The Flaw In His Red-Hot Revenge by Abby Green
EPILOGUE
Five years later, Somerset
‘THISPLACEIS so idyllic, Ash. How can you ever bear to go back to London?’
Ashling grinned at her best friend Cassie, who was sitting on the other side of the table on the terrace. They’d just finished a long, leisurely lunch.
She threw a napkin at her friend, ‘Says the woman who has a freaking island!’
Cassie smiled smugly. ‘Well, yes, there is that...’
Cassie and her husband Luke Broussard, tech zillionaire, lived mostly on an island off the coast of Oregon in the United States. The place where they’d first fallen in love. They also had a townhouse in San Francisco, for when they needed to attend to their extremely successful corporate lives, not to mention homes in pretty much every other major city in the world, so their family could always have a settled base when they needed to travel.
Just then a mewling sound came from Ashling’s breast. She looked down and stroked the downy cheek of her baby girl, Georgie, and helped her to latch on again.
Opposite, her friend was similarly engaged. Except her baby girl—Celestine—was a month older. Ashling was already having visions of them being best friends, living together and having adventures...
‘You know that Zach thinks we deliberately contrived to have babies at the same time?’ Ashling commented wryly.
Cassie laughed. ‘Luke may have said something similar.’
‘It’s not still weird for you, is it? Me and Zach?’
It had taken Cassie a little while to get used to seeing her best friend with her old boss. But she rolled her eyes now. ‘Ash, I think I got over it as soon as I saw you together. If ever there was a case of opposites attracting... The thing that freaked me out most was him turning into a man who had actual feelings! Although hearing you call him by his first name for the first time was also a bit of a shock...’
Ashling laughed. She missed her life with her best friend, especially as they lived so far apart now, but they saw each other as much as possible. Each summer here at the country house, for Zach’s annual party, and many more times during the year.
Cassie asked now, ‘How’s the newest studio going?’
Pride filled Ashling. She’d just opened another yoga studio, here in the local village. Elena Stephanides had championed and invested in Ashling’s pipedream to open her own business, and her first studio had opened on the ground floor of the Temple Corp headquarters, along with a crèche for its employees.
She had other studios in London now, and one in Athens too. The Stephanides were close, valued friends and godparents to Georgie.
‘It’s amazing,’ she said. ‘The locals have really embraced it—’ She broke off when she heard shouts from the other end of the garden.
‘There goes our peace,’ Cassie observed dryly.
Ashling took in the scene. Zach and Luke were walking back from the lake with two small boys on their shoulders—Devin and Louis, their respective sons. The men were dripping wet after their swim in the lake, wearing nothing but board shorts. A view that both women took in with a sigh of very feminine appreciation.
Orla, Devin’s non-identical twin sister, ran ahead, holding something small and furry and distinctly wet, that was wriggling in her arms. ‘Mum!’ she shouted, ‘Ziggy had his first swim and he didn’t drown!’
Ashling smiled. There went their peace, indeed. But what was coming in its place was so much more satisfying.
Just before the chaos reached her and Cassie they shared a private look. They might relish their moments of peace, but they both relished this so much more. It was a life and existence beyond anything either of them could ever have imagined, filled with infinite love.
