by Staci Hart
Slowly, I moved toward him, taking in every detail. He stood before a shelf of lilies, the lilies I’d admired in his little greenhouse on the roof. But one stood apart from the rest at his side, its blooms opening to reveal lilies the color of marigold, speckled with golden flecks. It was the strain he’d been working toward for so long. He’d done it.
“You’re here,” I said, disbelieving my eyes.
“I’m here. And I’m sorry.”
Hope zinged through me, emotion gripping my throat, closing it tight. His fervent eyes held me still as he spoke.
“All my life, I’ve worked at putting two things together to make one. At a glance, they seem so different, from petal to leaf, from texture to color. But somehow, they not only work. They thrive. They don’t care whether they’re different or the same—they come together and make something new, something unexpected. All this time, I’ve bred flowers to wash away their differences, and all this time, I’ve cataloged ours. But what I didn’t count on was that it wouldn’t matter to you any more than it would to a lily. And it shouldn’t have mattered to me at all.” Something in his eyes deepened, his brows drawing with his regret. “There are so many things I wish I’d done differently, so many things I wish I’d said. But more than anything, I wish I’d realized just how much I love you.”
A shaky breath, a shock that brought my fingertips to my lips.
He glanced at his hands, swallowed hard, met my eyes again. “Love doesn’t wonder. It doesn’t question. It trusts with its whole self, as I should have. And when I looked past the things I feared, I uncovered the truth—I was afraid, and I was a fool. Can you forgive me for my pride? Can you absolve me for all the ways I hurt you? Because of all the things I want, your happiness is first and always.”
I took a step toward him. Toward us. “Only if you’ll forgive me. I made you feel like you weren’t enough when you were the only thing I wanted. I dragged you into a world you wanted no part in because I wasn’t ready to choose, convinced I could have it both ways. But in the end, there was no choice to be made. Because my perfect life isn’t perfect, not without you.” I took another step, closing the gap between us.
A hitch in his chest, a bob of his Adam’s apple, his hand sliding into the curve of my waist and eyes searching mine. “Tell me you love me, Lila.”
“I’ve loved you since the start,” I said without hesitation. “I loved you before I should have and before I even knew.” I shook my head at him in wonder. “You don’t even know what a gift you are. You have no idea how you’ve changed me.”
“I didn’t want to change you.”
“Neither of us had a choice in the matter. You saved me simply by being. You showed me another life, another way, when I thought I was on a one-way street. It’s because of you that I had the courage to quit my job. I could walk away because I was walking to you.”
“Then it’s settled.”
“What’s settled?”
That smile, clever and bright. “You’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I promised with a smile of my own.
“Can I get that in writing?” he asked archly, angling for my lips.
“Where do I sign?”
“Right here.”
Our lips brushed, melded, the seam hard within a breath and a fluttering heartbeat. We wound together, my arms around his neck, his around my waist, our bodies twisting and tightening to bring us flush. Chest to chest, hip to hip, fingers splayed as if to hold as much of the other as we could. I breathed him in, reveled in the safety found in his arms, the weightlessness of relief. The scent of him, earthy and so wonderfully masculine. The silken strands of his hair in my fingers, the stony landscape of his body surrounding me. And I surrendered myself to the sensation, to him, knowing he would honor the sacrifice with all the reverence and adoration I would give to him.
A burst of clapping snapped us apart, and we turned to find Ivy in the doorway, smiling and crying and clapping.
“I swear I left,” she said through her tears. “But I had to sneak back in to make sure you were okay, and you are. Right?” She hiccuped a sob, swiping at her cheeks.
Kash and I shared a smile before I made my way to console my sister. “Yes, we’re okay. Are you okay?”
“I think it’s my hormones. Yesterday I cried because Olive pooped for the first time in twenty-four hours. I’m a mess.” She drew a breath, straightened up, and dried her eyes. “I’m sorry. I really did only mean to peek but then … well, I saw you kissing, and before I realized what was happening, I was clapping.”
“It’s okay,” I said around a laugh.
She raised her hands, waving them palms out. “I’m going. I’m sorry. I love you two and I’m so happy for you and goodbye!” she rambled, still waving as she backed out the door, closing it behind her.
With that smile on his face, he crossed the room to take me in his arms again. “I love the apartment, by the way.”
I threaded my arms around his neck, smiling back up at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was going to after the wedding, but …”
“But all hell broke loose. You’re not mad Luke let me in?”
I shook my head, glancing to the bay window with eternal longing. “Not at all. I’m glad you love it. I just wish I could keep it.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I have no job. Luckily, I secured my loans before I quit. And fortunately, I finagled a year’s severance out of Caroline before I walked out.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Well, she couldn’t very well let me sue her, could she?”
He laughed, face tilting back in his surprise. “That’s my girl.”
“But even with that, I shouldn’t take on the mortgage. I’ll need to find a place half this price so I can start my own firm.”
A slow smile spread on his lips. “You’re starting your own firm?”
