I Died Divorcing Him. Then I Woke Up Married Again. Chapter 13

I Died Divorcing Him. Then I Woke Up Married Again. Chapter 13

He carried me over the threshold of the penthouse at four in the morning, which is technically six years

late.

“I can walk,” I pointed out.

“I’m aware.” He did not put me down. “I’ve watched other men hold doors for you for six years. I’m

collecting.”

The foyer was dark and quiet. The marble where I’d died in another life shone under the sconces, perfectly innocent. I felt him pause there-just a half second, his arms tightening-and then he carried me past it and up the stairs.

At the door of his bedroom he set me on my feet, and I watched my husband, who had just publicly destroyed an attempted murderer in front of Bloomberg, get nervous.

“Ava.” He swallowed. “I need to say one thing out loud. Not in the middle of it. Here, where it counts.”

“Okay.”

“Six years, I waited because I thought a piece of paper was your wish. I would have waited twenty more.”

His eyes held mine, steady and dark. “So this goes at exactly the speed you choose. Tonight, next month, next year. The vote doesn’t get an opinion. The bond of marriage doesn’t get an opinion. I don’t get an opinion.” A pause. “Only you. Always only you.”

I stepped forward and undid his top button.

“Roman Vale,” I said. “I have been trying to get this shirt off you since our wedding reception. I choose tonight. I choose you. Enthusiastically, formally, in perpetuity-and you may tell the lawyers I said so.”

The laugh that came out of him was nothing like the boardroom. It was young and unguarded and mine.

Then he stopped laughing, and picked me up again, and the door closed.

Much, much later, I lay with my cheek on his chest, listening to the heartbeat I’d spent six years separated from by forty feet of hallway and one forged page. His fingers traced lazy lines down my spine. Dawn was coming up gray-gold over the harbor.

“For the record,” I murmured. “The rumor is dead. I’m issuing a full retraction. Front page.”

“Which rumor.”

“Don’t be smug, it doesn’t suit you.”

“It suits me enormously. His chest rumbled under my ear. “Say the word,”

“You are not a dud.”

“Louder, for Beau.”

I bit him. He laughed and rolled me under him and kissed the laugh right out of my mouth, and about forty minutes after that I fell asleep in my husband’s arms for the first time in my entire life, in either of them.

I woke at noon to sunlight, an empty pillow, and the smell of coffee.

There was a note on the nightstand, in his handwriting, weighted down with something small and gold.

Ava –

Three things.

Clause nineteen was struck from the record at 9:04 this morning. The lawyers had questions. I did not
answer them.

The federal complaint was filed at 9:15. He’ll die in a cell. I’ve made certain arrangements regarding the
quality of his lawyers.

I’m downstairs. I’m not going anywhere. I’m never going anywhere again.
–

– R.

Under the note was the hair clip. Taped, missing one tooth, and utterly beyond saving.

And under that was a second envelope. Thicker. Heavier. With my name on it in a stranger’s handwriting.

Postmarked from a federal detention center.

My hands went cold.

Because Julian Vale had been in custody for exactly nine hours-and there was no possible way, no legal way, no earthly way, that a letter from him was already sitting on my nightstand.