Page 64 of Unravel Me

My heart stammers wildly as Audrey wrings her hands together, bouncing on the heels of her feet.

“Rhett, this is my house,” she lets out with a humorless chuckle.

“I don’t understand,” I speak slowly, and Audrey bites her lip, nodding in quiet acknowledgment.

“Jackson bought it for me.”

Holy shit.

She offers me a small smile and beckons me to follow her down the hallway and into the great room. Huge floor to ceiling windows run the length of the kitchen and living room, flooding it with natural light. A large yard with pruned shrubs and short cut grass sits outside the windows like a picture book. It’s beautiful and grand, but seeing Audrey standing here now, I can’t say it fits her. At least not the version of her I’ve gotten to know the past month.

Audrey places a palm cautiously on the enormous marble island.

“We bought this house a year ago, but never moved in. We were renovating it…and all the work was finally completed this week. Jackson signed the house over to me when we split.” She lets out a dry laugh, tapping her pink fingernails on the stone. “I think in his own fucked up way, this was supposed to be an apologetic gesture. He really thought I’d want to live here after everything.” She sucks in her lips, and I want to wrap my arms around her, but Audrey moves to the window, gazing out at the property.

“My parents told me it was foolish to list this place. And for a minute, I let that consume me, wondering if there’s something inherently broken in me—like maybe I’m destined to reject everything good, as if I’m wired for ruin, drawn toward my own self-destruction. And—” she was rambling, but I cut her off, wrapping my arms around her waist and spinning her to face me.

“No, you’re not,” I say firmly, clutching her chin in my hand. “Screw what everyone else thinks. What do you want?” I pause, as Audrey's lips tremble, her eyes misting. I kiss her lightly and pull back so I can look into the hazel eyes that have become permanently etched on my mind. “And no one in their right mind would want to live in a home this large by themselves.”

This gets a small chuckle out of her.

“You live all alone,” she muses.

“Yeah, and I didn’t realize how much I hated it until I met you.”

Audrey’s eyebrows twitch, her breath pausing. “Oh yeah? Is that so?”

“It is.” I pull her into me, kissing her hair, and she rests her head against my chest. “You going to tell me why you brought me here today?”

“I didn’t want to hide this anymore. I’ve been so worried you’d judge me if you knew. Or maybe think I’m ungrateful. I just didn’t want you to see me differently.”

“Different than what?”

“Than how I feel when I'm with you. Because…” She steps back and gestures around the great room that’s the size of my entire house. “This isn’t who I am anymore.”

“I know that. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I’d love you even if you were penniless. Your money has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

Audrey pauses, her eyebrows lowered over eyes that could stop my heart right in its tracks.

“You love me?” Her voice cracks, sharp and raw, and the silence around us feels heavy.

I didn’t even realize I’d said it. But if I’m being honest, I think I fell in love with Audrey the moment I met her on the rooftop.

“Yeah, I think I do.” My heart pounds in my chest as she stands frozen, worry filling every inch of me, thinking that I just fucked up, that this is it. This is the end, where she high tails my ass out of this house, or tells me this is all too fast, like I can take back words. But she doesn’t. Her palm moves to rest on my chest, and surely, she can feel the way it surges at her touch.

“I think I love you, too.”

Those words hang in the air, raw and exposed; words I’ve never spoken to anyone before. Maybe they were always only meant for Audrey.

Tipping her chin up, I plant a soft kiss on her mouth. She pulls back, peering up at me.

“You know, I never actually spent any time in this house, other than with the designer and checking in on the renovations. I want to change the way I remember it, though. I don’t want it to be a black mark in my past.” She clasps her hands in front of her chest and bats her eyelashes.

“Will you eat lunch with me here?”

She could’ve asked me anything at that moment and I would’ve said yes.

So, we eat our sandwiches, sitting on the stone floor, our backs against the kitchen cabinets, laughing about nothing and everything. I make her give me a tour of the house, telling her I’m going to kiss her in every room of the house, so she remembers nothing but the good.