Page 247 of Love Unwritten
“You could have chosen to keep that money.”
I scrunch my nose. “I don’t want it.” Which is exactly why I plan on donating any residuals I receive from her work.
His eyes sparkle. “I know, but a lot of people would have kept it anyway.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of people aren’t getting paid to write songs for Cole Griffin, so…” I wink.
He laughs, and it may be my favorite sound, only second to his son’s.
When our plane lands at the Detroit airport, Rafael asks me how I want to celebrate finally being done with Ava and the legal case, and I tell him to take me home.
Not to my parents’ house but to our home.
His smile doesn’t drop throughout the entire drive back to our house on the hill. He has been asking me to move back in for a month, but I kept pushing it off because I wanted us to be certain we were both ready for that next step. To be honest, I’m still surprised he was the one who suggested it first, given his opposition to relationships just over six months ago.
First, he said he was tired of co-parenting our six cats without me and thought it would be best if I moved back. Then, he tried to get Nico to convince me, but I stood strong and said no—much to Rafael’s surprise—because I still wasn’t sure if it was the best idea.
It wasn’t until last week, when he gifted me a set of gold earrings in the shape of hibiscus flowers, that I knew we were both ready.
For the days I’m not able to put flowers in your hair, Rafael said when I opened the box.
I know he hadn’t meant to make me cry, but it hit me then how much I wanted to wake up every day to him handpicking a flower to put in my hair. The same flowers he spends hours tending to in his new greenhouse, solely because he never wants me to go a single day without one.
I never want to go a single day without him because he is the one who inspired the greatest unwritten love song of all.
Ours.
BONUS CONTENT
Ellie
“Dios mío,” Nico whispers under his breath after yanking on the VIP paddock pass lanyard around my neck.
I scan the pit lane in search of whatever freaked him out. After spending the last two days gushing over meeting Formula 1 drivers, getting behind-the-scenes VIP tours of the different team garages, and experiencing practice rounds from the grandstands, I thought Nico would be used to all the excitement by now.
Like you can judge, I say to myself. I’ve been equally—if not more—distracted by everything happening around us. Between eavesdropping on interviews, spotting celebrities hanging around the pit lanes, and Rafael surprising us with a Formula 1 driver taking us around the track in a high-speed car, I’m overstimulated in the best possible way.
If it weren’t for Rafael keeping us on schedule and out of trouble, Nico and I would have been lost on day one.
“Ellie! Look!” Nico pulls on my pass again when I don’t answer him.
“What is it?” Rafael asks.
“It’s him!” Nico shifts his eyes from our faces to the McCoy garage, where his favorite Formula 1 driver is currently standing beside his race car. Elías Cruz, who looks just as handsome in person as he does on TV, laughs at something another man says before pulling him in for a quick kiss.
He is quickly pushed aside by a brunette woman with a big smile and a McCoy hat with an embroidered number ten on the front.
“Oh shit!” Nico shouts before clapping a hand over his mouth.
“Nicolas.” Rafa shoots him a look that would spark fear in anyone but his son.
“Perdón, Papi.” His sheepishness quickly fades away as he checks out something in the garage.
I look in the direction of Nico’s wide-eyed stare and gasp. “No way.”
Rafael turns to see who stunned us. His brows crinkle and his eyes narrow at the person Nico and I are both gawking at.
Jax Kingston—a retired British Formula 1 driver who used to race with Elías—pulls the brunette woman away. He wraps his arms around her torso and whispers something in her ear that makes her blush and smack his arm with a soft laugh. I didn’t recognize his wife at first with the large pair of sunglasses she’s wearing and the hat obscuring her face, but the sparkling diamond ring on her left hand proves that’s her.