The Last Letter

by Rebecca Yarros

I could list a thousand reasons that woman owned whatever heart I had.

He might look all fluffy and frosted, but under the clothes he was devil’s food, period. And I really, really, really liked chocolate.

If I wasn’t careful, she’d realize I was in love with her, and then we’d be in even deeper shit. I’d never had a woman prick my temper the way Ella did. Hell, I’d sworn at her. I’d also never had a woman I cared to see more than once or twice, or one who owned my soul the way she did.

fell. Jeffy-boy didn’t like having his silver spoon brought up. Guys

“Yeah, I’d beg to differ on that, considering how many times I screwed her in the two months we were married. Small-town girl with a small-town mind just wanted a ring first.”

“You might be their biological father, but you’re sure as hell not their dad. You’ve never so much as seen them, spoken to them, or had any interaction. They. Are. Not. Your. Kids. They’re mine.”

“Reason enough? Or we can just add her to your insurance, since you’re so keen on calling them yours. I’m sure that would go over really well with your dad, considering he told Ella about six months ago that he really didn’t care if Maisie lived or died as long as she left him and you the hell alone. I’m sure that would be great for business if it got out.”

going to take this document to your fiancée’s dad. What is he? A senator? And then I’m going to leak it to the press that you not only abandoned those kids, but you left their mother destitute while she struggled to afford the cancer treatments Maisie needs. How do you think that’s going to play out in the press?”

How weird was it to be jealous of yourself? To know another version of you had a piece of the woman you loved?

“That’s not the point! It’s July, Beckett! July is for shorts and hikes and suntans, and being kissed under the moonlight. And I’m in jeans with no kisses, and my legs look like a Yeti somewhere in the Himalayas lent me his coat!”

“I’m not a woman anymore. I’m a mom. A mom who can’t be anything other than a mom

“It matters because you matter. You know when you’re on an airplane, and they tell you to put the oxygen mask on you first before your kids? This is that. If you only put the oxygen on your kid, then you pass out and can’t help them. Every once in a while,

you have to take a breath, Ella, or you’re going to suffocate.”

God, she was so beautiful. I took her hand and pulled her into an alcove just off the front hall. “You’re stunning. You don’t need makeup. There has never been a moment since I met you that I saw you as anything less than an incredible, exquisitely beautiful woman. But I understand that you don’t feel the way I see you. So yes, I’m sure.”

I made a mental note to wink at the woman more often.

young. I like to think it makes me a better person—being content with what I have—but

“So walk into his room naked. That’ll change his mind.”

To tell you the truth, it didn’t exactly ring my bell.” “Because he probably didn’t know where to find your bell.”

tiny but undeniable flame of hope had flared in my heart that it wasn’t just on paper—it was real. My kids were now Beckett’s, too. And I was head over heels in love with him.

“Oh, honey, you don’t, and you never have. You’re not old, not damaged, not a dried-up spinster. You’re twenty-five. So yeah. I’m going to bed.”

“You are so…” I waved my hands in his direction. “All that is just… I don’t have words.”

She was a thousand different kisses in one woman, the soft and tender, the deep and passionate, the hard and desperate. I never knew who I was taking in my arms, and yet they were all Ella. Everything was Ella.

Time moved slower when you missed the person you love.

I picked her up and kissed her, feeling the rush of home like I always did when our lips touched. “I missed you.”

You might have spidey senses.”

I’d learned a few months into our relationship that love was mostly about compromise, but it was always about acceptance. There were dozens of little things about him that could annoy the socks off me, and the same went for him, but for the most part, we were who we were, and we loved each other. There was no point trying to change each other, we either wanted to grow or change ourselves, or we didn’t. After you accepted that about someone and still loved them, you were pretty much indestructible.

He took the worst days and made them bearable. Took the good days and made them exquisite.

I could take a moment to be my own priority for the first time in years, and what I wanted was him.