Chapter 38
CALLIE
Maddox squared his shoulders. “Callie, I’m so sorry to ambush you like this. We thought you wouldn’t be back this early. I was planning just to write you a letter—”
“Great, I’m here. I can save you the postage.”
He took a deep breath. “I asked your mother to recreate the curse.”
After what he’d done to get out of it? “You did not.”
Astrea clapped her hands. “He did! Isn’t that a fun request?”
“It’s insane.” I stepped toward my mother. “You’re not actually going to do it, are you?”
“I already have!” she crowed with delight.
Maddox looked at me, a soft smile below his hopeful eyes. “You’re the only woman in the world for me.”
“The one change from the original is whose forgiveness would break the curse.” Astrea grinned. “Now I’m the one who would have to forgive him for how terribly he treated you.”
“You!” I yelled. “You’re still carrying grudges against people who have been dead for 200 years!”
“That’s exactly what I told him! His situation is really and truly permanent now.” Astrea stretched her arms with a satisfied sigh. “I must tell you, Calliope, among all your other magical gifts, you design curses that are just fun to cast. It was so nice to work from your design.”
I was completely speechless. I looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to process what had happened.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to talk.” Astrea clasped my hand briefly as she walked past. “Let me know if you need me.”
We waited for the glass conservatory doors to close behind her. I channeled my magic at the vines growing around the doorframe, accelerating their growth so that they covered the glass in seconds. Maddox and I needed privacy, and the familiar pull of magic steadied me slightly.
I moved to one of the wrought-iron benches and dropped onto it.
Maddox followed and sat at the other end. There was room for three, so space stretched between us.
“Maddox, what were you thinking?”
“I kept coming back to what you said the last time I saw you.” His voice was quiet but solid. “You said you wanted what we had that day at the beach house, but with a man you knew for sure would never cheat on you. You wanted to be one hundred percent sure I wouldn’t get the wandering eye again.”
He’d remembered it perfectly. He really had become a better listener.
“When I realized there was a way to make myself that man, I knew I had to take it.”
The scale of what he’d done hit me all over again. “Why didn’t you ask me before you did it?”
“Because I knew you would think it was too much to ask, and too much pressure to put on you, and tell me not to do it.”
He was right. I absolutely would have.
“And you weren’t worried it put pressure on me to do it anyway?”
“So worried. That’s why I was only going to tell you by letter, so you could ignore it if you wanted.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But the more I thought about it… the more it didn’t seem to really make any difference.”
I couldn’t follow. “No difference?”
“I know you could have any man you want. But you’re the only one for me.
There’s no one else after you, Callie.” He shifted slightly on the bench, turning more toward me.
“I realized that if you didn’t take me back, I still wasn’t ever going to be with another woman.
I would just spend the rest of my life missing you and wishing I hadn’t fucked it up. ”
I felt something building within me. My pulse quickened. “Wow” was all I could manage to get out.
“So from that angle, it doesn’t make much difference to me if I’m cursed or not. Either way, I won’t be sleeping with any other women.”
I tried to process what he was saying. He’d cursed himself permanently. Not to manipulate me into saying yes, but because he meant it. He was mine, whether I wanted him or not. His certainty was dizzying.
“But I thought, even if it didn’t make a difference to me, maybe it would make a difference to you,” he said. “Once that thought entered my head, I had to try.”
My skin was tingling. He understood. He actually understood what I needed. Not just the surface of it, but the deep fear underneath.
And he’d found a way to take that fear away.
“And I understood why nothing short of this would ever convince you that your heart could be safe with me.”
When had we gotten so close? I’d been sitting at one end of the bench and he’d been at the other, but somehow the space between us had disappeared. Our knees were touching.
“How are you feeling about what I’ve said?” he asked. His voice was soft and careful.
I looked at him. This was the man I’d married. The man I’d loved so desperately it hurt. The man who’d broken my heart so thoroughly it felt like I might never recover.
But he was so different now. The old Maddox never would have done something this selfless, or this permanent. That Maddox had been too focused on himself, too caught up in his own needs and wants to see mine clearly. He had never committed to me so completely before.
A peace I hadn’t felt in so long washed over me. “I feel safe.” I leaned closer to him, my body relaxing into the certainty of what he’d done.
His hands came up to cup my face, and then he kissed me.
When his lips met mine, the whole complicated mess of our past fell away. None of it mattered. All that mattered was his mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, and the taste of him I’d been trying so hard to forget.
