“Mm, I sure hope so.”
“Okay, enough,” I muttered.
After taking my other hand off her eye, I pronounced, “Surprise!”
I came around to her side to watch Drea’s reaction. Her gaze bounced around to take in the surroundings. Directly in front of us was a small, abandoned storefront. Beyond the enormous front window, candles in votives flickered in the dim light.
“Oh, it’s a surprise all right.”
Chuckling, I took a step back so I could wrap my arms around her waist from behind. After resting my head on her shoulder, I said, “To be an artist, you sure have a lack of vision.”
“Excuse me? Nothing about an abandoned storefront lights up my artistic sensibilities.” Glancing back at me, she argued, “Especially not after you not only advertised this as a big surprise, but wouldn’t fuck me in the alley.”
“Maybe you need to see inside?”
“If I risk getting my outfit dirty, there better be something fantastic inside.”
“I’m going to pretend that’s the pregnancy hormones and not that I married an absolute brat.”
When she glowered at me, I merely chuckled. Taking her hand, I then pulled her behind me up the sidewalk to the door. As I opened it, a bell tinkled overhead.
A trail of rose petals littered the floor, leading to a huge blanket where a picnic was set up. “This is where we’re having dinner?” she asked.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Not eating off the floor of a grimy empty building.”
“You’re so spoiled.”
“I think it’s more worrying if I could get tetanus from some of the exposed metal.”
“Nope. You had a dictate at your last appointment, remember?”
“You have a ridiculously good memory when it comes to my OB appointments.”
“One of us has to with your pregnancy brain.”
“Ass,” she grumbled.
She hesitantly walked over to the blanket. It took a moment for her to ease down on her knees. Then she shifted onto her butt. Looking up at me, she asked, “Okay, let’s get this picnic started.”
I held up a finger as I knelt down on the blanket. “Just one thing.”
After taking the silver lid off of one of the plates, I handed her an envelope. “This is for you.”
Furrowing her brows, she reached over and took it from me. After she opened it, she pulled out the contents. She flipped through the pages before looking up at me. “This is the deed to this property.”
“That’s right.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
Motioning around the room, I said, “This is your gallery.”
At my words, the papers fluttered from her hands. “My gallery?”
“Obviously, it needs some interior work, but I have men coming to start on Monday. Of course, they have been instructed to take your instructions about how you’d like the layout to look.
“You bought me a gallery,” she whispered.
