Page 217 of The Grand Duel
I feel my face burn up and look out of the window, already knowing I’m going to take her there.
“We’ll have to get the dogs.” I consider leaving them at home until we get back, but it could be a while, and I hate leaving them. “And towels. You’ll need a towel and your girly stuff if you’re going to use the bath. I don’t have anything yet?—”
“It’s fine, Charles,” she tells me, and I know she’s smiling without looking over at her. “I have an overnight bag with my things.”
I look over at her anyway.
“They’ve started work on the kitchen?”
“I asked them to get all structural work done. Nothing is quite finished, bar the bathroom today, but at least this way I can start painting at the weekends.”
Her eyes spark with her excitement. “I’m so excited for you. It’s going to be perfect. I already love what you’ve done.” She looks up at me. “You’re making it your own.”
“I’m trying.”
Daisy and Luna paw at the back door, and I cross the room and let them out, a sense of pride sitting on my chest at the fact she likes what I’m doing with the house.
Most of it, if not all, is her ideas.
I walk to where she’s standing and smile down at her, knowing the agonising few hours I spent waiting for her shift to finish were well worth it just to have her here with me now. “Do you want your pizza now or after your bath?” I ask, my stare lost.
She pulls me closer by my T-shirt. “Is there an option to have it in the bath?”
“You can have it whenever wherever you like.” I wrap her in my arms. “But the tub is huge and will probably take a while to fill.”
“Well then, let’s take it with us. You can show me what they’ve done upstairs whilst we wait.”
I reluctantly let her out of my grasp and follow her up the stairs, the smell of her barbecue chicken pizza making my mouth water despite the ungodly hour.
She pushes open the door to the bathroom and stops short.
I can’t help my grin.
“Charles.”
“Looks good, doesn’t it?”
“Good?” She walks across the wooden floors, her eyes catching on different parts of the room. “It’s beautiful. Openingup the window was perfect, that view is going to be incredible in the daytime.”
I nod, my gaze not leaving her. “It is incredible.”
She turns to face me, her smile full of emotion. “Are you happy? Can you see yourself here? I can. It’s you. It’s so, so you, Charles.”
Her excitement makes my gut twist up, and it’s because of it that I don’t manage an answer.
She places the pizza on the towel cabinet and crosses the room to where I stand. The second she’s close enough, I pull her into me again.
“I love it,” I finally manage.
She grins up at me from the hold I have on her. “You know, when I told Mason that I wanted to do this and buy the house for you like he did the penthouse, I was so worried you’d be too angry at me to see it for what it is.” She bites her lip, as if a little flustered. “I knew you wouldn’t hate it. I was sure, and Mason confirmed that, but I didn’t know if you’d let yourself have something solely for you.”
“I guess you chose well,” I tell her. “That and the fact there seems to be something about you that makes it impossible to say no.”
“My pretty face?” She chuckles.
“No, although it is perfect.”
“Is this your way of telling me I officially have you by the balls?”