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“Sprite?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
She nodded into his neck, but he caught hold of her chin and made her look up at him. “Are you sure? What’s with the hiding?”
She hated the concern in his eyes. “Of course, I’m sure. There’s nothing I want more in the world.”
“But …?”
She shrugged.
“Come on. You have to tell me. I might do well most of the time, but I’m still a guy. I don’t immediately and automatically understand everything that you’re thinking.”
She smiled. “No, and it’s unfair of me to expect you to.”
“So?”
She held his gaze for a moment. Of course she wanted to marry him – the sooner the better, as far as she was concerned. But she wanted a proposal. Maybe she was being silly – being a brat and wanting it all. She had the man of her dreams. They were opening a business together. They were going to buy a house together. But she wanted him to propose – and if she told him that, it wouldn’t be the same. It would be something that he did to make her happy – not because he wanted to.
She smiled when it hit her. “You know how you waited to see if I would stop and look at the house in the realtor’s window?”
He nodded.
“Well, this is kind of like that. There’s something that I hope you want – I think you want it – but I don’t want to influence you by telling you what it is.”
He smiled and held her closer. “So, you’re going to let me figure it out for myself?”
“If that’s okay?”
“Of course it’s okay.” She didn’t miss the little frown that crossed his handsome features. “I just don’t want to let you down. If there’s something you want, I want you to tell me.”
She gave him a wry smile. “Ditto. I want you to want it for yourself.”
He pecked her lips. “Okay.”
She hoped that she wasn’t shooting herself in the foot by not just coming out and telling him.
“Anyway, now that we’ve started the day off with a bang, what do you want to do?”
He laughed, and she was glad to see him relax. “Well, since we’re meeting with Nate tomorrow, and I have a feeling that things are going to get crazy busy after that, how about we do something fun?”
She waggled her eyebrows. “Again?”
“You, my little sprite, are insatiable.”
She nodded happily. “I am when it comes to you.”
“I was thinking we could rent a boat from the resort and go over to the other side of the lake – see if we can see the house from the water.”
“Oh! Yes, let’s do that. I love that idea. You must be able to see it because you can see the lake from the house.”
He slapped her ass and pressed another kiss to her lips. “Okay then. Let’s get up and get going.”
She rolled out of bed and offered him her hand with a smile. “Shower first?”
He chuckled as he looked down at himself. “Yeah, I’m up for that, apparently.”
Chapter Twenty-One
By Friday morning, Xander was glad to get to the gym. He hadn’t made it in here all week – things had been hectic. Rachel had been happy to walk away from the wine bar. Nate had moved quickly and presented them with a lease that seemed more than fair to Xander. They’d signed it, and Nate had recommended a contractor who would be able to do the interior work in the bar.
