“Of course it’s more appealing and glamorous and everything, but it’s not a job. And I love my job. I’m good at what I do and I enjoy it. I didn’t go to college to get my Mrs. degree, Jack. I’m not looking for a ring or prenup or anything like that. I don’t want an insurance policy. I just want to live my life with you and—”
“I know that. But I think there’s a compromise here that’ll work for both of us. How about I keep the company open with a hired manager and a new bookkeeper and you stay on as a part time consultant with a generous salary to oversee the operations and spend most of your time with me. That way your friends keep their jobs, you build a consulting resume and have your own money and, like, a whole office with walls and windows and shit instead of that dismal cube.”
“I’m not qualified to advise on the operations of a company. Just the books. I’m an accountant.”
“I’d make you CFO but I have no desire to give you up to sixteen hour work days.”
“Why do you insist on giving me a job?”
“Why do you insist on having one?” he teased. “You already work for me, technically. So what’s the difference?”
“Well, shit, you got me there. I worked for your dad and now I work for you anyway. How about we see how this goes for a few months and then talk the consulting transfer?”
“We already know how this goes, Britt. This goes forward. You and me. All we have to do is find a roof garden you like and move in together.”
“I think, what with your dad and all that transition that maybe it’s not the best time to try to move in together and make that sort of drastic commitment.”
“I think that maybe you’re the one who’s scared to commit,” he said.
“I have reason to be, Jack. Kevin and I, after six months together, we were supposed to be ready to take that step and we weren’t. He was cheating and I was left holding that stupid folder with real estate listings in it. And he and I were six months in. We’d done holidays together. We’d met each other’s families. We were in a lot more serious involvement. We were couple for months—”
“You were not in a more serious involvement than this one, Britt. He didn’t take it seriously. He may have reached all the milestones and met your grandma and invited you for Christmas dinner, but he didn’t truly love you and he didn’t have honorable intentions.”
“You’re right. But the point isn’t that you’re right. It’s that I thought he was as serious as me. I thought he was for sure going to want a family with me. And I believed that and I was wrong. So what’s to say that I’m not wrong again, about you.”
“I may have eaten his lobster and sat in his chair but I’m not Kevin and I never will be. It insults me to be compared to him. He was just wasting time with you while he looked for someone else. I’ve found what I’m looking for and it’s you.”
“Then what would it hurt to wait a few months until we’re in a less dramatic place.”
“My dad dying so suddenly...do you think it taught me to wait and see? Or to seize the moment while I have the chance?”
“I understand, really I do. I’m just...I don’t want to go through that again, that loss and disappointment.”
“If I recall accurately, I picked you up at Tamarind. So you didn’t have a load of time to wallow in that loss and disappointment. We were together.”
“I know and you were amazing but it didn’t change the fact that all of my future plans were derailed and I was so hurt and so disillusioned and it will—it will just be a million times worse if that happens with us because I love you. I never really loved Kevin, I only thought I did. But with you, I’ve never felt anything like this before and when I even think, when I even get the slightest idea of this ending it makes me sick to my stomach and I think, really, that I could die of it. I don’t know how I would survive it even now. Much less if we get in deeper, if we live together, if we share every bit of our days and our lives—” She fought back tears at the very thought of losing him.
Britt threw back the rest of her sparkling wine and set the glass down shakily. Jack took her hand, completely enveloping her fingers with his.
“We will share every bit of our days and our lives and there is no if. There is no idea of this ending. There isn’t a whole hell of a lot I’m sure of right now, but I know this. You’re the one. I’ve been thinking and the thing is, I don’t want to live someplace where you aren’t there when I wake up.” He leaned over and kissed her hand.
“Wow,” she breathed. “That is the best thing anyone has ever said to me. I’m...wow. I don’t even know what to do with that.”
“How about you kiss me and we’ll figure it out together?”
She smiled. “That sounds like a very reasonable plan.”
B
ritt looped her arms around his neck and kissed him, just slowly sinking in to the reunion of her lips with his. She felt every bit of tension from the last few weeks drain out of her and she surrendered to the wave of emotion, tears rolling down her cheeks. Jack brushed away her tears with his thumbs and kissed her forehead, her nose, her chin, before moving tenderly back to her lips with the softest, most romantic kiss of her life. She made a light, humming sound of pure pleasure as he kissed her. Slowly she rose from her seat, never breaking their kiss, and settled in his lap.
Jack shifted in his cushioned seat to accommodate her form more comfortably in the luxurious lounge chair. She curled around him, her long hair falling across his shoulder as he cradled her in his arms and kissed her luxuriantly. For a long time, they kissed back and forth, stroking one another’s faces in wonder at their intimacy and good fortune in having found each other. Jack stroked her hair and leaned his forehead against hers, catching his breath and looking right in her eyes.
Britt looked at him expectantly, but he said nothing. It occurred to her that there were really no words to encompass this experience, this profound depth of feeling they shared. Love didn’t even begin to describe how she felt about him. Jack was linked to her now, with a powerful connection she couldn’t completely understand apart from the conviction that she must never be without him. Even with her arms entwined around his neck as he lazily kissed her collarbone, she missed him. Even this close, when it seemed impossible to separate which arms and legs were hers, she yearned for a deeper connection.
Sliding her hands through his gorgeous black hair, Britt nipped at his earlobe, kissed his jawline and reveled in the scrape of his stubble against her sensitive lips. She felt his response hard and eager against her hip as she shifted in his lap to straddle his thighs with her own. Instinctively, she rose up on her knees so he could bury his face in her cleavage. He unwrapped the scarf from around her neck.
“This was in my way,” he said half-apologetically with a warm laugh as he removed it.