(epilogue)

Honor Banet's plan for a single small profitable patisserie-bistro was swiftly blasted to pieces by a combination of customer demand, Marq Haydn and other events beyond her control.

After opening on Carlisle Street, Rick Ford's prediction of people lining up for miles had not exactly come true... but it came close.

After four months, Marq apologized for getting it wrong and advised that she should open another branch on the adjoining Jameson Avenue to relieve the pressure on her Carlisle Street shop.

Unfortunately, the place she had wanted on Jameson originally had been taken, but another smaller place had become available just a few yards away and Marq had immediately secured it for her in exchange for equity in 'Délices d'Honor' when she had balked at it being a gift.

Cornered in her - now their fully bought and paid for apartment - naked, wet, knowing she was being manipulated by the man even then ravishing her body, she had surrendered and agreed, albeit pouting with lip furled afterwards. That had earned her another round of ravishing.

A week later, she had a duplicate of her Carlisle kitchen being set up on Jameson with workers busily banging and hammering the location into shape, Marq moving with swift efficiency.

That location, a purely takeaway establishment, had become a roaring success as well, but she had outright refused to open on Bowen Street as he next suggested, insisting instead on going to Zurich because Marq had put his life on hold long enough.

Her refusal to expand came after she finished paying off her loan to the bank, in record time, to the disappointment of the bank's loan panel officers who were hoping for a longer profitable relationship. Multiple treat boxes and loyalty cards from 'Délices d'Honor' helped ease their pain.

Ultimately, Marq's denials that his life was 'on hold' had fallen on deaf ears.

"Honor," he had said, eyebrow quirked, still clothed as he held his frowning and very nude odalisque in his arms, "you are my life. Where you are is my home. How can my life be 'on hold' when I am with you?"

It was the wrong thing to say if what he had wanted was for her to stay and expand her business. Her determination to move and stay long term with him in Zurich only became much stronger.

She had been to Zurich multiple times for short stays with him by then, but she was resolved to actually live and make a home with him in his home city.

A business management graduate who enjoyed being in a kitchen herself, Faith Sabrina Banet offered to move and oversee the two eponymous 'Délices d'Honor' locations for her older sister. Nervous, Honor had accepted, especially after Marq, having surrendered to his wife's wishes to live with him in Switzerland, revealed that he had quietly analyzed and process engineered her operations and handed a tablet with the resulting manual with preset management and scheduling software to Faith.

"Nerd," Honor had muttered, eyes tearing, getting on his lap and kissing him.

"How the fuck," Faith had demanded, later, when the sisters were alone, "did you get so lucky, Honor?" She was scrolling through the tablet's screen and making notes.

"I don't know," Honor had said, genuinely confused.

She was still confused when she arrived in Zurich to stay, weeks later, and discovered that her husband had arranged for her to be shown a series of locations to choose from for a 'Délices d'Honor' in Zurich.

A month later she was staring at a kitchen that was virtually identical to the one on Carlisle Street. When he couldn't find identical equipment of suitable existing or refurbishable working order, Marq had found a bespoke engineering firm and ordered the item specially constructed to match.

Honor had looked at the kitchen and then at him with her hands over her mouth.

"Well?" he asked, looking enquiringly at her. "Is this okay?"

Honor started crying. "I don't... I don't deserve this!" Her eyes were utterly bewildered as he swiftly took her in his arms. "I don't deserve you...! What did I do...? Why are you doing this...?"

He kissed her hair and held her as she buried her face in his chest, sobbing. The workmen around them stopped work to look, confused, many appearing distinctly uncomfortable.

"Look at me," he said, after she had quieted down. "Look at me, my love."

She sniffled, and finally, she lifted her head up to look at him, and she saw him smiling down at her.

"First," he said, "'Délices d'Honor' is making me a lot of money."

She giggled.

"Second, and most importantly," he continued, lowering his head toward her, "you're my life, my love, my everything, Honor Marina." He brushed a tear away from under her eye. "You deserve everything good I can do for you for just that alone."

"But you've done enough," she said, smiling through falling tears, "You've already done more than enough."

"No," he answered, wiping her tears away. "Never."

She stared at him for multiple heartbeats, overwhelmed. "I love you, Mr. Haydn. I love you so much."

