Ramsay and Theo on the couch together, our favorite cooking show on the television, and a Denny’s takeout bag sitting unopened on the coffee table.
I stopped and stared, taking a mental picture, and wanting to bring it to life on a canvas full of color. Full of hope. It was the exact image that I would display on my wall and show off to the world because it was mine. A life deserving to be bragged about and shared.
“Theo?”
He looked over his shoulder and smiled, one hand curled around Ramsay’s back. “I got your favorite for dinner. Didn’t think you’d mind. Come sit with me?”
Kicking off my shoes, I sat on my knees facing him, my eyes freely scoping him out while he watched me with a lopsided grin.
“What are you looking at?” he asked gently, leaning in for a brief kiss and trying not to disrupt the pup.
It might have been cheesy, but the words slipped right off my tongue like they begged to be spoken. “My future.”
His grin widened. “Yeah?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions, Theo,” I teased, leaning in again and grazing his lips in a kiss that lasted too long for Ramsay’s liking. He stirred and barked, causing me to roll my eyes and sit back.
I focused on getting the food out of the bag and splitting it between us. “I was thinking about seeing Sophie tomorrow. I texted Lydia and asked if she could meet us. She was free, so…” I paused, passing him a napkin. “Unless you have other plans. I should have checked.”
“I’m free,” was all he gave me.
“You’re not worried about, Sophie?” It shouldn’t have surprised me that he wasn’t. Theo seemed fearless, and not even somebody like Sophie could get under his skin. She’d tried.
His hand came up and brushed my jaw, something in his eyes that was light and amused at the same time. “No, sweetheart. I’m not scared of her at all.”
Epilogue
Della
The summer came with a brutal heat wave that matched the growing tensions portrayed when Richard Pratt’s trial was scheduled for late August after his arrest by NYPD and Federal Agents for first-degree murder, and drug, weapon, and counterfeit money manufacturing. Special Agent Michael Flamell assured me during a short meeting at the beginning of June that I wouldn’t be needed in the trial and that Pratt wouldn’t be getting off.
Thankfully, I escaped the city by July when Theo set up appointments with real estate agents in upstate New York, far enough from the city where the spectacle of Pratt wouldn’t find me but close enough that day trips weren’t impossible. It’d taken only a week to find a home that I always pictured living in, a space perfect for two people and a dog with plenty of room to run around and be comfortable without the luxuries or complications that the city came with. The house was set back from the rest that surrounded it with more acreage than we needed and held a serenity foreign to me. On the first night, it’d been too quiet to sleep, so Theo had stayed up with me watching TV even after unpacking and setting up his new home office all day. While he’d need to go to the city occasionally, we both knew we’d never truly escape the Big Apple. When he went in for work, I went to see Sophie, Ren, and Tiffany before she’d left for her newest adventure with the Los Angeles Ballet Company.
My biggest obstacle had been telling Sophie and Lydia that I was in love with Theo and had every intention of leaving with him before the new trial began. The sweat that had collected on my forehead and the clamminess of my palms seemed overexaggerated when Theo took my hand and led me into Sophie’s parlor as if he had no care in the world anymore. Lydia had hugged me with a knowing smile and said she was happy as long as I was, and Sophie had told me, “I suppose you could do worse, Adele” with a tight curve to her lips. I’d expected a fight, a heated exchange of words that Theo would need to reassure me of when we’d left.
I’d gotten closure. A new beginning where my chest was light and the butterflies in my stomach were free to flutter all because of the man who held me in public and kissed me in crowds and hugged me with a purpose no matter who stared. And some people did. But neither of