I pull up outside Delilah’s mom’s house and shift the car into park. Since I plan to be here for the foreseeable future, it makes sense for me to rent a car rather than relying on a driver all the time.
The sunset sends warm beams of light through the window as I sit and consider what my next steps will be. I have to recalibrate. Buying things for Delilah’s mom was a mistake. She doesn’t need my money. Give Delilah a few more years, and she’ll be able to buy those things for her mom herself.
Unfortunately, I haven’t come up with another plan yet. Everything I think of involves money in some way. So for now, I’ll just keep showing up. Being near Delilah, even if she hasn’t forgiven me, is far better than spending hours alone in my hotel room. And maybe something will come to me when I see her.
I lock the car and make my way up the path that’s already become so familiar. When I knock on the door, there’s no answer, although Beth’s battered old car sits in the driveway. I walk around to the side of the house and peer over the fence. “Hello?”
Delilah’s mom pops her head around the corner. “Oh, Cole. I’m back here, honey.”
I pause at the term of endearment. Sure, I’ve had women call me that before, when they were trying to be cute or seductive, and it never did a thing for me. But hearing it from Delilah’s mom, spoken with an undercurrent of what seems to be genuine affection, tightens my chest.
I unlatch the gate and make my way to the backyard, where I find Beth kneeling by a small vegetable patch. I’m struck by a sudden vision: Delilah in the backyard of a house she’s designed just for us, digging up carrots she’s grown herself, maybe with a little doppelgänger of her own helping her, just the way I’m sure she would have helped her mom. Pain pierces my chest. It’s something I never would have imagined wanting before, and now the thought of not having it feels like an unbearable loss.
“Delilah will be back in about half an hour,” Beth says, shading her eyes against the lowering sun as she looks up at me. “She went to pick up the ingredients for dinner.”
“She’s hard to catch,” I say.
“She always does better when she’s busy.”
I nod at the vegetable patch. “What are you growing?”
She points them out as she names them. “Green beans, squash, carrots, zucchini, and cucumbers.”
“That’s quite impressive.”
She shrugs as she sinks a trowel into the dirt. “It’s a good way to save some money on groceries.”
I wince internally. That’s not something I’ve ever had to think about. Suddenly I’m ashamed to be standing above her in my designer clothes. “Can I help?”
She squints one eye at me. “You’ll get dirty.”
“That’s okay.” It’s not like I can’t afford a new suit.
A grin spreads across her face. “Okay, then. Kneel here next to me, and I’ll put you to work.”
I do as she says, and she hands me a little spade.
“Just dig holes a couple of inches deep and about this far apart”—she gestures at the holes she’s already dug—“and I’ll start putting the seeds in.”
I dig into the soft dirt. “What are we planting?”
“Beets.”
“Beets, huh? Not my favorite.”
“Maybe you have to try them prepared the right way.”
I chuckle. “Maybe.”
We chat for a while, and then I hear the back door open and look up in time to see Delilah walk out. She stops in her tracks when she sees me. What thoughts are running around behind those pretty green eyes when she looks at me?
“Hi,” she says softly. “You came back.”
“Of course.” Didn’t she believe me when I said I wasn’t going anywhere?
“And you’re helping Mom plant beets?”
I glance down at my fingers wrapped around the spade. “It appears so.”
She walks down the steps toward us, and she’s so fucking gorgeous that it’s suddenly hard to take a breath.
“Delilah, do you mind finishing this off while I get dinner started?” Beth says, and when I glance at her, she gives me a subtle wink.
My lips tilt up in response, and then she’s standing and brushing the dirt off her knees, and handing her trowel to Delilah, who sinks down next to me.
The scent of sunshine and wildflowers invades my senses. All I want to do is to pull her to me and kiss her, but I doubt she’d appreciate that.
“This is something I never thought I’d see,” she says, and when I look at her profile, the corner of her mouth is turned up in a smile.
“Me either. You’ll have to take a photo and send it to my brothers.”
She’s silent for a moment, dropping seeds into the holes I’m digging. “Do they know where you are?”
“I told them I was coming to try to get you back at the same time I told them I wouldn’t marry Jessica.”
“Were they okay with it?”
I laugh. “I didn’t really give them a choice. We just had to find a way to secure Berrington’s investment that doesn’t involve his daughter.”
“And what way is that?”
“We’ve given him first right of refusal on any international commercial properties we develop for the next ten years.”
