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Then he crossed the space to her in two long strides and swept her into his arms. He needed to stop this pain for her. For both of them.
He held on for dear life, holding her tight, understanding then, why he had almost lost her.
“I love you, Jill,” he said into her neck. “I’ve loved you almost since the moment I set eyes on you again. Hell, I don’t think I ever stopped loving you as a teenager. I don’t know. I just thought if I told you, you’d run like hell. So, I gave you the penalty clause instead.”
Andrew felt Jill collapse in his arms and heard her sobs. He pulled back to see her face.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart. Why are you still crying?” He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs and kissed her lips softly.
“I can’t help it. I thought...I just…I can’t stop crying.” She half laughed, half sobbed as she swiped at her tears and smiled a wet smile at him.
“I can fix that,” he said. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her in through her front door.
“Say it again,” she said.
“I love you. With all my heart. With everything I am. I love you, Jillie Walsh,” he whispered and laid kisses on her wet cheeks.
Then her carried her upstairs and showed her how much he loved her again and again, over and over throughout the night. He held her when she slept, spent, in his arms in the early morning light.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jill and Andrew brought Rev home from the hospital the next night and by the following day, he was back to normal. His regular vet put him on a regimen of daily Phenobarbital and they went back to the usual wait-and-see routine with his epilepsy.
As Andrew lay in bed Tuesday morning with Jill snuggled against him, he almost laughed at himself for all the worry he’d held inside.
Telling her he loved her hadn’t caused her to turn on him the way it had with Blair. It had set him free. He had never felt more free, more right, more whole at any other time in his life.
She stirred in his arms and he brushed a kiss on her temple.
“Good morning, sweet Jill,” he whispered. His gut clenched when she turned her beautiful golden eyes to his.
“Morning, handsome.” She stretched her body out, long and lean against his, contorting like a contented cat.
His body instantly came to life and he let his hands trail over her soft, warm skin. Heat flashed between them as Jill turned into his embrace and began the small moaning gasps he loved.
“I love the way your hands feel on me,” she said. “The way they make me feel. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the feel of your hands on me.”
Andrew’s lips quirked into a smile. “I’ll have to keep my hands on you forever, then, sweet Jill. Forever and ever and ever,” he said as he added his mouth to his hands.
He still wore that smile when he walked into his office an hour and a half later.
Theresa caught the look Andrew gave her as he walked past her desk. He said a quick ‘hello’ to her that was designed to look like a casual, friendly encounter between two people who worked together to anyone who might be watching, but Theresa knew better.
His lips had quirked at the corners and the look in his eye told her they were more than friends. Or, at least, he wanted them to be more.
On the outside, Andrew looked happy once again now that he and the whore were back together. But Theresa didn’t miss the longing looks he snuck her sometimes.
In fact, he’d been watching her more and more lately. She felt his gaze on her whenever he walked down the hall past her desk.
Theresa had been straightening Andrew’s office for him one evening and found the prenuptial agreement the whore had forced him to sign. That was all the proof she needed to know he was in trouble.
She didn’t know yet what hold this woman had on him but it must be strong if she had manipulated Andrew into signing away all of his wealth to her.
Maybe his little tramp had something she was holding over him.
That wouldn’t last long. Theresa would find out what the hell was going on and fix it for Andrew. And, when he finally got out from under the bitch’s spell, she would be there for him. To help him pick up the pieces. To answer those silent pleas he’d had been sending Theresa all this time.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
