“I think that’s a great insight.”
His mouth tips into a smile. “Besides, real estate is always a good investment.”
“Always,” I agree, and give him a quick kiss. “Want to show me the rest of the place? I’m itching to see what’s at the top of those stairs.”
“Yes.” But he doesn’t move, hands still resting around my waist. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, but for what?”
“For being here. For being you.” His voice drops. “And for being brave enough to try again.”
My hands still against his chest. “Isaac…”
“Sweetheart, I love you. I have for weeks, and likely long before then. I just hadn’t admitted it to myself yet.”
“Oh,” I breathe.
His hand brushes along my cheek. “I just had to let you know. It’s not pressure and I’m not saying it, expecting anything from you. But it’s all I could think about on the flight back home yesterday, and I knew I had to tell you.”
I lock my hands behind his neck. I feel warm, like I’ve been hit with a ray of sunshine. “And you only do things a hundred and ten percent.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “That’s right.”
“I love you too,” I say. “I resisted it for a long time… and I was terrified when I first realized I’d fallen. But that didn’t make me love you any less. Thank you for being there while I figured it all out.”
“My pleasure,” he says, and brushes his lips over mine. “And I always will be.”
EPILOGUE
ISAAC
I drive up the long, gravel driveway to the Marmont Manor Hotel. This trip will be our fifth to the Connecticut spa and resort, beautifully nestled next to a lake, and surrounded by nothing but trees.
“Let the birthday weekend commence!” Sophia announces beside me, shooting me a warm look.
I shake my head. “Right,” I say. “Yippie.”
She chuckles. “At least it’s just the two of us this year.”
“Oh, I’m definitely going to enjoy that,” I say. Sophia loves to throw a good party, and she’d organized one last year for my fortieth. I’d resisted every step of the way, but in the end, it had turned into one hell of a party. I hadn’t minded at all.
Especially not when it gave me an excellent reason to throw her a surprise thirty-fifth birthday party just a few months later.
She leans forward in the car and watches as the beautiful cabin-style hotel appears behind the trees. “Is it crazy that coming here is starting to feel like coming home?”
“No,” I say. “Even if our actual home might be offended to hear you say that.”
“Considering how much pain it’s giving me over the guest bathroom renovation, I don’t mind if it does.”
“Harsh,” I say, but I’m smiling. The apartment we now own together—contract signed with all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, lawyers involved for both parties—is a dream. But it’s also old, and has needed a considerable amount of renovating and touching up.
We’d originally talked about Sophia moving into my place. But at the end of the day, it was important for her that we live together in an apartment that’s truly ours. And then the apartment had just found us. A family friend was selling it, a beautiful duplex with plenty of details left from the late nineteenth century.
The only caveat? The past owners hadn’t lifted a finger to renovate it.
In about a century.
“Harsh, but true,” Sophia says, unbuckling her seat belt. “If it wasn’t for our contractor, we wouldn’t have gotten to this point at all.”