I have family again. Lots of family and friends.
It didn’t matter that none of them were blood related. Mara had quickly discovered that once you became a Sinclair by marriage, or were taken under their wing, you were family to them. And oh, it felt good to have brothers and sisters, something she’d never had before, people she knew she could count on to support her through anything.
Mara carefully slipped her arms around Jared, hugging him from behind after he’d put down his hammer. “Hello, handsome,” she purred against his back.
“Hey, sweetheart. You’re early.” He turned instantly and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sweaty and I probably smell,” he warned her huskily.
“I happen to love you hot and sweaty.” Visions of the many times he’d been hot and perspiring with exertion from making her come until she screamed floated through her mind. She inhaled his musky scent, the erotic images becoming more vivid. She had plenty of those memories due to Jared’s insatiable desire to make her come. Not that she was complaining.
“I love you that way, too. Wanna work up a sweat with me?” he asked hopefully as he moved his hands down the back of her sweater.
She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Are you okay?” She could see that he was fine, but the sense that something was troubling him still lingered.
He hesitated a moment before replying, “Yeah. I’m good. Why?”
I need you.
She shook her head slowly, realizing she’d overreacted. “Your text was different today. I thought you needed me, so I left early.”
Jared pulled back for a minute to dig into his pocket for his cell phone. He stared at it for minute before he replied, “I guess I typed what I was feeling at the moment. It is different.” He frowned as he looked up at her with an intense expression. “I can’t believe you even noticed.” He put the phone back into his pocket.
She tried to explain. “It wasn’t just the words. After I read them, it was like I sensed . . . something.”
Jared released a masculine sigh. “I was thinking about an idea I’d been considering right before I texted you.”
“What?”
“Since I’ve been working on this house, I realize how much I miss doing this. I know I’m only doing a replica, and I’m not doing all the work myself, but I miss working to restore history. I got a crazy idea to stop my commercial real estate business and start up a new venture.”
Mara’s heart skipped a beat. Did he want to go back to his original passion? “You want to start restoring old homes again?”
He shrugged. “It was just a thought, and not very realistic. How can I relinquish control of a business that makes billions now to go into a new one that’s not going to make a ton of money?”
“Very easily,” Mara said fiercely, wrapping her arms around his neck. “We have billions, Jared. You don’t need to make even more money. Are you ready to go back to restoring old homes again?” She wanted this for him desperately, but only if it would make him happy.
He grinned at her. “You’re willing to watch me let go of a corporate life to restore old homes?”
She smiled up at him. “Gladly. You look hot when you’re sweaty and shirtless. And I think your butt is delicious in jeans.” He’d played the corporate game for years, trying to be more like his brother Evan. It was time for Jared to just be himself. “Is it really what you want?”
“Yeah. It is. I guess I finally realized that what I want to do and Selena and Alan’s deaths aren’t really connected. They were only linked in my head by guilt.”
Mara stroked over his whiskered jaw tenderly. “Then do it. I want you to be happy.” She was jubilant, knowing that Jared was finally free. After years of tormenting himself, he could finally move on.
He pulled her tightly against him and buried his face in her hair. “I’m already happy because I have you, sweetheart. Going back to restoring old houses like I’d like to do would just be a very small amount of icing on an already very sweet cake.”
“Then bring on the frosting,” she murmured right before she pulled his head down and kissed him tenderly. “A cake can never be too sweet.”
“You’re amazing,” he said huskily. “I think I really did need to talk to you.”
Mara thought he did, too. Otherwise, he would have talked himself out of it, claiming he was too invested in commercial real estate to pursue his original dream. The last thing they needed was more money. Jared was already one of the richest men in the world.
She was startled when Jared’s cell phone rang, and he scowled as he pulled it back out of his pocket again. “It’s Jason.” He answered it immediately.
Mara listened intently as Jared spoke, his voice sounding nervous.