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“Let me guess, your mother doesn’t like it?”
Her shoulders dropped, and she sighed. “No, she thinks certain things look a little tacky.”
“Do you actually care if she likes it?”
She smiled. “No. This is my place, so I listen when she complains about it, but I’ve never changed anything. I like how it feels in here, and since I’m the one who sees it every day, I think that’s what matters.”
I’d just opened my mouth to reply when she pointed at the stairs. “Do you want to see upstairs?”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“That’s a half bath.” She pointed at a small room near the stairs.
“I like how the stairs are at the back of the house and not as soon as you walk in.”
She turned on the stairs and stopped. “Me too. That’s one of the reasons I bought this place.”
“How did you buy this place?”
Her shoulders fell. “You mean, since I don’t work.”
I grabbed her hand and wrapped mine around it. “Not judging you, Jane. Just askin’.”
She nodded, but she looked uncomfortable. “My grandfather left my sister and me trust funds, which we had access to when we turned twenty-five. I used some of that to buy this.”
She started up the stairs, and I followed, but I couldn’t help noticing she’d lost some enthusiasm. She showed me the spare bedroom and bathroom and then the master, which was everything I expected in Jane’s bedroom. It was soft and cozy, inviting without being too girly. It was, like Jane, an unexpected contradiction.
After she showed me the master bath, we moved back into her bedroom, and I squeezed her hand, turning her to face me. “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s no shame in using money your grandfather left you to buy a house.”
She closed her eyes slowly before blinking them open. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
She looked thoughtful before she began speaking. “I hate that I live off my family’s money. I want to work with Bree and earn my own way, but in my family, that’s not what’s done. If I do that, I may as well say goodbye, and even though they’re not perfect, they’re all I have.”
“That why you’re about to agree to marry someone you barely know?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“You ever get tired of following their plan for your life?”
She studied me for a moment before she finally shared something I had my doubts she’d planned to. “Every time I get tired of it, I find you.”
I tugged her closer and leaned down, her words settling somewhere deep in my soul. She needed me. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when someone needed me, but if there was, it never made me feel what I did when I heard Jane admit it. “You find me every weekend, princess.” She nodded slowly. “What are you gonna do after you marry him? You can’t come to me anymore.”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
I wanted to say more. I wanted to tell her the idea of marrying someone you barely knew was ridiculous, but her entire life was filled with people telling her what to do. This had to be her decision.
But I was damn sure going to show her an alternative this weekend.
“You wanna get your stuff packed so we can get on the road?”
She nodded and smiled. “Yeah.”
