Wrong Girl, Right Alpha novel · Chapter 41 of 48

Chapter 41: Dane Goes Across

I asked him in the kitchen, with the Blackwater girl asleep upstairs in the spare room and Hazel on my hip.

"Celia says you're writing goodbyes."

Ronan put down his coffee.

He didn't glance at the door, and he didn't look for a way round it.

"Two letters," he said. "I wrote them the night you left me in the bedroom."

"Where?"

"The one to Dane, he took.

The one to you is in the council desk, in the left drawer, under the ledger."

"You kept it."

"I couldn't burn it."

"Go and get it."

He went.

He was back in a few minutes.

He held the envelope out to me flat on his right palm, as Dane had held out his mother's letter.

It was sealed with plain wax and had my name on it in his square hand.

I handed Hazel to him and broke the seal.

You are free, it began. Take Hazel anywhere you like.

I read it to the end.

I read the line about the year and the secret, and the line that said Don't wait for anything.

Ronan stood and held our daughter and watched my face.

"It's the cruelest thing I've ever read," I said.

"I know."

"It's also very well written."

He made a sound that was almost a laugh.

I folded the page in thirds and put it in my pocket.

It sat there with Tilly's birthday note and the one from the council.

"You're keeping it," he said.

"I'm keeping it. When you're seventy and impossible, I'm going to read it out at supper."

His throat moved.

"Nora."

"Don't. I'm not done being furious, and I'm not done loving you, and I've decided I can do both."

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