“It was a fun day. I didn’t realize your sister was going to be there.”
“She’s friends with Alison as well. Thanks for giving them a ride back on your yacht despite the fact that you’re uncomfortable with my family. I know Riley enjoyed it.”
“It was nothing.”
“It meant the world to Riley and to Marcia.”
“I’m still not your sister’s favorite person.”
Jen was aware of that. No matter how many times she’d explained to Marcia that Nate had his picture in the papers with other women for the club and not because he was dating them, her sister just didn’t like it. She thought a man should honor his commitment to one woman.
“She just doesn’t want to see me get hurt,” Jen said.
Nate clicked off the television. After Carlos, he could understand how her sister would be worried about him hurting Jen. And given the fact that he was trying to figure out how to protect himself from caring too much about Jen, he thought maybe Marcia should be worried.
“How could I hurt you?”
Jen sat up, tucking her leg under her body to face him. “By…”
“What?”
She had no idea how to say the words out loud. By not loving me, she thought in her head and just kept staring at him like she’d been struck mute.
“You can tell me. Is it the fact that I had my picture in the paper with those two models this morning? You know that was club business and had nothing to do with romance.”
“We spend so much time together, I’m not afraid that you are seeing someone else behind my back. Besides, I know you well enough now that you’d tell me if things were over between us.”
“Yes, I would. I still don’t know what’s going on between us, Jen. I keep expecting that we’ll grow tired of each other or start to drift apart but the opposite is happening.”
Each word he spoke made her feel stronger about the love in her heart and she knew that she was going to tell him how she felt. Tell him that she loved him. And she had the feeling that he’d confess to loving her, too.
“That is exactly how I feel, Nate. I wake each morning looking forward to the part of my day when I know I will see you. And sometimes when you surprise me by dropping by early…well, I get so excited just to see you.”
Nate reached out and pulled her close in his arms, hugging her tightly to him. He whispered something into her hair that she couldn’t understand.
“What?”
“Some days I just have to see you,” he said. “When I know our schedules are busy and we might not have time for each other, I make time.”
She smiled up at him, knowing she was doing a horrible job of hiding what she felt at that moment. “I know that’s hard for you with your schedule.”
“Not hard at all. Now tell me what you were going to say,” he encouraged.
“I have been thinking about us all day, Nate,” she said. “When we were on the yacht, it made me realize that we could have a family…that we were already becoming a family together and I want that to continue.”
“I’m not ready for a family yet,” he said.
“I know that,” she assured him. Because she did know that he wasn’t ready for anything beyond a commitment to her. She wasn’t sure she was. She only knew that having Nate in her life and by her side was the most important thing for her right now.
“I meant that I’m looking to my future and seeing a family. That isn’t something I’d anticipated. I mean, when I couldn’t return to dancing I thought that…I thought that I didn’t have a future. But being with you has given me back dreams.”
Nate kissed her softly on the top of the head. “I’m very glad to hear that.”
“Nate, I’m not sure you are ready to hear this but…” I love you, she thought. I love you. Why was it so hard to say those three little words out loud? There was never going to be a better time to say them than right now.
“Yes?”
“I…I love you,” she said. She spoke the words softly, and he leaned in as if he had trouble hearing her.
But then his eyes widened and he looked down at her. “What did you say?”
“I love you. You’re the man I’ve been waiting for all my life and never knew that I needed. But being with you has completed me in a way that I never expected. I didn’t realize I was incomplete without you. Not until this very moment.
“And I know that you might not be ready to hear those words, but I can’t keep quiet anymore. The words have been growing inside me for a long time. My love has been growing for you,” she said.