Page 138 of Lease to Love

I knew it before he opened his mouth.

"I love you, Sunshine."

There was no doubt in his voice.

Just Roman, looking at me like the words had been living inside him for a while and he'd finally decided to let them out.

"I love you too." I whispered.

His entire face changed.

His smile broke wide, bigger than any I'd seen from him before, dimples cutting deep into his cheeks.

Then he kissed me, slowly and deeply, and rolled me back onto my back, settling between my legs again.

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way..."

He hooked his arms under my legs again, opening me up for him again.

"What were we saying about putting in extra work?"

Epilogue

Summer

1 Year Later

“Why the hell did I let you convince me to walk home?” I pouted.

“Because I had you bent over the couch when I asked,” Roman responded dryly.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Cheating ass.”

“Less pouting, more walking.”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help smiling. The community center was only a few blocks from Roman’s brownstone—our brownstone now, which still made something warm flutter in my chest whenever I thought about it—but I'd been on my feet for hours.

Between greeting business owners, helping answer questions, taking pictures, and making sure nobody walked away without a pamphlet, my feet were officially filing for divorce from my body.

We were coming home from the second small-business development fair hosted jointly by the Langston Park Block Association and the Sterling Group. The first one, six months ago, had been a massive success, and the business-development programs Roman had rolled out with the Block Association were already changing things for existing business owners. This time, the focus had expanded to new businesses, and the turnout had been even bigger.

There was so much creativity in Langston Park.

So much damn talent.

A soul-food brunchery with plans to turn Sunday dinner into a whole experience. A yoga studio centered around Kemetic yoga and wellness. A dessert food truck that had handed out samples so good I'd already decided I was going to single-handedly keep them in business once they opened. People had ideas. They had vision. What they'd been missing was access, resources, and somebody willing to look at their dreams and say, Okay. Now let's figure out how to make this real.

Roman was giving them that.

And somehow, he was giving it to me, too.

House of Autumn was thriving.

The systems and operational structure he'd helped me put in place had changed everything. For the first time since I'd opened the doors, I wasn't spending half my day drowning in inventory spreadsheets, vendor emails, payroll, and a hundred other things that had absolutely nothing to do with why I'd opened the damn shop in the first place.

I got to design.

Create.