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I tilt her chin up. “Are you kidding me? You got me two humans for Christmas. I know I can’t outdo that, but I’m sure as hell gonna try.”
“Speaking of… we should probably name those two humans.”
I smile as I brush a tear off her jaw. “How about Jacob?”
She nods as she presses her lips together and tries not to cry. “I was thinking Myles,” she replies.
I nod as I start to get a bit teary-eyed myself. “I think Jacob and Myles sound like perfect names.”
She lets go of me and turns around to face the desk again. “Now we just have to do eenie-meenie-minie-mo to see which boy gets which name.”
I shrug as I follow her toward the desk. “It doesn’t matter. They won’t know their names for, like, two years, right? We can just call them Thing 1 and Thing 2 for now.”
She shakes her head as she traces her fingers along the shiny glass surface. “What’s with the red briefcase?” she asks.
I smile as I grab the case and set it down on the bed. “Open it.”
She looks a little apprehensive as she reaches for it. “This isn’t going to release one of Yuri’s farts, is it?”
“No, I couldn’t afford that.”
She smiles as she undoes the latch on the briefcase and lifts it open. Pulling the two tickets out, she gasps when she reads the words. “Bora Bora? For two weeks?”
“I think it’s about time we have a proper honeymoon. Plus, in three months you’ll be working. I thought we should do it before then.” I hold up my hand to stop her from speaking. “I made sure the resort was tick-free.”
She drops the tickets into the case and throws her arms around my neck. “You’re the number-one mom. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.”
I laugh as I wrap my arms around her waist, being careful not to squeeze too tightly. “I’ll expect a new apron for Christmas tomorrow.”
She buries her face in my neck. “I’ll give you anything you want tomorrow… and forever.”
I chuckle as I bring my lips to her ear and whisper, “I’ll take forever.”
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If you were to die right now, what is the one thing you would regret most? This is a question often heard on sputtering first dates, inane personality quizzes, and the exact moment before you die. Well, maybe you won’t actually hear it when you die, but you’ll think it. And when you peel the answer back to the smallest kernel of truth, the reply is simple and true and always the same: love.
Whether we regret not having found someone to love or not having told someone we love them just one more time, the regret is still as real and sharply visceral as a knife in your gut. No one wants to die that way, tormented by regret. But, despite our constant bombardment with this message in various self-help books and motivational quotes, very few people actually ever summon up the courage to approach each day as if it were their last.
I thought I had my life figured out. I thought I’d discovered the formula for both personal and professional fulfillment. To me, happiness was merely a mindset people either did or didn’t choose to adopt.
I was wrong.
When it was my time to die, the question blazed through my mind almost as fast as my car sped off that embankment. What is the one thing you will regret most? And the answer, which came to me just as suddenly, echoed in my mind like the glug-glug sound of the water rising on all sides of me: If I died right then and there, I would always regret not knowing if he was okay.
* * *
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The Way We Fall
Preview
Ready for some more passionate, angsty romance? Turn the page for a preview of The Way We Fall, another epic love story from Cassia Leo.
About The Way We Fall
Five pages. A letter holding a secret buried for more than five years. A secret neither of them wanted to know.
Five years after their messy breakup, Houston and Rory are forced to work together opening up a new wine bar. Despite their tragic past, they find themselves once again drawn to each other, unable to deny their potent attraction.
But the secret of the letter hangs like a guillotine over their heads. And soon, Houston finds himself in the same position he was in five years ago, choosing between the truth and the only woman he’s ever loved.
Lies are comforting. Soft blankets we wrap around our hearts. We roll around in them like fat, happy pigs. Gorging on their decadence. We prefer lies, though we claim otherwise. Trust me. If ignorance is bliss, b
elieving lies is orgasmic.
I should know. I’d subsisted on a steady diet of lies and orgasms while Houston and I were together. And now that he was standing before me, five and a half years after the breakup, six-foot-four inches of solid muscle and caramel-brown hair, offering me my first dose of reality, part of me wondered whether my body would reject it.
Houston sighs as he looks me in the eye. “Rory, I came here because I told you I would tell you the truth and I intend to keep my word.”
“The truth about what?” I spit back, imbuing my words with caustic venom, hoping he’ll feel just a fraction of the agony he’s inflicted on me. “It’s over Houston. There is no truth that needs to be spoken anymore.”
He shakes his head, his blue eyes filled with regret. “I wish that were true.”
He reaches into his back pocket and my stomach drops out. My limbs becomes heavy as I watch him retrieve a white envelope. I think part of me knows what’s inside that envelope. Has always known. But lies are powerful. And it seems Houston’s lies had the power to make me stop looking for answers when they were right in front of me, tucked away in the warmth of his back pocket.
“She left a note.”
My eyes are locked on the envelope as memories swirl in my vision. The first night Houston and I slept together. The hours that came before. I begin ticking off the lies one by one, but when I move past our first night together, the lies mount up too quickly. A mountain of fiction too high for me to see over.
“Not Tessa. Hallie,” he says, mistaking my horror for confusion.
The anger sets my blood on fire. I land a hard shove in the center of his chest. “I hate you!”
“I didn’t want you to read it until you were strong enough.”
Skippy barks as I pound on Houston’s chest, half-expecting to hear a hollow thump where his heart should be. He drops the letter and grabs my wrists to stop the onslaught of violence.
