Page 149 of On The Rocks

My heart did a backflip, and I laughed out loud.

How awesome!

The wheels in my brain began to turn again, and I placed the books gently on the sheets and covered them in order to protect them. Then I reached for the accompanying envelope, carefully opening it from the top.

Inside was a plain white card. I pulled it out, and an entirely different scent, but one just as familiar, wafted up to greet me.

Fresh laundry, black pepper, and lemon.

Across it were words written in my husband’s cursive, impatient scrawl:

You have bewitched me,body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you.

At that moment,reading a timeless, beautiful quote from a timeless, beautiful story about love, loss, and yearning, my heart exploded.

With just a simply scrawled line from one of the most exquisite books in existence, I knew deep in my body and soul that Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy may have been the first (albeit fictional) man I’d ever loved, but Callum Fergal O’Shea would undoubtedly be the last.

“I don’t thinkI’ve ever seen so many books,” Tristan declared, looking around the living room of the apartment, where a vast collection of first editions and rare box sets covered most of the surfaces. “Callum O’Shea must be broke because I’ve looked up some of these collections on auction sites, and that one alone,” he jerked his thumb toward my new special edition, Illumicrate, signed box set of theBridgertonseries, “recently sold for just over a thousand dollars.”

My gaze swept to the signed first edition ofThe Notebookand then to the sprayed-edged hardback, signedEmpyreanseries and I couldn’t help grinning like a loony. “I better step up my cider game then. He’ll need the money.”

Tristan chuckled.

I twisted my lips and cocked my head questioningly. “Are you sure I look okay?”

His eyes went soft. “You look lovely, but you’ve got your fairy godfather slash hair genius to primp and tease, so you’ve got an advantage.” He wandered over to the coffee table and touched the ancient sleeve ofWuthering Heightsby Emily Brontë. “What was the quote that went with this one?”

My heart fluttered. I didn’t need to check. I knew every quote to every book or set of books Callum had sent me since that first Jane Austen illustrated edition appeared on my nightstand the month before. My eyes drifted to Tristan’s, and I murmured,“Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

His eyebrow cocked. “Hmm.” His hand moved to another book, a signed first edition ofLady Chatterley’s Loverby D.H. Lawrence. “What about this one?”

In a hushed tone, I relayed the note I’d received just that day,“But, especially in love, only counterfeit emotions exist nowadays. We have all been taught to mistrust everybody emotionally, from parents downwards, or upwards. Don’t trust anybody with your real emotions: if you’ve got any: that is the slogan of today. Trust them with your money, even, but never your feelings. They are bound to trample on them.”

Tears welled in my eyes because I felt every word of it. Each note my husband wrote me seemed to fit us and our situation, but that one dug deeper because, after everything Maureen told me about Callum’s childhood, it seemed he was trying to explain his state of mind.

It was my husband’s way of finally baring his soul to me.

It was beautiful.

It was real.

It spoke to my heart on every level, so after evading his daily requests for weeks, I’d finally agreed to let Callum take me on a date. He was due to pick me up any minute, and we were going to Giovanni’s, the local Italian restaurant.

My stomach was filled with jumping beans, and my heart filled with butterflies. Who would’ve thought I’d be so nervous about going on a date with my own husband?

There was so much riding on tonight because I missed Callum so much. We’d taken to spending time talking on thephone, and most days, he came into the distillery with a coffee or a lemon heaven bar for me. Receiving a new book had become a daily occurrence, and I’d found myself looking forward to seeing where one would appear and when.

They turned up everywhere. The apartment, the distillery, a couple I found at Maureen’s house. One had been left by the bath, which had been filled with hot water and bubbles, and a book and note were even left at the salon for me. Callum was obviously getting all my friends and family involved in making it special, too, and it meant everything. But what meant the most were the handwritten passages he compared with us and everything we’d been through.

Those lovingly scribbled words written with so much thought and care made my heart beat faster for my husband, but I still made him wait. I didn’t want to jump back into our marriage until I was certain Callum had learned from what happened before.

I’d given my heart to him once and he didn’t take care of it, so I needed to trust him implicitly if I ever handed it over again. I loved Callum O’Shea and always would, regardless of whether we were together or not, but I’d learned since I’d been in Hambleton that if I wanted our marriage to work, I needed to love myself more, and he needed to do the same.

How could we be truly open and look for love and happiness in each other if we didn’t possess those things for ourselves? I was so tied up in my husband that I couldn’t see straight, so our time apart had helped me gain some much-needed clarity.

I just prayed it had done the same for him.

CHAPTER 31

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