Stop this, Wade. Stop this now while you can.
“This is where you would have your coffee in the morning. At eight o’clock,” I say, teasing her.
She points at a part of my sketch. “Is that an atrium?”
“It is,” I say, my voice low. “You have to think about the way the sun moves through the sky. So having a sunny room for your coffee in the mornings would make sense here.”
I don’t have to look at her to know she smiles. I can feel it somehow. Can she feel the way her smiles make me want to smile too? I don’t know.
I’m better off not knowing.
“Your office could work over here,” I say, pointing at the paper. “Or we could move things around and put it here, next to the master bedroom.”
“My office?”
“Yeah.”
She leans away, a grin growing on her face. “Like an actual office-office?”
“Are you not the CEO of your business?”
“Yeah,” she says quietly. “I guess I am.”
I shrug. “Then let’s give you CEO space to work and grow your business.”
She looks at me with a glimmer of disbelief. “I … I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No. It’s just … it’s been a long time since someone believed in me like that.”
Her voice starts to crack, and her eyes start to blur. I have no idea what to do with that, although I’m fairly certain that it’s not my fault this time.
Thank God.
She looks so beautiful, yet so … alone.
How can she seem so lonely when I’m sitting right here?
“Come here,” I say without a hint of the reservation that my brain screams at me to heed.
She moves toward me and I turn her around. Gently, I arrange her on my lap.
My heart pounds so hard that I’m sure she can feel it. I war internally with a mixture of instincts—both to move away and to pull her closer.
One wins.
I sit back in the chair, scooting her with me, and wrap my arms around her.
My mouth is hot, my swallows nearly painful. It’s so fucking strange to feel so at peace yet so conflicted.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I also can’t do anything else.
“Can I tell you something?” she asks.
“Sure.”
She pulls her knees up into the chair too. “I’m not sure about this house.”
I flinch. “Okay.” I gather myself. “What are you thinking? I can do anything, Dara. I told you. I’m the best.”
“No. Not like that. Not what you designed. I love that.” She grins sadly. “There are moments when … I’m not sure I should accept it.”
“From your grandfather?”
She nods.
“May I ask why?” I ask.
She lays her head on my shoulder. I splay my hand against her hair and hold her tight to me. I choose to ignore the red flags popping off like a bull fight and just … be.
I can gather the red flags later and burn them.
“Like you of all people want to hear about it,” she says, snorting.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I know what it means. She’s right too. Still, I’m a bit offended.
“Let me put it like this—anything that has to do with my grandfather includes a lot of emotions, and I know how you are with intimacy in relationships.”
That motherfucker again.
“I hear your judgment,” I say, my voice wary.
“And I feel yours.” She looks up at me. “You exude this aura of inaccessibility that I know is intentional.”
“Like that’s ever stopped you.”
“True. But this isn’t some random question. This matters.” Her lips dip. “So when you blow me off … I’d rather not do that on this one.”
She nestles against me again, effectively giving up the fight.
We sit quietly for a long time. I wonder what she’s thinking—mostly because it’s easier than dissecting my own thoughts. Which is what I accused her of before. The entire situation will be more easily handled if I stay out of my own damn head.
But the longer we sit, the more I feel the tension in her body. And the longer I have to ponder what’s rolling around her head, the sorrowful tone of her words settle deeper into my heart.
“I’m not sure about this house … I’m not sure I should accept it.”
I have no right to ask her to open up to me because I won’t do the same. I realize that. But Dara is here, in my arms, and I’m logical enough to know that it won’t kill me to listen to her. She also needs to be heard. And, deep inside the pits of my internal hell, I want her to talk to me.
Why? I don’t know.
“Hey,” I say, jostling her gently on my lap. “Talk to me.”
Her shoulders fall forward. “You don’t want me to do that.”
“Yes. I do.”
She looks at me with a hopeful hesitation that I can’t deny.
“Just, you know, don’t turn this into a Q and A,” I say with a wink.
She laughs. “Really?”
“I’m not asking you again.”
Finally, she shifts in my lap and blows out a breath. It’s the sound of resignation.
I brace myself.
“I’ve tried to be really optimistic about this whole house thing,” she says, each word guarded. “I was a bit overwhelmed by it at first. Heck, I still am. Building someone their dream house—especially after knowing them for only a few months? That’s kind of … Well, it’s a lot of things.”
“He has the money.”
“Exactly.”
I furrow my brow. “I’m not following along.”
“It’s just what you said, Wade. He has the money.” She pauses. “I want to believe that he’s doing this for me in some ‘Hey, my son kind of fucked you and your mom over, so let me do something for you since you’ve lived your whole life on the razor’s edge.’ Or, even better, maybe he realizes he’s the only blood relative I have left, and he wants to make me feel like a part of the family in some kooky, rich-person way.”
That tracks.
“But …”
The word floats through the air and hits me right in the heart. I drag her even closer to me. I let her know I’m here. Because I don’t know how to say that.
“But I know that’s not true,” she says, her voice breaking. “If he wanted to make anything up to me, if he wanted me to be in his family, he would invite me to dinner. Not build me a house.”
The splinters of her voice dig at my soul.
“Maybe they aren’t the family dinner type?” I offer, hoping it can give her something to grasp on to.
“Sure, except they do everything with their other granddaughter.” She sits up and looks at me with a pained, sorrowful look that sours my stomach. “I’m Curt Bowery’s only granddaughter by blood. I guess his wife, Tyra, has a daughter Curt has raised, and she has a daughter, Kimberly, who’s the apple of Curt’s eye.”
That motherfucker.
“I know I’m grasping at straws,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know I just … I want a connection with him so badly that I overlook so many things. I ignore so much so I don’t … so I don’t see it, I guess. And that’s not me. I don’t do that. But … I am.”
I brush my thumb across her cheek and wish I could tell her what I’m thinking. That I, too, am doing things I don’t do.
But like Dara, I don’t know how to handle it. It’ll just have to be a fight for another day.