I sense rather than see her turn to look at me. “That seems like a good deal for him.”
“It is. It’s not something we’d normally consider offering anyone.”
“And your brothers didn’t have a problem with that?”
I face her then. “There was an intense discussion, but once they realized how serious I was, they came through.”
Her eyes brighten. “They showed up for you.”
I nod. “Maybe there’s hope for my brothers and me after all.”
“I’m happy for you, Cole.”
Her words ring with sincerity, and I can’t resist the urge to touch her any longer. I grip her hand firmly, pulling her to her feet, then gently brush my thumb over her cheek. “I enjoy talking to you like this, Delilah,” I say softly. “I like being in the house where you grew up. But I want to make it crystal clear why I’m here. I’m here for you. I want a future with you. I’m not just looking for a casual fling or your friendship. I want all of you, heart, body, and soul. The only future I can envision now is one with you by my side. And I know I fucked up with the car and the—”
She shakes her head and I stop.
“You didn’t mess up, Cole,” she says softly, her voice filled with emotion. “Those weren’t gifts that Mom and I could accept, but the fact that you wanted to take care of her . . .” She swallows, and it’s there, shimmering in her eyes—the look that makes me feel alive the way nothing else does. A smile trembles on her lips. “It took me a moment to see it, but it means more to me than anything else. It showed me that you know my heart. And it showed me yours.” Her hand comes to rest on my chest, right over the wildly beating organ. “And I really, really like what I see.”
Relief floods through me, and without thinking, I step forward, sinking the fingers of one hand into her soft hair and curving them around the back of her neck so I can pull her closer to me. “I like what I see too,” I murmur.
“Is that so?” Her voice is barely above a whisper.
“Yes. In fact, I don’t just like what I see. I love what I see.”
She wets her lips, her eyes locked on mine. “You do?”
“I love it,” I say, hoping she can hear the sincerity in my voice. “I love what I see so much that I don’t think I can live without seeing it anymore.” My eyes drift over her face, drinking in every detail.
Her breath turns uneven. “I had the impression you didn’t believe in love.”
“I didn’t believe in much of anything until I met you,” I admit. “You showed me what love looks like, how it feels. There’s no going back now.”
“Did I show you how to hold on to it?” Her question hangs in the air, uncertainty threaded through it.
I know what she’s asking, and I trace her lower lip with my thumb. “Delilah, I will never let you go again. It’s not an option for me. Before you, my life was empty—I was empty—and I didn’t even know it. I can’t go back to that. I won’t. And I’m not just saying that because I need you to forgive me and love me again. I mean it. I will always mean it. I won’t let anything come between us. Not money, not my company, nothing. You are the most important thing to me. You’ve changed everything, and I can’t imagine going back to the way I was before, thinking wealth and power were enough to make me happy. It’s you, Delilah. You’re what makes me happy.”
Her eyes glisten, even as the corners of her mouth lift in a smile so full of joy that I swear the heart I once thought was cold and dead is going to smash its way through my chest. She tips her head to the side, her long dark hair tumbling over her shoulder. “I never knew you were so poetic.”
“What can I say? You bring out the best in me.”
Her lips part and she goes up on her toes. Sensing her intention, I twist my hand in her hair to stop her from closing the distance between our lips. Because I need her to know without any doubt. I keep my gaze fixed on hers. “I love you, Delilah. It took me too long to admit it to myself, and not because I didn’t feel it—fuck, it was because I was feeling too much of everything I’d never felt before. But now that I’ve said it, I don’t plan to stop. Maybe one day, if you forgive me, you’ll be able to say it ba—”
She doesn’t let me finish, her hands framing my face. “I love you, Cole. I never stopped, as much as I wanted to. And I won’t make you wait for me to say it, because I’ve already forgiven you.” And right there, in her mother’s garden, with the setting sun bathing her in golden light, she kisses me.
I let her take the lead for a few seconds, reveling in a moment where I can taste her again. Then I take over, reclaiming her mouth the way I intend to reclaim her body later. My hands roam over her curves, dropping to her ass so I can pull her flush against me. She moans into my mouth, her hands twisting in my shirt as if she never wants to let go. And I plan to make sure she doesn’t. Because I won’t. I’m never leaving her side again. I had everything I wanted when I was growing up, but not the thing I needed most. Now that I have it, I’ll cherish it as if it’s the most valuable thing in the world. Because it is.
She is.
And I’ll spend every damn day from here on out proving it to her.
