Page 197 of My Only

“Yeah,” she whispered this time. “Very peaceful.”

“It’s ours.”

“Huh?” She whipped her head in my direction so fast. “The lake is ours?”

I laughed. “Nah, baby, not the lake.” I turned her to look at the land behind it. “This lot is ours.”

Ayla stood there for a moment, staring. “To do what with?”

I opened my sketchbook and flipped through a few pages until I landed on the sketch of the villa I’d been working on for years.

“To do this.” I held the sketchbook out in front of us.

“Oh my God,” she whispered at first. “Oh my God!” She said louder this time. “Is that the villa in Saint Lucia?”

She looked up at me, then back at the book, taking it out of my hand. “Did you sketch the entire villa, Hassani?!”

“I did.”

“Hassani!” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “This looks exactly like it. You drew it exactly like it.”

“Because we’re gonna build it.” I pointed out in front of us at the land. “Exactly like it. Right here.”

Her hand flew back to her mouth again. “What?!”

Ayla gasped and reached for the sketchbook, her fingers trembling slightly as she flipped through the pages. “Hassani...” Her voice was barely a whisper, her eyes darting between the sketches and the land in front of her. “You… you've been planning this?”

I just nodded, my eyes locked on her watering ones.

“I’ve been working on it for a while,” I told her. “Us going back to Saint Lucia was for us to reconnect and for me to sketch the parts of the villa I was unable to remember from memory.”

Ayla glanced at the land again, then at the lake.

I turned her by her shoulders and held up the sketchbook.

“We’ll put the infinity pool right here,” I explained, pointing ahead of us. “The wraparound balcony…” I turned her again. “Over there.”

She brought the sketchbook closer to her, her beautiful fingers leafing through the pages as I held it. “All these pages are sketches for the villa?”

“All of them in this part of the sketchbook,” I explained. “The ones in the other section are for home improvement projects for our house.”

She stopped leafing and rested on one of them.

“Wow,” she whispered. “I remember standing right here.”

Ayla touched the sketched outline of the infinity pool, her fingertips tracing the lines like she was memorizing them.

“On our last night in Saint Lucia during our honeymoon, we stood by the pool, and I told you…” She exhaled, blinking rapidly. “I told you I never wanted to leave.”

I kissed her forehead. “So, I made sure we’d never have to again.”

She parted her lips. “This entire time…” Ayla shook her head. “All this time, I thought you were working when you were sketching in this book.”

“I was,” I replied, wrapping my arm around her waist and bringing her closer to me. “On my most important work. This.”

Ayla blinked, and tears streamed down her face. I wiped them away, and she took a breath.

“This book.” I held it up beside us. “This isn’t work for work. This book is only for things that only we can enjoy, baby. Only us. Just us.”

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