Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Adam
There was a sea of people in front of our house. I saw three police cruisers with their red and blue lights flashing and countless cameras trying to get a view inside the wide-open gates as two officers tried to hold them back.
We’d called nine-one-one on our way to the house and learned that Lucy was on the line with another operator. When they asked me for the gate codes as Lucy had stopped responding, I thought my heart had stopped beating.
Nothing, and I mean
nothing
could have prepared me for the mess that was waiting back at home.
“You need to stay calm,” Dan instructed me. “There are cameras everywhere, Adam. If the guy is still here, you need to stay calm.”
None of his words really penetrating the haze in my mind, I watched as the cameras pulled back from the gate as soon as they recognized the car. They swarmed around us, making it impossible to move farther.
Ignoring Dan’s shouts, I pushed open the door, knocking a few cameras down in the process, and ran up to the gates.
The first thing I spotted was my son in Jason Thorn’s arms right outside our house next to another police cruiser. Something broke inside me—or maybe something mended…maybe both. I lost count of the seconds it took me to get past the cops who tried to block me and get to their side.
“He fell asleep,” Jason murmured as he gently passed my son into my arms. I ran my hand over every inch of his body to convince myself that he was okay, that no harm had come to him, and crushed him to my chest as my breath shuddered out of me. All the ruckus going on just a few feet away didn’t even faze him as his head fell on my shoulder and his tiny hands instinctively held on to my shirt.
I dropped my forehead on his shoulder and took a deep, calming breath.
When I lifted my head, all that mattered was finding Lucy…and she was right there, right there next to Olive, holding her friend’s hand in a tight grip as tears ran down their faces.
“I fucking love you,” I said in a growl, going for her. “I fucking love you, Lucy.”
She held on to me just as tight as I was holding her to myself.
Her body shook against mine, and I heard her breath hitch. If I could have, if it had been possible, I would’ve held her closer, pulled her tighter.
“I love you,” I whispered into her neck before brushing a kiss on her skin. “I love you. I love you.”
I closed my eyes and ignored all the shouts and the flashes.
I kissed her lips countless times as I tasted her tears.
I kissed her neck, her throat, her nose. Everywhere. Every inch.
I thanked her again and again for being there for my son for the second time.
I held her in my arms for long minutes.
I ignored the entire world around us.
It was at that moment, that specific moment where everyone around us disappeared and it was just the three of us, where she trusted me enough to hold her up, trusted me enough to let me whisper my love to her, that made me sure I would do everything in my power—even if it meant fighting with her—to make her understand that I was the one who would make her happy for the rest of our lives, that I was the one who had already broken her curse.