He shook his head and kissed her on the forehead again. "You never answered the question."

"What?"

He grinned and gestured. "Is this okay?"

She smacked him on the shoulder. "You are silly, Mr. Haydn."

Then, ignoring the men around them, she brought his head down and laved her tongue over his lips before kissing him. Then she went on tip-toe to whisper next to his ear. "I need you inside me. Right now. Take me home so I can fuck you."

And he did just that. Their penthouse had a private lift from the underground garage, and he was inside her before it opened in their apartment, literally stumbling into their home conjoined together.

She spent the rest of the day, the night and all of the next morning mostly nude, fucking him, getting semen deposited inside both major orifices, and on different parts of her body.

Some even ended up in her hair. But that had happened when she took him for a picnic that night in a quiet corner of their neighborhood park, the short wrap dress undone with one pull at the knot.

It wasn't that far off from a normal day, in truth.

The highly successful 'Délices d'Honor' in Zurich opened on a side street off the Bahnhofstrasse two weeks later, with Marquin and Honor Haydn, and Alain and Jaya Banet in attendance. Colin, Grace and their new son Michael Justice Payne had flown over too. Faith, Valor and Cynthia Banet watched live from Colin's phone.

Arriving by train from the Swiss capital to witness the opening and wish his sister-in-law well, was Dr. Marcel Arturo Haydn, a thinner and bearded doppelganger of his brother, who was just starting his medical residency in Bern.

Honor had been nervous about meeting him on her first trip to Zurich with Marq, but he turned out to be a less taciturn version of his brother who had immediately put her at ease and made her laugh, and she had loved him immediately.

Soon after, he had come along with the other Ascent Kapital GmbH partners and senior associates, along with Chailai, Jao and Mongkhut from Bangkok, for Marquin Eduardo Haydn's wedding to Honor Marina Banet, held at The Grande Marquee in the bride's home city.

The Grande Marquee's booking staff were curious and confused, but ultimately cooperative when Jaya Banet arrived and requested to change the groom's name in their register less than a week after booking for her daughter's wedding to another man.

Over the decades, the Grande Marquee had seen weddings cancelled, couples eloping and leaving their confused parents gaping at each other in the hall, grooms and brides being stood up at the altar, even a bride saying "I don't" when the priest had asked the fateful question. One memorable occasion saw the groom exposing the bride's ongoing affair with a coworker... before dropping the bombshell that he and the bride's cousin, who was in attendance, had fallen in love and he was marrying her instead.

Even then, keeping the date and simply changing out the groom was fairly unique.

But when the wedding of Honor Banet to Marquin Haydn came around, the talk of the Marquee's staff was how radiant the bride looked, and how much she obviously loved her groom... and how her wedding dress had gone from daringly sexy during the ceremony to wickedly erotic, losing bits and pieces of itself as the evening wore on.

Added to the dress revealing more and more of the bride's caramel brown skin while somehow staying on her in defiance of gravity was the revelation of the tattoo swirling around her body and a glinting chain gripping her from neck to waist down to her ankle.

Intriguingly, the chain appeared to be also connected to her breasts, and her new husband openly enjoyed playing with it as they danced together and she sat on his lap afterward, her lips parting each time he pulled on it.

In fact, Honor had flown back to Bangkok and gone to Pécheressa, Chailai in tow, for her wedding dress, requesting exactly what it turned out to be, a wedding dress for an odalisque; designed to be worn to reveal as much as a woman dared, ultimately to arouse and excite far more than to conceal.

Marq's eyes when he had seen her coming down the aisle almost made up for the masturbation filled week she had spent away from him before the day. His captivated look and the unexpected welling of tears in his eyes had more than lived up to her imagination.

And again, Honor Banet, minutes from becoming Honor Haydn, had wondered how one heart could possibly hold so much happiness as she looked up at her groom.

She knew her daily recordings of making herself come with her fingers while whimpering out how much she was missing him and them sending him the videos also had a great deal to do with the hungry way he was eyeing her. Not that she was eyeing him any less hungrily.

After they had exchanged their vows and a long breathless first kiss as man and wife, Marq had politely requested for ten minutes alone with his wife from her father.

