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As soon as I sit down next to her, she twists to face me. Her entire face lights up. “Hey.”
Her smile turns my entire day around.
“Hey yourself.” I nod towards her drink. “You enjoying that?”
She sets the cup down on the ground and looks back up at me. “It’s okay. How was your day?”
I roll my shoulders. “Long. I’ve got this relative who needs help. But I’m not sure how to give him what he needs.”
Danielle’s expression softens. “I’m sure just the fact that you want to help counts. How bad is it?”
“He’s got a lot of…. issues. Anger issues, some hallucination, other issues that I won't mention. I might be the only one who can get him the help he needs.”
Danielle studies my face. “And you’re worried that if you interfere too much, he’ll eventually resent you?”
I release a deep breath and nod. “Yeah, exactly.”
Danielle links her fingers together and folds them in her lap. “I think that if your heart is in the right place, he’ll forgive you.”
I look away from her and study the flames of the fire.
Conversations rise and fall around us.
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy. It’s a lot of history,” I reply after a lengthy pause. “And based on how he’s reacted in the past… I doubt this’ll go over well.”
Danielle inches closer, and a gust of wind rips past, blowing the smell of her floral perfume in my direction. “I think you’ll figure out a way to make things right, if things even get that far. But isn’t it better than regretting it later?”
I swing my gaze back to hers. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know about you. But I’d personally would rather be sorry about how something turned out than have regrets about not doing what I should’ve done. Or about not having followed my instincts.”
I pause. “I guess I get that.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, of course,” I tease, pausing to bump my shoulders against hers. “You’re a lot more insightful and observant than you give yourself credit for.”
Danielle makes a low noise in the back of her throat. “I don’t think I could ever get used to hearing that.”
I lean forward, so there’s only a few inches of space between us.
Her pupils dilate, and her breath hitches in her throat.
“Trevor is a fucking idiot and an asshole, and every minute he spent tearing you down is because he was jealous.”
Color crept up Danielle’s neck and cheeks. “Thank you.”
“I’m not just saying that, Danielle,” I add, in a softer voice. “I mean it. You’re an incredible woman.”
The kind that any man would be lucky to have.
In two short weeks, she’s made me feel like I’m not a screwup, and like there’s hope for Brian and I to emerge from all of this relatively unscathed.
And she is the first woman in a long time to look at me and see the man behind the money and not the other way around.
It makes me feel invincible. Like I’m standing on top of the world.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Danielle whispers, her flush deepening. “You want to hear something weird? I’m afraid this is all some kind of dream.”
