Page 93 of Beautiful Disaster

They hold hands as Aleks speaks first. “I’d still be trapped in LA if you hadn’t walked up to me that day, Sugar. I thought being a prostitute was all that I was destined for. I had no future at all. I accepted my fate until you solicited me.” He chuckles, and his eyes water. “I thought you were nuts, or you were scamming me at first. Like, who would want to spend so much time with a hooker and pay them for it? It didn’t take long for me to fall for you. Days. That was it. We were two lost souls seeking just a thread of love and happiness. We were beaten down to nothing. I’d like to think we healed each other. We found something neither of us believed was possible. I would’ve been afraid to leave LA, but you made me brave.” Aleks shows his broken-chain tattoos on his wrists. “You broke my chains. I will give you my love and life for it.”

Julien pinches his eyes as his bottom lip trembles. I’m not feeling much better because I was there through most of it as I watched them fall in love, and Julien fought that love with everything he had because he was simply afraid to exist. Hell, there was nothing simple about it.

When I sniff and cough away the threatening tears, Mason wraps his arm around me and holds me close, while I rest my head on his shoulder and play with the fingers on his other hand.

Foxy and Tink aren’t much better. I can hear them behind me, sniffing and whimpering. They weren’t around when we left LA, but they know the entire story.

Julien wipes his face with his handkerchief. It’s his turn to speak. His voice is tremulous and raspy as he speaks. “The only reason I miss calling you Romeo is that I liked us being Romeo and Julien, like the story, but I hated what the name represented. I’m not sure if it was fate that drew us together or something else. All I knew was that you were the one I wanted. Little did I know how much you would mean to me. How quickly I would fall in love with you.

“As you know, I struggled. I wanted a life with you, but I was also terrified to keep on living. Just when I accepted my fate, you refused to. You spat in fate’s face—my fate—and told it to fuck off.” Now, they’re both crying. Hell, we all are. Even Mason is squirming. “And I’m so happy you did. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I might very well not be here, holding your hands and telling you how much I love you. How much I want to keep living for you. I want us to grow old and wrinkly, still loving each other until we’re nothing more than dust. You say I saved your life, but you saved mine. I would definitely not be in this world had we not met. I will love you until the end of my days. But I only ask one thing from you, Cupcake.”

“What’s that?”

“Please, no more pets.”

Everyone starts laughing. The levity is fucking needed. It was taking all my power not to sob and ruin their wedding.

The officiant says some more words before he beckons me to bring the rings. I hand Aleks Julien’s ring, which looks like a mountainscape. It’s truly beautiful. And I hand Aleks’ ring to Julien. It’s black tungsten with a band of wood and elk antler, handcrafted right in Durango. They’re both gorgeous rings that represent our lives in Colorado.

Once they have their rings, I sit back down to get out of the way for the photographer.

Once they’re on, they kiss, and it’s done. The ceremony was short, but beautiful. Their words about fucking killed me.

We all stand and hug our brothers. Then we spend time taking pictures. An hour later, we’re sipping on Franciacorta and munching on gourmet snacks before dinner.

Even though the place is fancy as hell, we’re chill and casual. In fact, we’re having so much fun that Julien and Aleks invite the few other guests staying at the castle over for more drinks and food, on them.

After our meals, everyone gets louder, laughing and dancing. Mason spins me around and dips me before he steals a kiss. I have no idea how to dance, so I just follow his lead, trying not to step on his fancy shoes, but failing epically. He never complains, though.

Aleks and Julien move rhythmically. They took dancing classes just for this wedding. I sigh at their love. I would’ve been a little jealous of it before Mason, but now I have my own love. He’s still my Dom, but he’s also my boyfriend, my lover, my partner.

“Do you think you’d ever want to get married?” Mason asks.

I shrug and rest my head on his shoulder. “I honestly haven’t given it much thought. Too many people came and went from my life. No one stuck around, so I tried not to hope for more, even if I wanted it. My goal was to find someone just to tolerate my ass.”

He lifts my arm and twirls me around. “And what an ass it is.” I roll my eyes and laugh. “Seriously, you just needed to find the right person. I hope that’s me. I also needed to find the right person, I think.”

“And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Find the right person?”

“Jinx, you, sir, are a tease. You know damn well I was talking about you.”

I bite my bottom lip and smile coyly up at him. “Does that mean you’re going to punish me?” I whisper.

“Possibly.” Mason spins me again before pressing his hand to the small of my back, gently swaying. “In order to establish my authority, I really need to full-name you. Can’t do that if I don’t know your last name.”

“Just don’t call me Tyler. God, please… It’s Grigore. I already told you the story about what happened.”

He holds me close as we continue to dance. “I’m sorry, Precious. I’m sorry they stole you away.”

I shrug, even though my life had been hell. “The whole situation left me vulnerable to the system, of course. Who knows how my life would’ve been had she lived? I’m sure she loved me, but I’ll never know now. I hated my life for so long. So fucking much. I did all I could to keep myself sane, but it wasn’t easy. It hardened me. It had to if I wanted to survive. But it also led me to you.” I look up at Mason and wince. “Sorry, I must have had too much of that bubbly wine stuff.”

“Don’t ever apologize for talking about your life and what you went through. I’m glad to know you, Jinx Grigore. I’m glad to love you.”

The emotions are starting to claw at me again. Being with Mason has opened a lot of wounds, but it’s also helped heal them.