Page 110 of Inevitable
“It’s going to take a while to plan a wedding, put my place up for sale, and get us moved here,” I mused. “I need to get Wren enrolled in school here.”
“I’ll take care of the details here,” Colin offered. “Put your house up for sale and I’ll hire some movers. I’ll admit that I’m impatient with this whole situation, Em. I want you and Wren here with me.”
I didn’t really want to wait, either.
I’d spent years missing Colin, and I didn’t want to waste any more time missing him when I didn’t have to do it.
I wanted him.
Wren wanted to be with her father.
My heart wasn’t in Michigan anymore.
It was here in California with Colin.
“I’ll put my place up for sale when I get back to Michigan,” I told him. “We can wait a little longer, right?”
“Probably not,” he said grumpily. “If you wait too long I’ll be back in Cherry Cove to visit. How long can you stay here?”
My heart soared because I definitely wasn’t going to argue about a visit while we had to be apart. “Not long,” I admitted. “Brock will spoil the crap out of our daughter while I’m gone. He gives her whatever she wants. I only came to see if there was something wrong with you. I was worried.”
“Nothing is wrong with me except that I was regretting being an asshole and leaving you,” he assured me. “I should have put a damn ring on your finger when I was in Cherry Cove. I just wasn’t sure if you wanted to commit to a future together.”
“I wanted it,” I answered. “I just wasn’t sure what you wanted. All of this happened so fast.”
“Not that fast,” he countered. “It’s been fourteen years, Emma. I think I knew what I wanted back in Virginia Beach, but I had nothing to offer you. I’d spent my life dedicated to service in the US Navy. I was gone most of the time, and my mind was always on a mission. I thought that you deserved a guy a lot better than me.”
Frustrated, I moved until I was straddling Colin and staring into his beautiful gray eyes. “You were completely focused on me in Virginia Beach. There never was and never will be another man for me.”
He grinned back at me, and my heart melted.
“You were one hell of a distraction,” he replied. “You still are.”
“I love you,” I whispered as I fell into his intense gaze.
“I love you, too, Em,” he said roughly. “There’s never been another woman for me, either.”
“I know you’re not a big believer in fate,” I answered. “But I am. I think fate threw me the man I needed after being completely destroyed by one who wasn’t the guy for me. I’ll always be grateful for that. You were always good to me and good for me, whether you realize that or not.”
There was no better man on the planet for me, and I wanted him to know that.
“I’ll always be good to you, Emma,” he promised. “It’s too damn late to worry about whether or not I’m good enough for you. You’re stuck with me.”
I smiled down at him. “I want to be stuck with you. I love my ring, but the diamond is enormous.”
I loved it, but I knew it had been costly, and as a single mom, I’d always worried about money.
It was going to be an adjustment for me not to think about finances and raising a child on my own all the time.
He shrugged. “You’re going to marry me, and I want every guy out there to know you’re already mine.”
I snorted. “You say that like every guy is going to want me.”
I was forty-six, plump, and not the woman of every man’s dreams.
But…when I was with Colin, Ididfeel like the woman ofhisdreams.
He’d probably never know how amazing it was to feel that way.