Alain Banet, who had been initially taken aback by the backlessness and plunging neckline of his daughter's dress, had shrugged. "She's your wife."

Honor had followed her husband to the small and now empty groom's suite, naturally much smaller than the suite for the bridal party.

"Be still, Mrs. Haydn." Marq had ordered, thrilling her as he called her new name for the first time.

Marq had stripped her naked, leaving only her garter and shoes, and then proceeded to properly 'kiss his bride', starting from her lips and then all over her body, following the still fresh pattern he had painted on her body before they had parted a week before. He kissed her nipples and then in between her legs until she covered his chin with her liquid, keening, her back against the wall and struggling to remain on her feet as he pleasured her.

As expected, she had not worn any panties, and he had bent her over before her breathing had calmed, her legs spreading for him, more than ready to welcome him inside for the first time as her husband. But instead of his member, he pushed a new plug into her - heavy, knobbed, ridged and white - as if to match her dress.

And then he had made his odalisque stand, quivering, love and desire in her eyes, as he completed the ritual and attached a new zanjir of white gold, matching the wedding band he had slipped on her finger, to her body. Then he had dressed his odalisque and newly wedded wife himself, kissing her body again as he did so, before leading her out to their guests.

She had felt the heat rush to her face at the knowing looks and sly winks that greeted her, but her thoroughly aroused state after what he had done to her, the plug torturously moving inside her, and the look in her husband's eyes made it easy to ignore it all.

She held his hand and sought his lips throughout the dinner, and she kissed him repeatedly as they danced, the plug drawing out a steady stream of lubrication out of her as she clasped her husband to her shuddering body.

She loved kissing him.

She had the discipline to refrain from peeling off too many pieces and layers of her dress until after her parents bade them goodnight, Jaya Banet unable to hide that she was not intending on letting her husband sleep.

Soon after, Honor had lavished her tongue over Marq's cruelly smiling lips, and then, with only a nod and smile of thanks to her friends and remaining family, she had held her husband's hand and walked him off the dancefloor, the scandalous, arrest-worthy state of her wedding dress revealing exactly what she was leading her new husband away to do.

Sarah, naturally her maid of honor, led the whooping and cheering as they left, already fatefully hand-in-hand with a new man.

Ironically, that man meant Sarah moved to Zurich before Honor did. Which meant she was also there, as 'Délices d'Honor's' earliest investor, excitedly holding her best friend's hand as the Zurich branch opened.

Along with her husband, Marq's best man, Deji Akinwole of Ascent Kapital GmbH.

Honor's best friend's relationship with Bryan Thomas did not survive the offer he received of a senior executive position in the Middle East.

Soon after taking the position, he had decently informed Sarah that he had met a former girlfriend who was coincidentally working in the same city for another company and, given the distance, he wanted to explore that relationship.

Sarah had been despondent, until less than two weeks later when Deji had flown in for the wedding.

Within a week of meeting the Lagos born and Vienna raised Deji Akinwole, an openly smitten Sarah Fernandez had gone from threatening his balls to becoming very partial to them and very concerned for their welfare.

"So," Deji had said, when they were introduced, "you're the woman who was going to 'stomp on my balls?'"

Sarah had smiled, charmed by his accent and his smile. "You got Marq here. So I suppose that's not going to happen."

"So I should rest easy?" Deji's gaze turned heated, his eyes running all over her body. "My balls are safe?"

Sarah met his gaze, her smile matching his own, turning predatory. "I didn't say anything about them being 'safe.' At all."

After Honor had come back from a three week honeymoon of absolute debauchery in which Marq had brought along the latest edition of the 'Holiday Sex Guide' and a determination to try everything in it, Sarah had gigglingly let her know that Deji's gift with his tongue - he was a polyglot who could speak his native Yoruba, Hausa, English, French, German and Spanish - extended beyond just languages.

Two months after meeting Deji, Sarah flew to Zurich to spend a week with him. It turned into a month. Then she came back with him in tow for him to ask her adoptive father for her hand in marriage. A week later, she had officially quit her job and was officially Mrs. Adedeji Akinwole, and she had flown back with her husband to Switzerland. Permanently.

