She laughed gently and climbed up my body until she was straddling my hips. Resting her hand on my chest, she dipped low for an all-too-brief kiss. “I’ve spent the last four months searching for who I am, and while I didn’t quite come up with all the answers, last night, I figured out who I don’t want to be anymore. I’m not a delicate flower you need to spend all your energy trying to keep emotionally and mentally watered for fear of watching me wither all over again. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me—for Sally.” I smiled weakly. “Hell, even for Raven Brightmore. But in everything you’ve done for me, you’ve drained yourself dry. You aren’t broken, Bowen. You’re just empty, with nothing left to give. Let me fix you for a change.”
My chest swelled, and hope roared in my veins. “But is that what you want? I can’t go through this again, Remi. The push, the pull. The here one day and gone the next.”
“What I want is you. What I’ve always wanted is you. In a hundred lifetimes from now, all I’ll ever want is you. It won’t be easy. We both have enough baggage for a trip around the world at this point, but I was stupid to think any woman I saw in the mirror wouldn’t want you standing beside her.” She kissed me again, inhaling reverently. “We are When Harry Met Sally. Because you could play the movie—our movie—a thousand times and it would always end the same way. Right here. Right now. Still meant to be.”
I smiled and it was so fucking genuine I wasn’t sure my face truly knew what to do with it. “You know, Ms. Grey. That sounds an awful lot like fate if you ask me.”
She crinkled her nose. “Don’t make me admit I was wrong while there is only one layer of fabric from you being inside me.”
My cock stirred, but the high of reality was even stronger than my desire to take her right then and there. “So, this is it? Not maybe. Not someday. Just me and you—forever.”
“Yes,” she breathed, leaning in for a kiss.
But fucking hell, she’d just handed me the entire world; I needed the details.
I dodged her mouth. “Okay, so am I moving to Savannah or are you moving back here? It will take me a little while to close up my office and get my house on the market, but I happen to know a really great real estate agent who owes me a small fortune in accounting debt, so I’m sure we can expedite the process. In the meantime, I could finish up working remotely from Savannah. I don’t know how Clyde would do with apartment living, but I’m sure we can find a rental with a backyard temporarily.”
“I want to come home, Bowen. I mean…if that’s what you want. If you’re ready. Again.”
“That is not a question you ever need to ask.”
She slid her hands up my chest. “Good. Then it’s settled.”
Pairing her wrists in one hand, I stopped her advance. “No, it is far from settled. Do you want to keep this house? Start over new someplace else? I still have the settlement money. I’ll buy us someplace bigger or nicer or—”
She shook her head and tugged her hands out of my grip. “Jesus, this is really going to be a struggle for you, isn’t it? Forget about what makes me the happiest and think about yourself for a damn minute. Seeing you happy is what will make me the happiest. Do you want a bigger house? Or someplace nicer? Maybe something new that doesn’t have memories of the past lingering in every corner? I’ve got money too.” She tapped her index finger against her forehead. “More than you if I remember correctly. So put your wallet away and let me buy us a house.”
I barked a laugh. I didn’t give a shit who paid for what as long as it ended with us together. Same address. Same front door. Same bed at night.
Holy shit. Is this really it? Are we together?
A low growl rumbled in my chest. “So, this is it? We do whatever I want? You’re staying with me? We work through the mess of the past? And…what? Live happily ever after?”
“That might be a bit of an oversimplification. I’m sure there will be lots of therapy, arguments over me leaving the lights on and my clothes all over the floor. Though I’m sure there will be plentiful amounts of makeup sex involved, but yeah. That’s kinda my plan from here on out.”
I had two ways I could handle this. I could shut down, retreat into my head, and overanalyze every single fucking bad thing that could and probably would go wrong.
Or, for once in almost two years, I could sit back, relax, and embrace all the good the world was finally offering me.
