The Takeover (The Miles High Club #2)(6)

I stare at my beautiful friend through tears.

“He’s still with you. He will always be with you. Trust him to watch over you. You need to let him go, Claire.”

My eyes hold hers.

“You didn’t die in the accident with him. Live while you can.”

I drop my head and stare at my plate on the table, my appetite suddenly diminished.

“I’m going to book you for some laser this afternoon.”

I pick up my knife and fork once more. “They’re going to need a machete. I’ve been rocking the full-bush vibe.”

She giggles. “Yeah, that mess has got to go.”

I pull my car up and stare at the house in front of me.

Our house.

The one that Wade and I built together—the one we planned on getting old in.

Our small patch of paradise on Long Island. Wade was adamant that his children grow up in a semirural area. He grew up in New York City himself, and all he ever wanted for his children was a large patch of land for them to play freely on whenever they wanted.

We bought a block of land and built our home. It’s not flashy and fancy. It’s made of weatherboard and has a large veranda around the edge, a big garage, and a driveway with a basketball hoop. Four bedrooms, two living areas, and a big rustic kitchen.

It’s so Wade. At the time we could have afforded much better, but when it came down to it, he wanted a country home filled with laughter and children.

And that’s what we had.

My mind goes back to that early morning when the police knocked on my door.

“Are you Mrs. Claire Anderson?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry; there’s been an accident.”

The hours that followed were monumental and painful. They are so clear in my mind—the way I felt, the words I said, what I was wearing.

The way my heart was breaking.

I get a vision of myself crying over him in the morgue and whispering to his lifeless body, offering him an eternal promise as I brushed the hair back from his face.

“I’ll raise our children as you wanted. I’ll carry on what we started. I’ll keep all your dreams alive . . . you have my word. I love you, my darling.”

My face screws up in tears, and I snap my thoughts back to the present. It doesn’t do me any good letting that memory linger. If I let myself go back there, it’s like I lose him all over again.

The pain never goes away, but some days it feels like it might just kill me. I’m an empty shell. My body functions as it should, but I’m barely breathing.

I’m suffocating in a world of responsibilities.

The promises I made my husband in the hours after his death have come at a heavy cost.

I don’t go out at night, I don’t socialize anymore, I work my fingers to the bone . . . both at home and in the office.

Devoted to keeping Wade’s dreams alive, to keeping his children loved and protected. To keeping his company afloat. It’s hard, and it’s lonely, and damn it, I just wish he’d walk through the fucking door and save me.

Marley’s words from earlier today run through my mind.

“He’s still with you. He will always be with you. Trust him to watch over you. You need to let him go, Claire.”

In the pit of my stomach, I know she’s right. Like a song hanging in the wind, her words are lingering with me. Chipping away at my sensibility.

I stare into space as an empty sadness surrounds me . . . he’s not coming back.

He’s never coming back.

It’s time; I know it’s time.

That doesn’t make it any less painful.

I couldn’t imagine living without him. I don’t know how I’m doing it.

I don’t want to have to learn to.

I stare down at my wedding rings and grip them with my fingers as I prepare myself to do the unthinkable.

I blink through the tears; a suffocating weight is on my chest, and I slowly pull them off. They catch on my knuckle, and finally they slide free.

I close my hand into a fist. It feels light without the weight of my rings, and I stare down at the white band left on my bare finger. The sun’s reminder of what I have lost.

I hate my hand without his ring.

I hate my life without his love.

Overwhelmed with emotion, I put my head down onto the steering wheel . . . and for the first time in a long time, I allow myself to cry.

I throw the last pair of shoes into my suitcase. I leave tomorrow for the conference. “I think that’s it.”

“Did you get your toothbrush?” Patrick asks as he lies on his stomach on my bed, beside my suitcase. My youngest child is also my wisest. He never forgets a thing. “Not yet. I still have to use it. I’ll pack it in the morning.”

“Okay.”

“So Grandma will be here when you get home from school,” I remind him.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he says with an eye roll. “And I have to call you the moment Harry’s naughty or if Fletcher gets short tempered.” He sighs as he recites my orders.

“Yes, that’s right.” Little do his brothers know, but Patrick is also my tattletale. I know what his brothers have done before they even finish doing it.

I have three sons. Fletcher is seventeen and has taken on the unofficial job as my personal bodyguard. Harry is thirteen, and I swear to God he’s either going to end up a Nobel Prize–winning genius or in jail. He is the most mischievous human being I know, always getting into some kind of trouble—mostly at school.