His hands slide down my back. “Whatever you want,” he says, “as long as I get to call you mine.”
I smile against his lips. “That part’s a given.”
* * *
The car pulls to a smooth stop outside a high-rise, built in the square, Art Deco style so popular a century ago. It’s on a tree-lined street just a few blocks away from the Winter Hotel.
There’s a woman waiting outside for us. She’s dressed in sharp heels, her hair in a low bun, and I recognize a fellow professional in her armor when I see one. It’s Isaac’s realtor. She shows us into the building, past the grand lobby and the smiling concierge.
“Don’t compare it to the Winter,” I whisper to Isaac.
He chuckles and reaches for my hand, threading our fingers together. “I can’t, or I’ll never move.”
The realtor opens the door for us to the empty apartment on the fifteenth floor. “Welcome to what might be your new home!” she says cheerfully.
Dark wood floors stretch out into a beautiful living room, alight with sunshine streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s a staircase off the hallway leading up to a second floor.
“What do you think?” Isaac asks. “I want your input before I buy it.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” he says. “I trust your opinion.”
And I know he means it, that it’s genuine, that this isn’t pressure. He isn’t asking me to move in. He just wants to share his life decisions with me, the same way I want to with him.
To be partners.
“I love it,” I say. “It’s walking distance to the hotel, for work, so that’s convenient.”
“Yeah, that was a must.”
“Is there space for a home office? I think you need that.”
There’s a smile in his voice. “Yes, there is.”
“How many bedrooms?”
“Four.”
“Good, good,” I murmur. “I think you should keep your dark blue couches and put them here. They’d fit right in. See, you could have one here, and the other over there. So you can read and still see the view. I think you’d like that. And so would I, you know, when I come to visit.”
He wraps his arms around me, hugging me against his front. Out of the corner of my eye I see the realtor step into another room. Smoothly giving us privacy. “Your mind works fast,” he says.
I nod. “This could be really good for you. I like this room, and this view. Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure you want to move out of the hotel? There’s no part of you that’s second-guessing?” I turn in his arms, wanting to meet his eyes.
“I’m sure,” he says. “I’ve lived for the company, and for the legacy, for most of my life. And it will never… Sophia, it will never stop being important to me.”
“I know,” I say. “I understand that.”
“It will always be part of my life. It will be what I work for, what I want to… well, regardless of who inherits the company, I want to leave it in the best possible shape.” Fierceness shines in his eyes, pride in his work, and the drive to do better. Tobebetter.
I’m so in love with him,I think.
“But it can’t be the only thing I live for. It can’t be everything.And I think it’s time I had something outside of it that’s just mine, rather than mine to steward for a time.”