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“Summer.” His tone was serious and her heart dropped painfully.
“Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, and panic and fear knotted inside her.
“Is this about the meeting, or us? Because you said the meeting went great. So then it must be about us. God, it’s about us?” That knot tripled in size and constricted her chest because he seemed uncertain and uncomfortable like when someone was about to break her heart. “Did I do something wrong?”
The tiniest of smiles creased his lips. “No love, you did everything right. So right I can’t imagine going back to London and leaving you here.”
She blinked—twice. “Are you asking me to move to London? What about my shop?”
Love was worth every sacrifice—wasn’t that what she’d said?
“I’m asking if I were to stay here, make this my home base, how would you feel about that?”
Ecstatic. Overjoyed. Deliriously happy.“That depends.”
His face went blank, as if holding a raw emotion in check. “On what?”
“Why you want to stay.”
She knew it had only been a few months and they’d argued most of them, but she needed some reassurance that he was heading in the same direction as she was. He didn’t have to be in love with her right now, like she was with him, but there had to be a possibility. What was the point of dating, uprooting his life, if marriage wasn’t the endgame?
“Because Randy helped me see that I can have it all,” he said, and that wasn’t what she really wanted to hear.
“All what?” She tried to keep her fragile control.
He ran a hand down his face. “I’m overcomplicating things.” He cupped her cheek. “Bottom line, I love you. I’m in love with you and I want to be with you. Every night and every morning. I want to share my day with you and listen to yours. I want to make love to you all the time.” He ran his hands down her sides, his thumbs brushing her breasts. “Like now. You drive me crazy, in the best kind of way, and you make me feel like I finally have a place. You’re my place. I just hope I’m yours.”
“Of course you’re mine.” She brushed a gentle kiss on his lips. “You’ve been mine since the first time you called me love.”
“Thank Christ,” he said and fused his mouth to hers.
When they came up for air she asked, “If you’re wanting to spend every morning and night with me, does that mean you’re asking me to move in with you?”
“I’m asking to move in with you.”
She stammered in bewilderment. “Why? You have a beautiful penthouse overlooking downtown. My bed is tiny, my place is small, and old and—”
“Home. It’s your home, and I want it to be mine. I know how much the apartment means to you, so it means something to me. Unless you’d rather...” He said the last few words tentatively, as if maybe he’d gotten it wrong.
“No. I love my apartment and it just so happens I’m looking for a roommate.”
“You mean a bedmate, because there’s no way you’re wearing Wild Orchid and I’m sequestered away in the other bedroom. Although we will have to get a new bed. A sturdy one that can fit my large frame.”
“Deal.” And she sealed it with a kiss. Then another and another until her shirt was on its way over her head. Just then, there was a banging at the door.
Then another.
“Not sure what you guys are doing in there,” Cleo said. “But I will be honest and say there’s a poll going on with the book group and, man, can romance readers get creative. Do you have any cucumbers in there?”
“Um, no,” Summer said, covering her mouth to keep from laughing.
“Sorry, Mable, no cucumbers involved.”
A chorus of disappointed moans echoed through the door.
“I wouldn’t be interrupting if it weren’t important, but there’s a very beefy and tattooed man in a construction hat here for Wes saying that a pipe burst and he has some major plumbing problems.”