edie’s. Comes from one of those old-money, stiff-upper-lip families and had a very public breakup with her ex-fiancé earlier in the year. Damon is a porn star. Quite an impressive one, from what I’ve heard.”
“Good for her,” Marissa said. She was engaged to Serena’s other brother. They were getting hitched in April, and apparently, I was expected to show up for that too. “Everyone should marry for love.”
“And dick,” her sister said, coughing into her hand.
Heath chuckled. “I definitely didn’t marry for dick.”
Marriage wasn’t in the cards for me, period. Not anymore. Marc said he understood, but that hadn’t stopped him from giving me back my old engagement ring. A symbol, he called it. A reminder that he loved me. I wore the platinum band on my other hand, and only the inscription told of its true meaning.
Become who you are and always be mine. M
The ring I’d bought for him all those years ago bore the same inscription with a P at the end. Damn, we were so adorable it made me want to puke.
But he’d taken the words to heart, and he’d even started painting again, his old easel set up in a new studio. The studio in the house he’d bought in Las Vegas. Okay, so he’d only spent a week there so far, but he said it already felt more like a home than his place in Malibu ever did. And he hadn’t taken a single photo of his feet so far. Feet he was still finding. He could easily land a gallery show now, but he wanted people to love his art because it spoke to them, not because of the name in the corner. So he’d begun using a pseudonym, and the single painting he’d sold through his new website made him happier than any leading role ever had. His soul seemed lighter now. More fulfilled.
He’d visited Casa del Gato once, where he’d had a few choice words for the friends who’d packaged me up like a mail-order girlfriend. I couldn’t even be mad at them because (a) I’d ended up with Marc and (b) I’d probably have done the same thing in their position, but that didn’t stop him from ripping into them with vicious precision. Then Butterball had broken the spell by running at him like the crazy beast she was, and he’d jumped onto the counter until Sin coaxed the turkey away with weed-laced sunflower seeds.