“With my own terms, including the right to refuse service. If I’m going to make the life for myself that I want, I’m afraid that’s nonnegotiable.”
“What else is part of that life?”
“You. Past that, I couldn’t care less.”
He scanned the room, lifting his eyes to the high ceiling. “Not this apartment?”
“In a perfect world, yes. But I’d rather live in a studio and be able to run my own business than lose my shirt on my dream apartment.”
A pause. “What if you could have it all?”
My brows quirked. “How?”
“I don’t know if you remember, but I’ve recently discovered I’m in possession of a hefty sum of money.”
“I couldn’t let you pay for my apartment, Kash.”
“Not even if I lived here?”
I frowned. “You want to rent the apartment from me?”
A laugh, soft and amused. “I want to live here with you.”
Surprise opened my face, my lids shuttering.
“I know it’s soon,” he said. “I know it’s crazy. But I have the money and means to make your dream come true. And in doing that, my dream can come true too—every morning, I can wake up to you. This place can be yours, Lila, if you want it.”
“Ours,” I breathed. “It can be ours.”
“It can be ours,” he echoed. “If that’s what you want.”
I was so overcome, I couldn’t answer.
“It’s too much,” he backpedaled, suddenly nervous and reassuring at once. “I don’t want to rush you, Lila. I don’t want to lose you. I only thought—”
“Kash, I have done everything in my life by the book until you. I’m tired of playing it safe. I’m sick of denying myself the things I want just because it isn’t part of my ten-step plan. I’m over all the rules. From now on, I’m going to do what I want.”
“And what do you want?”
I peered up at him with a shyness only he brought on. “What I wanted the first time I walked through that door. I want you here with me.”
Without a word, he kissed me to acce
pt, but in every breath was a simple truth, the deepest truth of my life—he was mine, and I was his.
Not for the first time, I believed it would be forever.
And this time, I’d be right.
31
Sign For It
KASH
“Just put it right there, against the wall.” Lila pointed at said wall, which touted exposed brick and faced the bay windows in our bedroom.
Luke and I shuffled in that direction, setting the box spring on the floor.
With a smile, she hung her hands on her hips, appraising her domain with pride and hope.
It had only been a week since we decided to move in together, and if it’d been up to me, I’d have stayed here with her that night and every night after. But we had to have some plumbing work done, and although we could have stayed here through that, she insisted on having the floors refinished afterward, correctly assessing that it’d be the only thing we couldn’t live around during renovations. We could eat takeout while the kitchen was being gutted. We could add the second bathroom, then renovate the other. But the floors had to be done, and there was no way around it.
I’d have agreed with her, had I not been so impatient.
Over the course of that week, we’d slowly purchased and moved over the things we could put away—clothes and dishes and glasses and flatware. Toiletries and towels and linens and shower curtains. We’d even hung curtains after painting the walls a crisp white that reflected sunshine like it was its full-time job.
Lila carried in bed linens as we brought in the mattress, thunking it on the box spring.
“I still can’t believe you’re going to sleep on a bed on the floor,” Luke said with a sidelong smile at Lila.
“Please, I’m not as prissy as you all make me out to be,” she said, ironically prim, nose up just enough.
Luke chuckled. “Anything else you need?”
“Nope,” I answered. “I think we can manage putting the sheets on the one piece of furniture we own, but thanks.”
“Couch tomorrow?” he asked.
“And breakfast table,” she answered. “We can empty out my storage unit too, right?”
“Works for me,” Luke said with a shrug. “And the day after, we’ll start framing for the new bathroom.”
“Right on schedule.” She smiled the smile she wore when checking something off a list.
“All right. Then I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Try not to party too hard,” he joked, glancing around the empty, echoing apartment.
“We’ll do our best.” Lila unfurled a fitted sheet with a snap.
Luke said final goodbyes and left the apartment, and as the door closed, I made my way to the opposite side of the bed and grabbed one corner of the sheet.
“It looks so lonely in here,” she said as she stretched the sheet over the curve. “But I don’t even care. I’m so glad to be out of a hotel.”
“And out of the baby’s room,” I noted.
“And out of a bunk bed.”
I laughed. “Yes, and that.”
Once the fitted sheet was on, she unfolded the flat sheet and shook it out like a billowing sail. I caught the other side.
“How was the office space?” I asked, curious as to how the tour had gone.
“Oh, it’s perfect. And the price is right. Luke really does have all the hook-ups, doesn’t he?”
“I think he’s on a first-name basis with half of Manhattan.”
Lila chuckled, folding and tucking the corners like in a hospital. “It’ll do nicely until I have my office set up here. Are you sure you’re okay with me taking that space? Couldn’t you use it for growing?”
“Why would I do that when I have a whole greenhouse around the corner?”
She flushed, laughing again as she smoothed the sheets and turned for the comforter. “Oh, I don’t know. But it feels selfish somehow.”
“Well, it is your house,” I reminded her. “Technically, you’re my landlady.”
She hummed with appreciation. “There are so many ways I could collect my rent.”
“Oh, I’ll pay you in that currency, rent or not.”
