And as we enjoyed his hospitality that night before heading to the villa the next morning, all the inconvenience had long since been forgiven.
“I think we need a villa,” Miranda declared on our second day there, standing on the balcony that overlooked the olive orchard behind Bellamy’s house while I was still sprawled in bed, enjoying the view of her in nothing but my shirt.
We.
She thoughtweneeded a villa.
I liked the fact that, more and more often, she was using that word when she spoke of the future.
What countrieswewere going to visit.
Which benefitswewere going to go to.
Sure, all of our time together implied that she was serious about us as a couple, but it was something else to hear her talk about it.
It was easy to just… be with someone.
It was harder to envision a future with them.
Or, at least, that was what I thought.
The future had always been somewhat… blurry before. I figured there would be constants. Like work, like my house, like travel, and my friends.
But I couldn’t see anything else clearly.
Until Miranda.
Now, when I looked toward the future, all I saw was her.
Standing in my kitchen making coffee, in her penthouse in her work clothes that I would strip off of her, lounging in the hammock in my backyard, in another sexy gown at a benefit.
And, more than that, I saw myself right there in every one of those situations.
Because I finally found her.
The person who looked at me like Riya and Sawyer looked at each other. And like Kenzi and Tig did. And Clarke and Barrett.
The person I looked at the same way.
With pure, undiluted love and admiration.
Because there was no way around it.
I fucking adored her.
I loved her in a way I hadn’t been sure I was capable of.
“Brock?”
“Hm?” I asked, looking up, realizing I’d been lost in my own thoughts.
“What do you think?”
“About?”
“Getting a villa.”
“We would have close proximity to a lot of Italian food,” I said, nodding.