We kissed each other with months and years of pent-up longing. Every doubt, every wall I’d built, every time I’d told myself how much better off I was without him… all of it washed away.
This was what I’d been missing. Not just the physical presence of him, but this feeling that comes from trusting someone with your whole heart. The feeling of being completely known and loved anyway.
I’d thought I could never have that with Maddox again. I’d been so sure he’d broken something that couldn’t be fixed.
But here we were.
His hands pulled me into his lap, and I went willingly, straddling him as the kiss deepened. My fingers gripped his shoulders, his shirt, anywhere I could reach. His palms slid up my spine, into my hair, across my skin, as if he couldn’t touch enough of me at once.
“I love you so much,” he breathed against my neck. His arms wrapped around me, holding me tight like he was afraid I might disappear.
“You really did this. For me.”
“It wasn’t a hard decision. I’d do anything for you.”
We stayed like that for a long moment, just holding each other.
Finally, I pulled back just enough to look at him. “We need to talk about this. About us.”
“I know.” He brushed a strand of hair from my face, his touch gentle. “What do you need from me?”
“I need to know you’re not expecting things to go back to the way they were.”
“Absolutely not. The only thing I need from our old life is you.”
“We had a lot of romance when we were newlyweds,” I said. “But even then, it was never really right.”
“I know. I want to build something new with you. I’m dying to move to Nightshade Cove.”
I pulled back slightly to look him in the eye. “I’m not just talking about where we live. Do you understand how much I’ve changed too? I made myself small in our marriage because I thought that was the right way to make you feel big. I will not do that anymore.”
“And I don’t want you to. I never want the smallest version of you,” he said with surprising fierceness. “I want all of you.”
“Well, that’s good.” I paused to savor the moment. “Because you’re going to get it.”
I magically retracted the vines and swung the doors open. Grabbing Maddox’s hand, I quickly led us out into the hall, up the grand staircase, and toward my bedroom.
The sex was everything it had been at the beginning, so hot and intense I could forget who I was.
I’d had some of that this summer with other men, too.
But this was different. This was Maddox touching me like I was precious and fucking me like he’d die if he couldn’t have me, and somehow those two things didn’t contradict each other anymore.
Thank gods this house was so immense I practically had my own wing.
Afterwards, we stayed in bed, wrapped around each other. I was surprised to notice that the sun was setting. Damn, we really had lost track of time. It hadn’t even been lunchtime when I found him in the conservatory.
Maddox broke the silence. “So there is one thing from our old relationship I’d like to bring back, if you’re into it… bad rom-com night.”
My face brightened. “I would love to bring back bad movie night!”
“Oh, I don’t need a bad movie night. I don’t need to do the rotation with my action movies anymore. I’d like to watch only rom-coms for a while.”
I playfully widened my eyes. “And here I thought choosing a permanent dick curse was a shocking development.”
“What can I say?” He smiled. “I’m vibing more with love stories lately.”
We held each other for a long while. When he spoke again, his playfulness had turned into something more serious.
“Thank god for that curse. I needed it,” he said.
“I never would have guessed I’d hear you grateful for it.”
“Me neither. Thanks for inspiring me to change.”
And then the most incredible rush went through me.
I’d been wrestling with the question for months: what did I want to do with my life?
And suddenly, with Maddox’s arms around me and that bone-deep sense of safety settling into my chest, my mind felt clear in a way it hadn’t in years. The answer was right there. Not every detail, but the vision, and the certainty that I could figure everything else out.
I could see the path forward now.
I bolted upright in bed.
“I know what I want to do.”
He sat up too, immediately just as excited as I was. “Tell me everything.”
“I’m not going to get a job. I’m going to open my own business. And I want you to work there,” I said.
“That sounds amazing. I can’t wait. What kind of business are we getting into?”
“The curses. Everyone keeps telling me how brilliant I am at curse magic. And look at you. You’re completely transformed, and much happier. The curse didn’t just punish you, it actually made you into a better person.”
“It did,” he agreed, nodding enthusiastically.
“So that’s what we’re going to do. Help people who’ve been betrayed. Design curses that create real accountability, real change, and real healing.” I grinned. “Restorative curses. Justice for the betrayed. Reform for the betrayers.”
“That’s genius. Callie, you’re going to help so many people.”
“We’re going to,” I said, as I pulled him into a kiss.