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She covers her face and shakes her head, and that’s when I see it.
Her ring.
She’s wearing it and that might be the first indicator that she’s not here just to curse me out. This isn’t over for her… just like it’s not over for me.
“You’re wearing your ring,” I say.
She pulls her hands off her face and looks back at me.
“I never took it off.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because you made me promise not to and because they never retracted our marriage license. We’re still married.”
I hold up my hand and show her the ring that I haven’t taken off since she slid it on me in that courthouse when we said our vows.
“Either have I.”
She studies the ring on my hand for a moment.
“And why not?” she asks.
“Because I’m still in love with you.”
Her eyes tick up from my hand to reach my eyes.
I look behind her to find her SUV parked along the curb.
“You drove here? Why?”
“Because my car was already packed with all of my luggage from the penthouse and it would have been too expensive to fly all my things here.”
“All of your things?” I ask, my eyes shifting back to her.
“Shawnie and I talked the entire three-hour drive. I’m giving her half the company and she’s going to run things while I start a new branch in Vancouver.”
A feeling of hope, something I haven’t felt since the day Juliet showed up at the Hawkeyes stadium on Valentine’s Day, comes over me.
“You’re staying? With me? What about your mom and your brother?”
Though selfishly, I don’t care right now. I just want her to tell me she’s staying with me.
“Well, someone put my mom through schooling and made sure that she now makes a good living, and she gets to spend five days a week with my brother. Jerrin has never done better than he is right now. He’s thriving with the support he’s getting,” she says, a smile stretching across her face as she talks about them. “I’ll still have to go back and forth from here to Seattle every other week to help with Elite, but for now Shawnie and our new assistant can take on the bulk of it. And I'll get to see my brother when I'm in town.”
She worked it all out so she doesn’t have to give up anything and now I wonder what would have happened if I had told her from the beginning. Could we have avoided the last two months of misery?
“You’re staying? Even after I left the way I did?”
It’s hard for me to imagine that she could forgive me that easily.
“You underestimated what I would do to be with you. But I know you gave up everything to protect me from a criminal investigation. And you set up my family so that they can take care of themselves. All I've ever wanted is for them to feel secure and happy, and now they do. You've given that to us.”
I take a step closer, letting myself hope for the first time in two months.
“I need an answer, Juliet. Are you staying with me?”
“Yes. I’m staying with you,” she says.
