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“How will they know that something might hurt you? That you might be sad around large families and displays of affection?”
She opened her mouth and closed it. “No one ever noticed if I was sad like that before. But then, I stayed away from those events.”
“You’ve never let anyone in. Not since me.” My heart pounded in my chest.
“That’s right.”
“I shouldn’t like that as much as I do.” It made me a little sad for her that she didn’t have what I did. But it made our relationship even more special. I wanted to be that person for her. The one who gave her a soft place to land. I wanted to give her everything she’d never had.
My heart ached for her and everything she’d missed out on. If Aiden wasn’t her brother, would we have stayed together? It was impossible to know, but the way I felt about her told me we had something deep.
“Do you have work to do today?”
She sighed. “I need to cancel my airline tickets and do some work. Probably send a newsletter.”
“What do you share in your newsletters? Is it a sales thing?”
“Kind of. I like to talk about what’s going on in my life, whether it’s the new house or even visiting a Christmas tree farm. If it’s okay, I’d like to take some pictures to share with my subscribers.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I won’t say which farm. My subscribers don’t know where I’m from. I talk about whatever course I’m promoting and how the information helped me in my life. I rotate my courses throughout the year. Then I create new content in the form of videos and webinars that I can repurpose into course bundles. I offer free content on social media and my podcast, so people know if I’m a good fit for them.”
“It sounds like you have everything figured out and a good system in place.”
“I’m always on the lookout for the next thing to scale my business, but yeah, the base is there. I can relax and take a few days off if I need to. I have assistants who handle things, too.”
“We can work for a few hours and then meet back here to figure out what we want to do tonight. Would you want to go out?” I liked that our relationship was so easy.
She pursed her lips. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“You don’t think anyone would be mean to you, do you?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. But I don’t want to talk to anyone about Gram.”
“I can understand that.”
My phone buzzed with a text from Ireland. “Ireland wants to do a test run of movie night tonight. We have the projector, and it looks like she picked a holiday movie.”
Marley gave me a dubious look. “It’s October.”
“I think she’s on a mission for us to love Christmas. We get a little holidayed out after working the entire season. By December twenty-fourth, we’re ready for a break.”
Marley smiled, and my heart squeezed. “I think that’s sweet that she wants to convert you.”
I stretched out on my back. “I don’t know if I like it. An action movie would be better. But if you want to watch her pick, then I’m okay with it.” I wondered if this is what happened to Emmett and Knox. Did they meet Ireland and Sarah and change because of them, or was it a slow progression?
“I think I’d like to watch a holiday movie, especially on the farm. Ireland keeps saying how magical this place is, and I’m starting to see that she’s right.”
I wanted her to view the farm as magical. I wanted her to see herself living here. It was too early to know if we were right for each other, but I couldn’t help but think she belonged here. That the Matthews Inn and property were her birthright. She just had to step into it. But it was too soon to lay that on her.
It would be baby steps with Marley. She had to think it was her idea to stay, to become immersed in this place and my family.
She moved so that she was resting her head on my bicep, and I wrapped an arm around her back, bringing her flush against me. “We’re going to have fun.”
She drew her leg over mine, and I felt the heat of her pussy on my thigh. “What did you have in mind?”
I rolled her so that my cock was nestled between her legs. There were too many layers of cotton between us. But I lifted her shirt and kissed her stomach.
