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“I told you that I’d never lie to you. I love it. I wouldn’t have thought anything could make me feel like I’m back home, but that photo does.”
I smile, glad that he’s happy with my ideas. “Okay, and I also drew up some more concepts for your bedroom and the guest rooms. Let me pull those up…”
“Hey,” he says, forcing me to look at him. “Can we talk?”
“We are talking.” I turn my gaze back to my computer screen.
“Indie.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to forgive you,” I say. “What you did hurt me, and it made me question your motives for being interested in me.”
He takes my hand, rubbing small circles on the top of my hand with his thumb. “I understand that, and I’m sorry. You can’t imagine how sorry I am. But Indie, when I said I love you, I meant it. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen.”
I feel tears welling in my eyes, and I’m embarrassed. I want so badly for this thing with Pike to be real, but I don’t know if I can trust myself.
“I have something for you,” he says, picking up an envelope sitting on the other side of the table and passing it to me.
I glance at it, and then meet his eyes. “You want me to open this?”
He nods.
My heart flutters as I open the sealed envelope. I pull out a folded piece of paper and a smaller paper with a picture of the Louvre Museum in Paris.
“What’s this?” I ask, confused.
I continue to unfold the paper and see that it’s an application for a US passport.
“I want to take you there one day,” he says. “To the Louvre, or however you say it.”
I smile, because he pronounced the “r” sound, every bit the Midwestern boy he is. And this time, the tears in my eyes spill over.
“Seriously?” I say.
“I asked around to find out what the best art museum in the world is, and that’s supposedly it.” His eyes shine hopefully. “I wanted to book tickets during the NHL off-season, but I don’t know if you have a passport, and I know you’ll need to have someone take care of Nolan, so we’ll have to figure out the dates together first. If you want to go, I mean.”
“I want to go.”
It’s a lifelong dream of mine to visit the Louvre, and Paris, but I’ve never mentioned it to Pike.
“With me?” he asks.
“Yes, with you.”
His shoulders sink with relief, and he grins. “Okay. Let’s see the rest of your ideas and the prints you picked out for the other rooms. I know you worked hard on all this.”
“My inspiration for one of the guest rooms is driftwood,” I say. “And for the other one, it’s sea glass. So there are framed photos of those things for each room, but I also thought we could pull color tones from those items for the furniture and bedding, to really tie it all together.”
He flips through the photos, pointing out the ones he likes best.
“And for Jasmine’s room, I was hoping you could send Kylie some photos for Jasmine to look at and decide which ones she likes best. That’ll give me better direction.”
He gives me a tender look. “Thanks for trying to make it something she’ll love. I’m trying to convince Kylie and Jasmine to move here, and if they do, they might stay with me until we find the right house for them.”
I feel it again, that strong sense of certainty that Pike is a good man who made a stupid mistake. And as someone who has also made stupid mistakes, my instinct is to forgive him.
“I hope they do move here,” I say. “But are you ready to babysit, Uncle Pike?”
He grins. “Yep. And I’m ready to teach Jas how to play hockey.”
I find myself wanting to ask him a question, but I’m not quite sure how.
“What is it?” he asks, reading me so well.
“There’s something I need to know. When you guys made that bet, what was the winner supposed to get?”
His face takes on a guilty expression at the mention of the bet.
“Just tell me,” I say.
“The loser would have to clean the winner’s house for six months.”
My mouth drops open in surprise. “Six months? That’s a long time.”
“It’s over. The whole thing. There’s no bet and no winner.”
I nod, still taking it all in.
“I used to be a different man,” he says. “When I wasn’t playing hockey, I was usually partying. I didn’t really know most of the women I slept with. And then I met you.”
The reverence in his tone warms me from head to toe.
“You’ve made me want to be a better man. A man who knows what he wants. I know it will take us time to get back to a good place, but if you let me try, I promise I’ll make you happy. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
