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The moment his hand rests on my belly, I have to admit that I do feel such a surge of intense love that I know I can’t resist him. Thisiswhat I want. I will risk anything to be with this man, anything at all.
“The only thing is, before we head back to New York, you might have to stick around to meet my mom.” I can’t help but laugh as he clearly freaks out again. “No, don’t worry. She already thinks you sound amazing. I bet she can’t wait to meet you.”
I lace my fingers through his and finally go on to my tip toes so I can meet his mouth. I’ve been wanting to kiss him ever since he appeared here in Cold Springs. Now though, I can meet his lips, knowing that me and him are going to be together. We’re going to be in love and see where things go.
This is seriously exciting.
For the first time in a very long time, I’m excited to see where my life goes.
***
I smile to myself as I finally set foot inside Alex’s home,myhome now, too, I suppose, although that’s going to be hard to get used to. I never envisioned myself in a home like this, so it’s weird. But in the best way possible.
I really didn’t think that I would ever end up here, happy and making progress with my life again, not after the nightmare I’ve just been through. Being back in Cold Springs made me worry that I would always be going backward. I was frozen in time, unable to move either way, sothis… this is really special to me.
But now I have Alex, who my mother truly doeslove, I have this super secure home surrounding me and a lovely baby growing in my belly, and I have the police on my side.
Well, they’ve said that they’re on my side and that they will, at the very least, investigate the creepy package put at my door, which might lead to something.
God, I hope so anyway, because now that I’m here, I really want to give it a go. I want the media to leave me alone and the trolls to go away so I can focus on what makes me happy.
I know that might be a pipe dream, but I would love it.
Maybe one day that will happen.
I keep dreaming of the day I end up a wallflower once more, just a journalist behind the scenes like my father was. As much as I wanted to get my name out there once upon a time, thatdream has been well and truly crushed. Being in the spotlight sucked.
“So, what do you think?” Alex asks as he makes a sweeping gesture with his hands. “I know you’ve been here before, but do you think this is somewhere that you could live? With me?”
“Are you kidding?” I chuckle. “This place is massive. There’s plenty of space for me and our baby to live. It’s going to be perfect.”
I run up to Alex and throw myself in his arms. He spins me around gleefully, reminding me once more that we’re in this together. Seriously now. The last time I was here, I spent way too long on my own, freaked out about everything, struggling to cope. But with Alex and I living together, I will always get to see him at the end of the day, no matter what.
The next time Alex’s lips find mine, we end up kissing passionately like there’s no tomorrow, and I really do feel like I’m on the precipice of something phenomenal, like this is the first day of the rest of my life.
Chapter 24—Riley
I don’t know if I can do this.
Standing in front of the office, a place that basically used to be my second home, is killer. I know I should head through those doors to confront everything that I need to, but doing it in reality is so much harder than in theory.
I have to do this, though, whether I want to or not. I worked for the newspaper for a very long time, and I just had a very successful article… well, in some ways. In other ways, it was a complete disaster. But either way, I need to know what’s going on here.
I need to know where I stand.
I still can’t walk through those right away, though—not with my head all over the place like this. I really do need to make this work somehow. There’s still a part of me that wants to make my father proud. I started this journey to follow in his footsteps, and it seems like a waste to put it all behind me now, all because of one error.
Mom has told me that this dream is silly and that my dad definitely wouldn’t want me to put myself at risk just to follow him. She also told me that, as strong as he always seemed and happy as he always was… that was because of what he had at home. He didn’t always love his work.
Alex has also said that I don’tneedto do this. He’s spent days convincing me that I’m such a talented writer that I could do anything I wanted. I can put my mind to any career and make it work for myself.
But I still don’t know how to handle going in there.
“What the fuck?”
The office door swings open, and I find Chad staring at me like he’s seen a ghost or something. I do my best to smile at him, to let him know that I come in peace and want to get back to work… If he’ll have me after the way I abandoned the newspaper in lieu of my own drama.
“Hi, Chad… I’m back in the city, ready to get back to work.”
