Written with You (The Regret Duet #2) - Aly Martinez Page 0,47

having her in my house for a few days sounded like torture to one side of my brain, it also felt like a winning lottery ticket to the other.

“Yeah, babe. We’ll swing by your place.”

The cop nodded. “I’ll have a cruiser follow you. Just in case.”

We waited twenty minutes for the police to finish up with the paperwork. Willow alternated between hanging her head and forcing a smile for anyone she caught looking her way.

She was shit for an actress though. She wasn’t going to make it much longer without breaking down. And damn if I didn’t want to get her the hell out of that parking lot so she could have that moment in private.

Well, private with me.

When it was all wrapped up, at least temporarily, Ian offered to drop Willow’s car off at my house and catch a cab back to get his own. She didn’t argue or offer anything more than a resigned, “Thanks, Ian.”

In a true show of maturity, I only contemplated breaking his fingers for a second as he pulled her in for a side hug and whispered something into her ear. She smiled up at him, sad and wholly broken, then gave him one of her signature forearm squeezes that were usually reserved for me. Okay, so I’d lied. I’d contemplated breaking his fingers for two seconds. But I didn’t follow through and that’s all that counts.

The police had bagged her purse as evidence, so when she climbed into the passenger seat of my SUV, she did it with nothing but her phone, a small makeup bag, and an empty expression.

“You okay?” I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot with a police car on my tail.

“I’m gonna need to get back to you on that.”

I grinned. “You need to dry-heave?”

“Ummm…” She dropped her head back against the headrest. “That has yet to be determined. But have no fear—I promise I won’t do it in your car.”

I chuckled, thankful that she at least still had a sense of humor, one that I’d missed greatly over the last month.

“My studio is filled with shit,” she told the windshield.

“What?”

“Yeah. My contractor sucks and sewage backed up into my studio this morning. I had a plumber come out and fix it, but it’s still a mess. And it’s going to smell like shit forever because Hadley was a klepto who couldn’t keep her damn hands off people’s stuff. Now, I have to go to your house and I won’t even have a chance to clean it, which means I’m going to have to tear out the entire mural of unicorns Rosalee helped me make. I don’t believe in ghosts, Caven, but I think there is a very real possibility Hadley has come back from beyond the grave just to screw with me.”

“Okay,” I said calmly.

She turned to look at me. “None of that’s okay, Caven.”

“Yeah, it is. All of that’s okay. Because right now, you’re sitting in my car a little banged up, a little shaken, but you’re safe. And we’re going to get your stuff and head back to my place. Rosalee is going to summon all the dogs in the neighborhood with her scream when she finds out you’re spending the night. I’m gonna order dinner from somewhere that has brownies and ranch, and we’re going to sit on the couch and not talk about Hadley or the mall or anything else for one goddamn night, because tonight, we are living in the seconds. And in this second, Willow, you are okay. We can fix the rest of it.” As I rolled to a stop at a traffic light, I propped my hand on the center console and turned to face her, daring her to argue.

She stared back at me, her eyes filling with tears.

A million words hung in the air between us.

Apologies.

Accusation.

Blame.

Guilt.

Love.

But all of that could wait for another second.

Because right then, for the first time in over a month, I had hope that maybe we really could fix the rest.

“Okay,” she whispered, sliding her hand across the console and inching under my index finger so just the tip rested on the top of hers. “But I want carrot cake and french fries.”

I tapped the top of her finger. “Then tonight, while you eat carrot cake and french fries, I will be the one dry-heaving.”

She smiled with quivering lips. “Who said anything about dry-heaving?”

WILLOW

“Daddy says you have to hold the rail when you go down the stairs,” Rosalee said so close to