“Do you love me?” I whisper to her, my brain still reeling from the tornado of words and emotions swarming around me.
“Yes.” She swallows hard and I see her hands shaking a little as she pushes them back into her pockets. “I love you.”
“Devin, I love you!” Ashleigh says as she bursts into tears beside me.
I turn to Ashleigh and hug her. “Go inside. Go inside and wait for me.”
“You’ll make her leave and you’ll come back, right?”
“Yes, Ashleigh. I’ll come back. You and I have to talk,” I tell her honestly and watch as she hesitantly wanders back toward the kitchen. I close the front door behind her and turn to Callie.
“Walk with me,” I urge in a choked-up whisper. She looks wide-eyed and terrified but she follows me down the path to the driveway.
“Devin—”
“I don’t want to make this any harder on Ashleigh than it has to be,” I cut her off as we walk side by side, not touching, to the sidewalk. “But please know that if I didn’t think she was watching out a window I would grab you and kiss you senseless right now.”
“Really?” she says and her eyes fill with tears again.
She faces me and I turn and lean against the stone ledge that borders the sidewalk. I smile at her, my back to the house and Ashleigh’s prying eyes.
“I was going to make sure Ashleigh knew we were over before you even showed up,” I confess. “I have the divorce papers in my jacket inside.”
“You should have said something; then I wouldn’t have had to emotionally vomit everywhere,” she jokes as tears stream down her face.
“Are you crazy?” I almost laugh and wipe her tears with the pads of my thumbs on her cheeks. “I needed to hear that more than anything in the world. I deserved to hear it.”
She takes a shallow breath. “You did. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.”
“You said it now and that’s all that matters,” I say and smile, my own eyes brimming with tears. “Now I need to make sure Ashleigh is clear that we have nothing left. Make sure she’s okay, for Conner’s sake, and then I’ll come home to you.”
“Tonight?” she asks meekly.
“Tonight and every night after that,” I promise. “Let’s get you in a cab.”
She shakes her head. “I’ll walk. I need the air.”
“You better be in the house when I get home.”
“I promise.”
She steps away and the wind catches her long, crazy hair and swirls it around her pretty face. God, I wish I could kiss her right now. Kiss her and so much more.
“Callie,” I say as she turns to walk away. “I love you too.”
She smiles over her shoulder at me and takes a ragged breath. “You know what? I know.”
I watch her walk away until she’s completely out of sight and then turn back to face my soon-to-be ex-wife.
Chapter 58
Callie
It’s the sound of the car in the driveway that startles me back into consciousness. My eyes fly to the digital alarm clock on the bedside table.
11:41 p.m.
I have been waiting for him for almost five hours. I had come straight to the rented brownstone, just as he’d asked, and used the key I still had to let myself in. I’d waited patiently for half an hour downstairs perched on the edge of the living room couch. Then I’d realized when I glanced at myself in the bathroom mirror that I was a bit of a disaster. So I went into the master bedroom and dug around for a hairbrush and washed my face and combed my hair.
