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I nodded. “Henry can move in here and still be close to you. I knew it’s what you’d want.”
“Is it what you want?” she asked after a moment.
I breathed in deeply. I needed to be honest with her. “I want whatever makes you happy. If that means you will be with me while being the best sister to Henry, then so be it.”
She looked unconvinced, but I took her in my arms and kissed her deeply.
“Move in with me,” I repeated, looking at her for a sign of what she was thinking. “I bought this building for us. If Henry doesn’t like this unit, he can always choose another one.”
She gaped and then looked away. She turned back to me, the shock still evident on her face as I led her to the elevator and back to our penthouse. I got her to sit on the cloud couch at the center of the living space while she continued to look dazed.
“I love you, Chloe. I want to move in here with you. I want to wake up every morning here with you and end my nights looking at you, staring at the setting sun and warning you not to look too hard at it. I want all of you, Chloe—the neurotic, the scatterbrained, the joyful, and the loving sides of you—to move in with me.”
It was painful, putting myself out there with an ask that could be turned down. With Chloe, I could’ve been content to stay in status quo. To date, to see each other in the evenings, and to occasionally take holidays together. We could go on for years doing that, and I suspected Chloe wouldn’t complain. She wasn’t going to ask me where this was heading or what my plans were.
So, here I was, doing the one thing she’d least expected me to. Surprising her. Competing with the version she had in her mind of me. I was risking it all.
“You can’t be serious,” she said at last.
I tilted my head to the side. “I’m sorry. What’s strange about this? We’ve known each other for six months now.”
“We haven’t saidI love youyet.”
“In case you haven’t been listening, I just did, Chloe. And I do,” I said, getting down on my knees to look at her. “I love you. And I want you to be a part of my world. My day and my nights. Will you?”
56
CHLOE
Ibit my lip as I considered Sean’s crazy question.
Itwascrazy.
Moving in together when we’d only known each other for six months. But it was a wicked, sending-tingles-up-my-body kind of crazy. The heart-stoppingly-mad-adrenaline-rush crazy.
And it was with Sean. He knew me. He understood not to exclude Henry.
I turned to him, and he was watching me with those earnest, intense eyes. The kind of gaze that left me breathless.
I wanted him. I wanted him with me for every day of the year. Life was glorious when I was with him, whether it was in this penthouse or in my shabby apartment.
And this place definitely had enough room for us. Unlike my apartment.
Here, the elevator opened into a large, airy living room that was furnished in an off-white and cream palette. The entire wall overlooking the street below was made of glass, and a lot of natural light flooded in, making the place seem welcoming. A couple of cloud couches occupied the living area, and a giant TV was fixed to the wall across from it.
The ceiling was so high up; it was as though someone had combined two floors of apartments to make this one. I felt small and trivial until Sean’s hand came to my side protectively.
“Why don’t we have dinner while you think about it?” he asked, leading me to the kitchen, where I noticed bags of takeout on the expansive kitchen island.
I nodded as I followed him to the sleek kitchen with dark granite countertops.
The kitchen was magnificent.
A large island occupied the center, and a sparkling counter swept around the lengths of the kitchen wall. The fridge was stainless steel, but had a monitor and an LCD screen. The oak wood cabinets that occupied the wall above the counters were classy, and the cabinet handles gleamed.
“Our first meal in what I hope is our new home,” he said, stopping by the island.
Our home.I’d never dared to dream of that. But that was the thing with Sean. He gave life to all my impossible dreams.