Page 84 of The Final Deal

“Then I’m sorry I keep fucking up,” I say with a voice wavering so bad that it cracks. “And I’ll get my things from the house.”

Forcing myself away from the twins is like gutting myself with a dagger, twisting and twirling the blade around until all my innards are cut into tiny pieces. Everything inside me, including my heart, shatters into an irreparable mountain of glass, because what good is a heart when the ones you love most don’t want you anymore?

So I step away, leaving the thousands of shards at their feet.

But someone grabs my hands.

They pull me back until I collide into two bodies.

It takes a moment for me to catch my breath and blink away the tears enough to find Zak and Adrian watching me in awe.

“What about Ty?” Zak questions. “Shannon said you really were forced to amend your deal after you made it. So what does that mean?”

Of course, Shannon couldn’t keep my secret entirely to himself.

My head shakes with a trembling chin. “Hon, I’m sorry—I’m trying to figure out a way to get rid of him, but his name is onall the legal paperwork. It’ll take some time to buy him out of contract and get him out, if I even can. But we’re at each other’s throats and about to murder one another, so maybe he’ll back out soon.”

His jaw tics and eyes flit all around. “I’ll fucking kill him first.”

“Can I have the first stab?”

“Yeah, babe,” he laughs. Then the beam dies down as he studies me worriedly. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. And… and I’m sorry for what I did to you and what I said. Everything. The attacks, selling you out?—”

I place a finger over his lips. No one here needs to hear what’s been going on with us.

He kisses my finger. “You’re always gonna be my wife, babe. And I’m gonna make everything up to you.”

I give him a small smile. “Good thing we have the rest of forever for you to grovel, huh?”

Zak swoops in, crushing my mouth with his until I’m bent over backward and holding onto him for dear life.

This kiss might be better than our first, and the one we shared to seal our vows to one another in front of Our Lady. My chest doesn’t feel empty anymore, but full and warm and…

Happy. Jesus Christ, I’m about to explode from relief and exhilaration.

He sets me upright, his arm firmly around my waist and hugging me against him. He cups my cheek and kisses me again. I can’t help the laugh, nor can I help the tears that rain down in a frantic deluge, a total release of all the panic and heartache and pain I’ve kept bottled up.

Another set of hands take me and turn me toward Adrian, who looks at me with an odd emotion on his face—something between pain and admiration.

“I can’t let you do this for me,” he says. His eyes put it all on display: the pain of losing me that made him turn to the devil in the first place. “I won’t.”

I swipe a sleeve over my cheeks and sniffle. “You became the devil because of me, because you loved me so much and couldn’t deal with losing me; let me make things right for all of us, hon.”

He shakes his head before kissing me, too. His forehead rests against mine, his breath warm over my lips as he says, “That was my choice, princesa. It’s not on you to make it right.”

I take his face between my hands. “I want to make it right, Dree,” I insist. “Please let me do this for you. For all of us. A-and let me come back home.”

“You’re comin’ home tonight,” they say simultaneously.

I kiss Adrian again, savoring the wholeness of my heart as he kisses me back. And then I hug them both tightly.

I never realized it was possible to hold the whole world in my arms all at once.

“Stephani Wade!” my mother shrieks behind the twins.

I tear away and look for Robbie, who marches our way.

“This is unacceptable,” Mom spits with a reddened face. Dad physically restrains her, his hands cinched tight around her arms so she doesn’t come flying at me. “You know what I went through to get this festival off the ground?—”

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