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There’s a knock at the door and Grayson heads in that direction to grab our food. I snap up the remote and change the channel to the one spot I know will be safe: Hallmark. Grayson returns and we settle onto the comfy hotel bed to prepare to chow down, as my father would say. It’s not home, but it’s cozy, and we’re together, playing house until we’re actually in our house, which is actually an apartment. Once my plate of lo mein is open and tempting my watering mouth, I sigh. “I missed this place.”
He opens the egg rolls and offers me one. “When was the last time you had it?”
I happily claim a crispy eggroll. “Last year. With you.” I wet my lips, suddenly dreading and somehow craving his reply to the same question. “You?”
“The same.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he confirms.
I am pleased with this news and warmed in ways that I shouldn’t be warmed. He shouldn’t have had to give up things he loved because I stupidly left. But he did. And I did. “I didn’t do any of our things when we were apart. Those things made me need you too badly to survive.”
“Well, I wish you would have done them then.”
I tilt my head and study him. “You do?”
“Yes. Then maybe you would have hurt too badly to stay away.” He takes a bite of the eggroll and gives an approving nod before indicating the TV. “Is this the one where he proposes on a horse or at an ice rink?” His eyes twinkle with mischief, absolutely no judgment in him for my channel change.
“At the lighthouse,” I amend. “It’s the one with the perfect proposal.”
The air sizzles, and he says, “Is that right?”
“Yes. The girl finally got smart and came home.” I eye the hotel. “To her man. And she doesn’t even care that they’re now living at the Ritz.” Unbidden, there’s a pinch in my chest, some tiny part of me fearing that I’ll never really get back to our real home. That stupid, self-defeating part of me that I barely know as me and that keeps returning to that stairwell.
Grayson must read between my lightly spoken words, because he leans over, nuzzles my neck and whispers, “You want me to tell you how the story ends?”
I ease back to stare into those simmering green eyes. “How?”
“The heroine eats Chinese food, gets naked with her future husband, and then later marries her fiancé at the lighthouse. In the original dress she ordered for the first wedding, or any dress she wishes.”
“Because he saved her dress. He held onto it because he held onto me.” Heart swelling, I reach over and touch his jaw, as I add, “And she lives happily ever after, with the most incredible man any woman could ever love.”
He kisses my fingers. “After they eat Chinese food, right?”
“Yes.” I laugh. “After they eat Chinese food.”
And so, we do. We eat. And laugh. And watch the movie, both of us betting on when the peck of a kiss Hallmark will allow, actually happens. When finally we climb into bed, it’s naked. When finally we sleep, it’s with his big, wonderful body wrapped around mine. And I don’t let myself lay there and think about the day ahead or the reasons we’re in the hotel room. I shut my eyes and think about the lighthouse, my dress, and the moment I get to say “I do.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mia
Morning comes with a knock of reality. Grayson and I are back together, but we can’t just go home. I’ve never needed home quite so badly. Grayson feels it, too. I see it in the sharp lines of his handsome face, and the silent intense way he presses me into the corner of the shower and takes me hard and fast. I know this man. He’s on edge, and that worries me. Just how deep in trouble are we?
Fortunately, Kara has managed to pack my favorite pale pink silk blouse, and my lucky black skirt and jacket. Lucky because I won my first case in this very outfit. I dress with one goal in mind: standing by my man and finding our path to a better place—no, our path home. Together. I walk into the living area of the suite to find coffee and pastries on the coffee table, and my man dressed to kill in a gray pin-striped suit with a light blue tie. He’s also standing with Adrian and Blake and I’m pretty sure no one has heard the tomato joke because they aren’t smiling.
“Morning, Mia,” Blake says, while Adrian offers me a nod.
I murmur a reply but it’s Grayson I’m focused on. “What’s wrong?” I ask, stepping in front of him.
Blake and Adrian head for the door, and my stomach knots. “Grayson, what’s wrong?”
He catches my waist and pulls me to him. “You know how much I love you, right?”
