Page 481 of Face Off

I touch the place where she wrote my mother’s name. “You built me a library inside your boutique.”

Charm moves closer on her knees and rests her hand over mine. “I spent two years four hundred miles away from you. I’m not creating more distance when we finally live in the same city.”

“You’ll be working.”

“So will you.” Her finger follows the line of the desk facing the showroom. “You can write, read, or glare at people who touch your books while I run the store. When I look up, I’ll see you, and when you look down, you’ll see me.”

The simplicity of it cuts deeper than anything grander could have.

“Hockey already takes you away enough,” she continues. “When you’re home, I want you close. I don’t want us leaving the same apartment every morning to spend the entire day missing each other in different buildings.”

“Mírame, mi hada.”

“The glass is soundproof, so you can concentrate, but I refused frosted panels because I want to see you.”

“You designed a room where you can watch me.”

Her mouth curves. “You’re very pretty when you read.”

My thumb moves over the tiny brass key while something far heavier settles beneath my ribs. She didn’t clear a shelf or place a chair in the corner and call the space mine. She surrendered precious square footage inside the business she fought to build and turned it into something made from every private part of me.

My books. My writing. My mother. A place where neither of us has to search four hundred miles to find the other.

Charm watches my face. “Do you like it?”

“You gave me a library.”

“I gave us a way to be together without being on top of each other.”

“That sounds terrible, being on top of each other is the best part.”

“You can lock the door when you’re writing.”

“Will that stop you?”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

I look at the shelves again. “You put my mother’s name inside Encanto.”

“She belongs wherever you do.”

The words take the breath from me.

Charm crawls across the carpet and pushes the folder aside before straddling my lap. Her knees settle on either side of my hips while her arms wind around my neck. I slide both hands beneath the back of her pajama shirt and cup her ass, holding her warmth against me while I fight everything rising into my throat.

“You’re crying right now.”

“I’m not fucking crying.”

Her thumb catches the moisture beneath my eye. “Your face is presenting contradictory evidence.”

“It’s too early for an investigation.”

She kisses the corner of my eye and then my cheek. The gentleness of it nearly fucks me up more than the library.

“I wanted you to have something permanent inside the life we’re building,” she says. “Somewhere that belongs to you and keeps you close to me.”

The ring in my pocket presses against my thigh beneath her knee.