Which was how First Sanctuary gained another anonymous annual benefactor from Ascent Kapital GmbH of Zurich, joining Marq Haydn, much to Honor and Sarah's delight. The nuns and monks running the organization were also delighted, while utterly bewildered at the mysterious influx of funds into their coffers.

Now a full time Swiss resident, Sarah had also been in attendance for the opening of the 'Délices d'Honor' in Switzerland's second largest city.

The demand for an outlet in Geneva had arisen from Phillipe Dufour's surprise visit to the 'Délices d'Honor' in Zurich. A native of Annemasse in France, Dufour also owned a home and a restaurant just across the border in Geneva and was practically a dual citizen.

His appearance had caused a sensation and his 'accidental' mention of a possible branch of 'Délices d'Honor' in Geneva had started a furore amongst the Genevois living in Zurich. Marq had not been too happy with Dufour for putting his wife on the spot but he had deferred to her to decide whether Dufour's patissier son could be a franchisee in Switzerland's second largest city.

In part out of gratitude for his letter to the bank, her long time awe of him, and a convincing analysis of the market, Honor agreed to partner with Dufour in Geneva. Marq immediately unleashed a team of lawyers to draw up an ironclad contract to ensure that his wife's interests were protected.

It took weeks, but both Dufour and Honor signed eventually and 'Délices d'Honor' opened in Geneva, across the street from Dufour's own Michelin starred restaurant. Somsak Kurusarttra was in attendance at the opening, along with other friends of Phillippe from Bordeaux.

He bemusedly informed them that his niece, Pradtana, had been very upset when he informed her that Marq Haydn had gotten married. Marq had the grace to looked abashed as Honor teasingly furled up her lip at him.

Honor and Sarah subsequently went for a post-launch visit to the new 'Délices d'Honor' in Geneva from Zurich by train. As projected, it was doing well and Dufour had spoiled both women at his restaurant and even exchanged some tips and tricks with Honor.

Knowing she was now married to Marq, Dufour's flirting had been significantly toned down and he was engaging and professional with both her and Sarah. She discovered that he knew Jerry Kane and he had called her former boss to surprise him with her on the phone.

Jeremy Kane had been true to his word. He had been one of her first customers on Carlisle, coming with his wife to have a coffee and some cake.

His wife, once a food writer, had eyed Honor suspiciously, making Honor think that Kane might have not hidden his feelings toward her as well as he thought. But then Elaine Kane bit into a pecan, peach cream and chocolate eclair, and she had immediately become very interested in talking shop with her husband's former employee. Seeing Honor's ringed hand and the lingering glances she regularly sent back to a gray eyed man with rimless glasses quietly sitting and working on a laptop at a table behind the counter, also made her much friendlier.

Kane had been surprised and happy to hear from her and he assured her that he went regularly to have something at 'Délices d'Honor' on Carlisle Street, but not nearly as often as his wife and her friends, who were on a mission to introduce Faith to their eligible bachelor sons, nephews and younger brothers.

Faith, despite a very active social life as a result, armed with Marq's manual and her own acumen, was successfully keeping the two initial 'Délices d'Honor' locations running smoothly and profitably since her older sister's departure, including introducing new items Honor had developed in her large kitchen at her Zurich home.

"David came by, to Jameson," Faith reported during one videocall.

"Oh?" Honor had raised an eyebrow. The Jameson location was only seven minutes away from Salford Carlisle Rowe, where David Brenner was still a senior associate.

"He tried to talk to me and asked me if he could get your number so he could call you." Faith made quote marks. "He said he wanted to 'apologize' and 'congratulate' you. 'For everything.'" Faith shrugged. "I took the liberty of saying 'No.'"

"Thanks," Honor said. "Next time, tell him there's really no need for us to talk. But I appreciate and accept his apology." She paused, remembering her last encounter with her former fiancee, and added. "And I wish him well."

Jerry Kane had kept his word at the outset about sending some business to her to produce hors d'oeuvres and off-center pieces whenever the hotel's catered events uncomfortably stretched his kitchen's capacity.

The second such event was for the founding day celebration of Salford Carlisle Rowe. That was the first time she had seen David since he had staggered out of her apartment building's lobby.

He had been visibly surprised to see her as he entered with his other associates. She was assisting her former kitchen colleagues with arranging the pastry display. As soon as their eyes met, he had approached her with a determined look.