Page 116 of Ex Somnis

It’s Mabel teaching me how to make coffee when I was fifteen.

It’s Jasper doing homework at Table Seven because Mom forgot to pick him up.

It’s knowing which floorboards squeak and which boiler sound means we’re about to have a very expensive problem. It’s every Christmas dinner. Every wedding.

Every guest who’s come back and asked for me by name.

“I’ve spent half my life here. I know every stupid thing that breaks.” I stop walking and shake my head. “Hell, half the furniture in this place is stuff I’ve repaired. I built half this place without owning any of it.”

“You love it.” The certainty in Paul’s voice catches me off guard.

I stare at him, then turn toward the inn. “It’s mine.”

Not legally.

Maybe not ever.

But it’s mine anyway.

Paul nods once when my gaze comes back to him, as if I’ve finally solved an equation he’s been waiting for me to finish.

Then he says, “Good.”

I frown down at him. “Good?”

“Yes.”

“That seems like a weird response for someone who is going to inherit this.”

Paul sighs. “Unlike with Lennon, I stake absolutely no claim on this inn.”

What?

“You don’t?”

“I don’t want it.”

The words hit me so hard I’m tempted to pinch my nose and do a reality check.

I’ve been running the calculations for years. How much longer until Mabel decides whether his brother, Marcus, will push, whether Paul will want it, maybe Renee. I’ve been braced for a competition that apparently nobody else was having. A race with one contestant.

Shit.

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“But Mabel…”

“Is perfectly capable of deciding what she wants to do with her property.” He adjusts his glasses. “And if she were asking my opinion, I’d be significantly more interested in the man who’s like a son to her and already running the place than the psychologist nephew who spends most of his day hiding in a house with an astronomical power bill.”

I look at the inn and the window boxes Lennon had a strong opinion about last week.

I could actually own this place. For real.

“And for the record,” Paul adds. “I’m coming to terms with sharing her with you and Ridge.”

I glance back at him. “You are?”