Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,134

than I could explain to you. He showed me what it meant to love and be loved. And I learned the hard lesson of how not to love and the truth of faith.

Faith is complete and absolute. Faith cannot be shaken. Faith believes, even when what you can see betrays what you know.

I only hope that you all get the chance to know him now that the wall is gone. Now that there’s nothing between you, I hope you can see him. I hope you can somehow know the man I love, and I hope that you will trust him in the ways I didn’t but should have.

I hope you fall in love with him as I did.

And I hope you learn faith of your own.

I swallowed the dry lump in my tight, stinging throat, reading the article again. Soaking up every word, hearing the truth of her apology over the aching depth of my love for her.

I met Theo’s eyes, my heart thudding. “Did you know?”

“That she wrote the retraction? No. That she’s right? Yes.” He watched me for a second as I sat stunned on the couch. “What are you gonna do?”

I held his black eyes with mine, knowing there was only one thing to do.

“I’m gonna figure out how to tell her I’m sorry.”

Shake the Heavens

Amelia

The social media frenzy when I’d married Tommy was nothing compared to what happened when the Times published the article.

Calls, emails, requests for my presence on a multitude of media outlets flooded the Times’ office. Everyone had questions, and everyone wanted to know what was next. When was the next installment coming? Had I heard from Tommy? Were we okay? Would we be?

His silence was all the answer I possessed.

The article was a love letter, that was true. But I was no longer naive enough to have hope for forgiveness. My crimes were too grave, the lesson learned hard. My only true hope was that he had read it and knew I loved him, that I was sorry, that I should have had faith. Even if he didn’t love me anymore, even if he didn’t want me. I wanted to set the record straight, and I had.

No, I didn’t expect him to forgive me.

But I’d be a liar if I said that under all of that, in the depths of my heart, I could put out the quiet fire that hoped for a second chance.

I’d been sitting on the couch for a few hours, listening to music, watching the fire crackling with Claudius in my lap. A book sat forgotten on the couch next to me. My phone sat silently on the coffee table. I’d set it to Do Not Disturb, and the only exceptions on calls it would allow through were from my friends and Tommy.

It had been lifeless all day.

Claudius rode my torso as I drew a heavy sigh and let it go.

I wondered what Tommy was doing. Was he missing me like I was sick over him? Had his anger ebbed at all, or was it still the inferno I’d seen when last we spoke? Had he finished the book? How had it ended?

How would our story end?

I didn’t know. And I didn’t know if I’d ever know.

The doorbell rang, sending me off the couch cushion by at least three inches. Claudius bolted off my lap and up the stairs for my bedroom.

I pressed a hand to my skittish heart, too many hours of quiet broken by the startling, innocuous doorbell.

“Coming,” I called as I wound around the couch, reached for the doorknob. Turned. Pulled.

Died.

Tommy’s visage was there on my porch, tall and dark and beautiful. His hair was loose, the scent of soap and leather swirling into me in eddies.

His face betrayed nothing. The set of his lips. The depths of his eyes.

“Tommy,” I breathed.

He nodded once in lieu of a greeting. “Can I come in?” he asked cautiously.

“Of course.” I stepped out of the way, the flush hot on my face.

I didn’t see the manila envelope in his big hand until he passed me.

My guts twisted, my eyes locked on the envelope, my chest prickling with needle-sharp pain.

Divorce papers. Those were divorce papers.

This was it.

This was how it would end.

Tommy stopped just inside, turning to face me as I closed the door.

I held my chin up, kept it still, breathed in. Breathed out.

He looked down at the envelope. “I…I’m sorry to come by unannounced.”

“It’s okay,” I said quietly, fighting back a hundred other things I wanted to