- Samantha
My hands are shaking as I tear open the envelope. I pull out the letter and scan my eyes over it before letting out a sigh and smiling at Dean.
“I’m officially divorced.”
He smiles triumphantly and wraps his arms around me. “Good. I can make an honest woman out of you now.”
“Not so fast,” I laugh. “I’m not going to jump into another marriage without some serious thought.”
“I can wait,” he says, running his fingers over my growing belly. He kisses me gently and then pulls away and claps his hands together. “We should celebrate!”
I nod and he grabs a couple glasses. “Sparkling apple juice for you, wine for me,” he says with a grin. I clink my glass against his and take a sip before tilting my head to the side.
“How did you get Ronnie to agree to the new terms? What did you say to him? He gave me everything in the settlement, way more than half.”
Dean glances towards me and smiles sadly. When it came time to file the divorce papers for real, Dean called Ronnie’s lawyer. During the final meeting he took Ronnie aside and got a whole new set of papers drawn up. I don’t know what they said to each other, but I do know that Ronnie came back like a dog with a tail between his legs.
Dean takes another sip of wine and shrugs.
“I told him that my mother wouldn’t protect him anymore. She obviously told him to get lost. He believed me.”
“I still can’t believe he was working for her,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s like a bad dream. The whole thing. From the moment I found out he wasn’t being faithful to the final signature on those papers. Just a bad dream.”
“But now,” Dean says, running his fingers down my cheek and back towards my hair. “Now it’s like winning the lottery.”
I smile and tilt my head up towards him. He kisses me and I can taste the wine on his lips. I stare into his eyes and feel nothing but love and happiness overflowing in my heart. I run a hand over my stomach and look down at it before taking another sip of sparkling apple juice.
“I don’t know how I got so lucky,” I breathe. He kisses me softly until his phone rings to interrupt us. He looks down at the screen and makes a noise.
“Hey Pat, how did it go? Uh huh, great! That’s great! Ok. Yep, talk to you later.” He ends the call and looks at me, eyes shining.
“The kids loved the clown school. Apparently Margaret asked him if he could do it once a week. Pat was over the moon, he’s been wanting to have a partnership like this ever since I met him.”
I grin and wrap my arms around Dean.
“Thank you for making it work,” I say. “I couldn’t have convinced Margaret to give it a chance without your help. It’ll be such a good addition to the program.”
Dean shrugs. He looks at me curiously and then opens his mouth and then closing it again before speaking.
“I was thinking,” he says slowly. “Since my family gave me access to the trust fund again, I have all this money. We’ve really struck a chord with the kids. What if we expanded the organisation? We could try to get some federal funding and put some real money into the programs and get multiple locations in the city. We could get Pat and Margaret involved and make something real out of this. Have regular clown school classes in addition to all the programs you have already.”
My eyes widen and I stare at Dean. “You mean you’d stop the investment banking?”
Dean nods. “Go full-time clown,” he says with a grin. “There’s so much potential to do good things here. Those kids love you, they love Margaret, and they love the clown classes. There are thousands more kids that could benefit from it. We could do it, Sam. We could make something great out of this.”
I throw my arms around Dean and laugh as he swings me around. If my heart felt full before, it feels like it’s absolutely about to burst. I stare at his face and shake my head.
“You never stop surprising me,” I say in amazement.
Dean shrugs and turns towards the counter. When he turns back around he’s got a big red nose on. He jumps up and spreads his palms wide with a big smile on his face and I can’t help but laugh.
“Full-time clown,” he says with a laugh. “Get used to it.”
“Wouldn’t want it any other way,” I reply as I wrap my arms around him again. I give his big red nose a squeeze before pressing my lips to his and once again tasting the sweetness of his kiss.