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“I’m coming. Hold on,” I say, walking toward the door.
If this is one of my brothers coming over for a late-night beer, I’m kicking their asses out or they can play darts in the media room in the back of the house but I’m going to bed.
“I’m not interested in company tonight,” I say as I unlatch the door and swing it open.
And see the last thing I’m expecting.
My wife.
“Oh uh, ok…” Juliet says with a frown, and then turns to leave.
“Whoa. Hold on,” I say, practically jumping out of my house and gripping gently around her arm to turn her back to me.
Fuck, she looks beautiful, but it wouldn’t matter if she had spent the day rolling in pig shit, I’d still want her all over me.
The flood of emotions I feel right now couldn’t be sorted out if I tried.
I’m relieved to see her at my front door but terrified she’s here with divorce papers or to give me my ring back because she met someone else.
James told me she moved out of the penthouse today even though I asked him to tell her to keep the key and turn the place into her office. She still left. It was the last string that attached me to her and she severed it.
She turns around to face me, but she doesn’t look as happy to see me as I am to see her. She’s still sporting a frown and those violet eyes don’t hold the sparkle they used to have for me.
I deserve it.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, though I’m worried I won’t like the answer.
“I saw your sister today.”
Harper didn’t say she was going to see Juliet while she was in Seattle. However, I don’t know if she would have. She’s been pissed at me ever since I came home without Juliet.
“You did?”
“Yeah. She told me everything. Or… everything she knows.”
Goddamn it, I should have kept my mouth shut and not told her a damn thing.
“What did she tell you?” I ask, because I’m not giving anything more away than what my sister did.
I don’t even remember everything I told her. She got me wasted one night when I first got back and started asking questions. Not that getting me plastered was hard, I tried drinking Juliet away the first few nights I got here, but it didn’t work. I still thought about her drunk or sober and hangovers past thirty-five are a different animal, so I quit and threw myself into work instead.
“That you had a visit from an immigration officer that you didn’t tell me about.”
“Juliet, I wanted to, trust me I did. But part of his condition was that I don’t tell anyone why I left, only that I was getting deported.”
“But that’s not what you told me. You told me you were offered a job with the Vikings and that you couldn’t pass it up. And then you canceled your phone service so I couldn’t get ahold of you.”
I know she’s right and I know I handle everything poorly with her, but Juliet married a stranger to pay for her brother to be in a better center. She’s selfless and I couldn’t let her give up everything she cares about just because I want her.
“You told me that night that you wouldn’t consider Canada because you need to think of your family’s needs and your business first, and I understood. It fucking hurt not to be on the list, but I understood, and I wasn’t going to make you choose.”
Her eyebrows furrow as she stares at me through her dark eyelashes.
“Make me choose? I was half asleep when you asked me that and I thought we had four years to decide, not twelve hours. And as far as not listing you as a priority, I didn’t think I needed to. I thought that was obvious. I thought you and I were falling…”
She stops short and lets out a defeated sigh, but I can guess the ending.
“In love?” I ask.
