Epilogue
CHRIS
6 Months Later
“So, how does it feel to be a happily married man? I mean, I know you’ve only been happily married for a grand total of two hours, but that must be long enough for you to make some grand proclamations. But maybe not. It looks like your wife is having a pretty good time on the dance floor. Without you, I might add.”
“Watch yourself, Marcus,” I say lightly, with a quick glance at Hallie, who’s giggling with Sam as they twirl around the tiny dance floor. “As to the marriage question, I would have to say that it feels pretty damn good. Think you’re ready to join our ranks?”
We both turn to look at Eva, who’s sitting at one of the tables set up in the rooftop garden overlooking the city lights, immersed in a conversation with Claire and Diana. Marcus laughs.
“We just reached the point where we can have a meal without hurling insults at each other. If we manage to make it through a weekend, then we’ll talk about marriage. But that will never happen, so I don’t need to worry about it.”
I grin at Marcus’s horrified expression. “We’ll see about that.”
“Sure. When pigs f*cking fly, Jensen. Now, look. I know you and Hallie are off to Bali or Belize or the Canary Islands for the honeymoon…”
“Disneyland.”
“Or that.” He gives me a sideways look. “Disneyland? Seriously?”
I shrug. “You have to give the womenfolk what they want.”
“Fine. So, you’re off to Disneyland, but I’m getting heat from the studio about the second screenplay. Now that the first movie’s in the can and all the big shots are assured that it’s going to be a blockbuster, they’re clamoring to get started on the next one, so I can’t let you and Hallie slack on that, even for a few days. You also need to make sure that you get all the best lines, because personally, I think she was holding back on that first one. But now that you’re married to the screenwriter, you can get in on the action…”
I hold my hand up. “Stop. Just stop. You have got to be kidding me. We’re at my goddamn wedding, and you’re trying to talk shop right now? Marcus. Get a life.”
“I agree with that sentiment,” Eva says, putting her hand on Marcus’s arm. “Chris, mind if I borrow him? Congratulations, by the way.” She places a light kiss on my cheek and I smile back at her.
“Thank you. Please, take him. Take him and never give him back. He’s trying to give me grief about the screenplay.”
“Marcus!”
“What? It’s got to get done. Tell me that you weren’t saying the same thing last night.”
She gives me an exasperated look. “I’ll get him off your back if you tell Hallie that she has two weeks before I’m in the same camp as Marcus.”
“Seriously? You, too?”
“Yeah, seriously. Go. Steal your bride back. Sam has a bad habit of monopolizing her, especially when there’s dancing involved.”
She winks at me.
“One week. Hallie has one week before I start calling every hour on the hour,” he calls out over his shoulder, just as Eva drags him onto the dance floor.
Just as I’m about to follow Eva’s advice, I feel a light tugging at the corner of my jacket. Grace is staring up at me with huge, sad eyes.
“No one will dance with me.”
“Well, let’s remedy that immediately. Shall we?”
I swing her into my arms and she lets out a little gleeful shriek. We make our way past a few of the dancing couples, and I set her down on the dance floor and twirl her under my arm.
“Again,” she pronounces.
I’m only too happy to oblige, at least until the constant spinning starts to make me dizzy. Grace shows no signs of slowing down. Obviously, she inherited her mother’s dancing prowess, shimmying around the floor like an old pro.
“Uncle Sam is a better dancer than you are,” Grace says, sticking her chin out and grinning up at me.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“That’s my princess,” Sam says, as he and Hallie come to a stop near us. “How about a dance, Gracie?”
“Yes. Please. Just one thing first, Uncle Sam.”
She reaches out her arms for me and I pull her into them, relishing the way they clasp around my neck.
“I’m really glad that you married Mommy,” she whispers. “There’s lots and lots of dancing, and I like dancing.”
I laugh and kiss her cheek before placing her down again and handing her over to Sam, who promptly swoops her into his arms.
“Are we really going to Disneyland tomorrow?” she calls out hopefully.
“Yes, we really are going to Disneyland tomorrow.”
I hear her jabbering away at Sam as they float across the dance floor.
“She’s wrong, you know,” Hallie says, nestling herself into my open arms. “You’re a better dancer than Uncle Sam any day.”
“Liar.”
“Nope. And besides, I have an obligation to defend my husband’s honor,” she whispers into my ear, her fingers curling around my hair.
“I like the sound of that.”
“Me, too.”
She beams up at me and she’s incandescent, basking in the glow of the white candles placed all around the edges of the rooftop garden of the apartment that we had bought together, because, as she put it, “We needed a place to make our own, the three of us.”
“Want to dance?”
“With you?”
“Yes. With me.”
“You kind of have two left feet.” She gives me a mischievous smile before settling herself into my arms. “But I suppose I can make the sacrifice.”
“What happened to defending the honor of your husband?”
“Eh. Overrated. Teasing is better. Lots of teasing.”
I feel the curves of her body relax against me as we start to move slowly to the music. I touch the barely visible swell of her stomach with my fingers, still disbelieving that we had created a new life together, in more ways than one. She gives me a secret little smile as her enormous blue eyes fix on mine.
“I love you, Hals. And Grace. And Buster. And the yet-to-be-named Jensen. I was thinking…maybe Samuel Benjamin? I think that’s a good name for a kid.”
She touches the side of my face and looks deeply into my eyes. “That is a good name for a kid.”
“Then it’s decided.”
“I love you, Chris.”
“You know, I think I could get used to this perfectly happy thing.”
“How on earth did you remember that?”
“I remember everything.”
Her lips cover mine and we share a long, lingering kiss before she draws back, a soft smile playing across her features.
“I think I could get used to being imperfectly happy with you. As long as it’s still a forever kind of thing.”
“Imperfectly happy it is, then.”
If you enjoyed this book, you’ll want to check out Falling into You, which details the beginning of Hallie and Chris’s story…
When Hallie Caldwell, normal girl extraordinaire, perpetual wingwoman, and queen of the friend zone, accepts her college roommate's invitation to spend winter break in New York, she figures it’s a chance to live out her childhood fantasies of a life in the big city. Instead, thrust into a world of glittering parties and oversized bank accounts, she immediately feels like an outsider.
Chris Jensen’s Hollywood agent keeps telling him that he’ll be the next big star, just as long as he gets the lead role in the reboot of a classic action franchise. When he returns to New York after a two-year absence, he has other things on his mind—his dying father, an irate sister, and the beautiful, seductive, infuriating, and ruthless Sophia Pearce. He's not exactly thrilled when she asks him to be her roommate's tour guide, but he reluctantly agrees.
When Hallie and Chris meet, they're irresistibly drawn to each other. However, Chris’s meteoric rise to stardom and long-suppressed secrets from Hallie’s past threaten to destroy their tenuous connection, and each is forced to examine whether happy endings are nothing but a Hollywood fantasy.
About The Author
Lauren Abrams lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband and a small menagerie of four-legged children. She spends most of her days trying to convince her high school students that reading is fun, although she’s still not sure quite what to say about The Scarlet Letter. She is the author of Falling into Forever and Falling into You.
She’s currently writing her third novel, a contemporary romance. It will be released in the late summer or early fall of 2013.