The pillows went thump, followed by Lila, who flopped onto the bed on her back. “Come here and sign for that promise.”
Smirking, I kicked off my shoes and climbed onto the bed, crawling toward her. The second she was within reach, she was in my arms, my lips signing on the line. I leaned back, looking down at her.
The shiny crimson of her hair against the clean white sheets. The flush of her porcelain cheeks. The steely gray of her eyes and pink of her smiling lips.
“I love you,” I said, dragging a thumb across her cheek.
“Good, because I love you too.”
“Are you scared? About all of this? About me?”
One of her brows rose with the corner of her lips. “Why? Should I be?”
“Not as far as I know. But your plans for life aren’t what you thought they’d be. Two months ago, you hated me.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I’d say hate,” she said with a smile, her fingers twiddling in my hair. “But old me was a little uptight, if you’ll remember.”
“I remember. I remember wanting to undo you like this. I wondered then if it’d just take the right man.”
“I suppose I did—I needed you. I needed your love, because no one ever had loved before, not like this. Not like you.”
I kissed her softly, briefly. And she gazed up at me.
“But you’re right,” she said. “Life didn’t turn out like I thought it would. It’s better.”
My gaze skimmed the planes and angles of her face. “Is it? Because in my whole life, I could never have imagined the truth of this feeling. Of moments like this. Of the depth of how I love you.”
“Me neither,” she said quietly. “And to think, if I’d spent more time in the greenhouse in high school, I could have felt this way for so long.”
“Don’t worry. We have the rest of our lives for that, if you want.”
Her cheek under my hand warmed, and the sparkle of a tear shone in the corner of her eye. “It’s all I want.”
“Then that’s what you’ll get,” I said against her lips before I took them for what they were.
Mine.
Epilogue
LILA
“Are you ready?” Kash asked with that smile on his face, the one I loved so well.
The puppy answered for me with a bark, his dusky gray hair flopping.
I laughed, scooping him up as best I could, big as he already was. “He didn’t ask you, Georgie.”
But Georgie only aggressively licked my face, wriggling in my arms.
“Oh, you’re impossible,” I said, setting him down, the two of us laughing when he jumped at the door, tail wagging and paws on the wood in wait.
Three months had passed since we moved in. Three months of renovations and half-finished projects around the house. Three months with Georgie, the Labradoodle puppy who was the perfect mix of priss and filthy.
Three months of working on putting together my new company, Revelry.
Once the new season of Felix Femmes had aired, I’d found that I didn’t have to look for work. Work found me.
Kash and I watched every episode with sick stomachs and cringes affixed for forty-two of the longest minutes of my week. They played the subplot all right, and it was brutal. Unconscionably brutal. My only consolation was the lovely financial package they’d offered me for damages and the villainization of Brock and Natasha.
The producers had painted them in the most unkind and unflattering of lights. The plotting and plans had gone so far beyond what I’d realized. Addison’s long lunches were with producers of the show to discuss me. In fact, that was how she’d known about Brock all along—she’d been in on it. The internet turned on her in the most brutal and despicable ways. So despicable that it left me empty and sick. And so, the last time I met with the network with my lawyer, I pulled one of the producers aside who I knew from
the Femmes and suggested they give her the show I’d refused. They could make it like Dance Moms but for weddings.
Last I heard, she’d accepted. And it made me sleep just a little better at night, knowing I wasn’t the end of her career.
No matter how awful she was, no one deserved that. In some ways, she’d been played too—they’d let her do their dirty work, then cut her loose the second she was a liability.
On the airing of the first episode, my social media exploded overnight, the client requests coming in like a rogue wave. I interviewed brides, chose my favorites, and had not only a stable of wealthy, respectful, kind clients, but I was booked out for the next year. A year. The thought alone was staggering, the need requiring an upgraded office space, the hiring of two assistants, and the acquirement of a handful of interns. The only price had been my humiliation. Kash’s too, although GIFs of him popping Brock in the nose had been circulating the internet since the wedding episode aired. Unsurprisingly, on the public meeting Kash on television, the flower shop found themselves in the midst of a boom. A boom and a lawsuit.
But that was Marcus’s story to tell.
Through it all, Kash had maintained the calm power with which he handled everything. Including me. The upheaval of our lives had been taken in stride because, despite all the chaos and uncertainty before us, one thing was undeniably clear and true—we had each met our match. We knew it in our marrow, but so did everyone who loved us. Mrs. Bennet had officially inducted me into the family with zeal and fervor. She inspected and assessed me too, don’t get me wrong. But she’d seen it from the first, noted the rightness, the clicking together of two pieces to make one, and had already provided lists of old family names we could use for a baby and made it a habit of asking me about my ovulation cycle.
But every night, we came here, came home. Curled up on the couch where I’d read and he’d sketch and we’d listen to old records. Every night was thick with I love you’s. Every morning, his was the first face I saw, the first thought in my mind, the first name on my lips. And that perfect life I’d abandoned seemed so empty, so vain.
