Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 102(@200wpm)___ 82(@250wpm)___ 68(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 102(@200wpm)___ 82(@250wpm)___ 68(@300wpm)
Ethan’s words hit me like a fist to the gut. I open my mouth to argue, to say something in protest, but I can’t. I simply don’t know what to say. I feel like a guilty criminal on a stand in a Hollywood courtroom drama who’s just been hammered by a world class trial lawyer.
Ethan steps closer.
“Mya, I’ve loved you from the moment I set eyes on you. When I first saw you show up for your interview, I was smitten. I was infatuated. But when you tried to run off on me, I knew that I was going to have to work extra hard to make you mine.”
He steps even closer, close enough that I’m staring into those eyes of his, those eyes that have always managed to make me feel like I’m flying from the first time I looked into them.
I feel a sense of shame bubbling up inside me.
He’s right, isn’t he? I have made this hard on him since day one. I felt the spark between us, and I fought like crazy to pretend it wasn’t there. I was thinking of myself this whole time but never once thought what it might be like from Ethan’s point of view—a man with feelings for a woman who was doing everything she could to keep him at arm’s length.
“Ethan, I…”
“And I understood, Mya,” he says, closing the distance between us. “I understood why. What happened with your father and your distrust of men. That’s why I didn’t push you. Because I knew all I would end up doing was push you away. But I had to do something to make you mine…”
Ethan reaches out, and I don’t move away.
He wraps his arms around me, and I let him.
“And I’m sorry, but I do love you, Mya. And I will be the best man I can be for you, and the best dad to our baby as well…if you will let me.”
Warmth and happiness flow through me. I know I said I wouldn’t cry in front of him, but the tears start falling, and I let them.
It may be the strangest display of affection I’ve ever received, or could ever imagine from a man, but I don’t care. My heart is so swollen with love at this moment that I can barely even stand. I fall forward against Ethan’s thick, muscled chest, and he sweeps me up and lifts me into his arms and whispers into my ear, “I love you, Mya.”
“I love you too, Ethan,” I cry. “I love you.”
He holds me like that for a long time, longer than I know. Then he turns and carries me back down the hill toward the inn, but instead of taking me inside, he brings me over to his truck.
“We’re not going inside?” I whimper in my best little girl voice.
“No,” he with a tone that says he knows something I don’t. With one hand, he opens the passenger door and slides me into the seat, then goes around and gets in on his side.
“Where are we going, Daddy?”
“Well—” He smiles. “We’re going to the jewelry store so we can pick out a ring.”
My heart nearly stops. “A-a ring?”
“That’s right. We’re going to need one of those if I’m going to marry you.”
Epilogue
Ethan
Five Years Later…
* * *
Well, I did it. It was the riskiest move in the history of risky moves, but it paid off.
Mya is mine.
And not only that, we also have the most wonderful son in the world. Little Ben, or Benjie as we like to call him, is running around being a delightful little terror and already talking about how he’s going to take over the business in just two more years. When I tell him he might have to wait more than two until he’s big enough, he just says, “Oh, yeah!?” and then flexes and growls as loudly as possible.
Like I said I would, I married Mya one month after I picked her up at the B&B. I took her to pick out a ring, then planned a low-key wedding with friends and family, followed by a week’s vacation in the South of France. It was incredible.
Mya moved to part-time during the beginning of her pregnancy but wouldn’t quit altogether no matter how much I encouraged her to.
“You know how useless I’d feel?” she asked me, still helping customers inside at eight months pregnant. “Watching you do all the work while I sit around doing absolutely nothing?”
I knew better than to argue. So I found another employee to take over her more manual duties while Mya moved inside and became basically my partner running the business. You couldn’t ask for a more ideal situation.
Now, as I come into the house from helping the boys unload a big delivery of loam and see my beautiful wife standing in the kitchen wearing heels and an apron and absolutely nothing else, it’s just another reminder that I truly am living the dream.