My Husband Sent the Helicopter to Save a Dog, So I Signed novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Not Going Back

I left Nonna on the shelf above the ovens, with Mitchell's pen beside her, and my assistant at the counter.

Alec opened his door before I knocked.

His hair was wet from the shower, and he had the look of a man who hadn't slept.

"Sit," he said.

"I'll stand."

"Okay." He nodded at the window. "I watched Mitchell's car leave the alley this morning. Constance called me. She said he brought your grandmother home."

"He did."

"He filed a report on his own company. He read all sixty-one."

"I know. I was there."

"Then you know he's changing." Alec's voice was careful and flat. "I'm not going to stand here and tell you he isn't. A man who walks into Odette's kitchen at midnight is a different man than the one you married."

"Say the rest."

He took a long breath.

"If you want him back, I'll fly you to Napa on Saturday. I'll land the jet, I'll carry your bag, and I'll step off the field. You won't owe me anything. You won't owe me one more night."

I looked at him.

I had expected a lot from Alec Driscoll.

I had not expected him to stand in his own hallway and offer to hand me over.

"You think I'd go back to him because he finally learned to read."

"I think you loved him once."

"I loved a man who didn't exist." I walked up until I was a foot away. "That man answered my messages and remembered my father's anniversary. He never lived. Odette made him up out of short texts."

"Marisa."

"And you think I'm a prize he gets back if he behaves."

"That's not what I think."

"Then think this." I put my bandaged hands flat on his chest. "I'm not going back. If Mitchell never signed anything blind, if he were a saint, I would still be on this side of the room."

His breath stopped under my palms.

"Take your shirt off," I said.

"Your hands."

"Are what they are. Take it off."

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