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Iasked Mike to stay the night, but he said he needed to be at the tavern for an early delivery, so a little after eleven, I walked him to the door dressed in only a robe. He pulled me close to him, “Thank you for tonight.”
“What part? The dinner, the partnership, or the great sex?”
“All of those.” He grinned. “I’m pretty in awe of you.”
I snickered. “Why is that?”
“Because you can cook, handle business, and please me in bed. You’re almost everything all rolled up in one.”
“Almost?” I piqued a brow.
“Well, you have to have a flaw buried someplace. Not everyone is perfect all the time.”
I threw my head back and chortled. “Oh, honey, I have flaws. I have lots of flaws.”
“Name one,” he said with a smirk.
“Um…” I thought for a moment. “I sometimes forget to rinse the sink after I brush my teeth and leave a blob of paste in there.”
It was his turn to laugh heartily, and my heart did a funny flip as I watched his eyes crinkle around the edges. “That is not a flaw.”
“Well, I’m sure you will find one soon enough.”
He sobered and stared at me hard as if he were trying to look straight into my soul, and I waited patiently to see what he would find. “I don’t know what this is, Candy.”
“It’s just us, Mike. It’s us enjoying each other. Don’t put a label on it. We don’t need to do that.”
“You don’t want anyone to know about us, is that it?”
“No, I don’t care if people know. I just don’t want to push us into a box where we are supposed to act a certain way or do certain things. We are two people who happen to enjoy each other. Why should we label that?”
“Okay, then we won’t label it, but you know if your brother finds out about this, he’s going to be so far up my ass that he could see my heart beating.”
“Let me worry about Ethan, okay? In the meantime, let me know what you officially think of my proposal.”
“I will, and I am leaning toward accepting it, but I want to sleep on it. You should do the same. I do not want either of us to jump into this if it’s not right for us.”
“I can do that.”
“And I will too.” He kissed me slowly. “Now, I need to go so you can get to sleep. Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”
“Night, Michael,” I replied to him and stopped myself from letting the next set of words slip off my tongue. After I closed the door, I leaned back and thought to myself. Why in God’s name would I want to say, I love you? I’d said that to only two men in my life to whom I was not related, and Mike and I had been involved with each other less than a week. There was no way that I could even think I might love him.
And yet, as I lay down that night and thought about how he stared into my soul, I knew that part of me did.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MICHAEL
Candy had floored me tonight—like knocked my knees right out from under me and had me flat on my back staring up at her like she was my salvation. Was Candy my salvation? Was this the answer to my wayward prayers?
Would accepting her proposal put me on the track to where my life was destined to be? A thousand questions raced through my mind, but I pushed them aside long enough to enjoy her. In a way, I was also thanking her for even considering such an option. Now I needed to return to my room above the tavern and seriously consider it.
She proposed sound ideas for the business, and I had mad respect for Laney for adding her input. I might have been slightly awed that someone as important as Laney Buckworth-Winston was interested in becoming a partner. The fact that she even took a few minutes to consider it put me in awe of her.
As I lay down, I found myself even more amazed that Candy had come up with this idea last night, and here I was twenty-four hours later, contemplating it. What was holding me back from jumping right on it?
