Chapter 45

I frown at my architectural drawings and sharpen my pencil, annoyed that I can’t quite get it right. “Damn it,” I mutter, leaning back in my seat at our dining table.

“Let me see,” Xavier says as he puts down a cheese platter before sitting down next to me. I stare at it wide-eyed and grab the whole platter with both hands while he reaches for my drawing.

Xavier chuckles when I take a bite of some smoked cheddar and moan in delight. “I’ve never before been jealous of cheese that I bought myself,” he says, shaking his head as he grabs my pencil. “You do the weirdest things to me, Mrs. Kingston.”

“You did this to yourself,” I murmur as I grab a cracker and slather it in brie. “You married me, weird quirks and all.”

He laughs and leans in to press a kiss to my cheek. “Best thing I’ve ever done,” he replies, before he turns back to my drawing. I watch him as he analyses my work and very quickly makes it better, like it comes easy to him, and I can’t help but be a little jealous of how talented he is. It’s no wonder we were rivals for so long — we’re both far too competitive.

I do a happy little shimmy in my seat as I take another bite of cheese, and Xavier rests his head on his fist, his elbow on the table as he watches me with that enraptured expression. “I may just need to take you to the restaurant in Paris that I flew this in from. I haven’t been in years, but I think you’ll like it. It’s small and quaint, but it has a gorgeous view of the Eiffel Tower, impeccable service, and the absolute best food I’ve ever had.”

I raise a brow, jealousy slowly unfurling in my chest. “Sounds romantic,” I murmur, instantly wondering who he went with. It’s clear the memory is a good one, judging by the way he’s smiling.

Xavier raises a brow, and then he chuckles. “There’s no need to look at me that way,” he tells me, seemingly amused. “I went with a good friend of mine, a male friend. His family owns that restaurant chain, along with many other things in Europe.”

I look up in surprise, suddenly realizing that he’s never mentioned any friends, or even things he’s done in the past that I wasn’t already aware of, such as visiting France. “Are you still friends with him?” I ask carefully.

Xavier tenses just a touch, but then he sighs and nods. “I’d say that Dion and Enzo are my only two real friends. I’ll introduce you someday. I think he’d love to meet you.”

He still seems to think long and hard before he tells me things, but he has started to share snippets of his past with me. Only ever good memories, and I suspect they’re heavily redacted, but I don’t really mind. I don’t need to know every single thing about him, I just want to feel like he’s letting me in, like I’m someone he trusts and wants to share his life with.

In recent months we’ve both grown a lot as a couple, and we’ve slowly started to take baby steps toward each other. Each time I tell him funny stories about my childhood, he emails me a day later with a story of his own, and we’ve just been going back and forth like that, slowly getting to know each other in ways we didn’t before. He leaves me little notes around the house and sends me little gifts almost every day, just things that reminded him of me with a story attached.

Yesterday he sent licorice to my office with an accompanying note reminding me how I once ground up licorice and put it in his coffee machine at home and at his office, because we’d been competing for a candy factory acquisition, and he’d graciously bowed out after my little prank, stating I’d ruined licorice for him forever. His note told me that he thought of me every single time he saw licorice anywhere, and it made him smile every single time. He told I’d infiltrated his life in more way than he could count, more way than I could possibly know.

That new kind of intimacy between us and the vulnerability we’ve shown each other has brought us closer, and though I’m scared to admit it to him, I’ve started to see a real future with him, and I wonder if he does too.

“I never asked you, you know?” Xavier says eventually, looking up from my drawing again. “Why did you decide to go into real estate?”

“Because of my dad,” I admit, my heart constricting painfully. I rarely talk about my parents, because unlike my older brothers, I don’t really have any memories with them. All I have is countless regrets, memories I wish I’d made, photos I wish we’d taken together, and questions I wish I could’ve asked. “Remember the observatory that we held our reception in?”

“Zane’s observatory?”

I nod. “My dad had that built for my mom. It was one of Windsor Real Estate’s first projects. Before me, the company had an external CEO, with my grandmother being the chairwoman, but I always knew that I wanted to manage it myself one day. The idea of building places that people set their roots in, that they make memories in… that was what appealed to me. What about you?”

He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “There was a time when things were incredibly tough for my family, and I felt like I was drowning. I needed a lifeline, and Enzo, the friend I just mentioned, gave me one. He’d asked me to manage some of his properties for him, and when it became clear I had a knack for it, he pushed me go into real estate myself. Dion wholeheartedly agreed, and the two of them helped me set things up and got me going. They both taught me a lot of practical things that I simply couldn’t have learned at school, and I fell in love with the process of watching things be built up from scratch. It reminded me that it’s possible to build almost anything, if you’re patient enough — even something as elusive as a better future.” He smirks at me then. “Then eventually, this girl came along that challenged me at every step, and I fell in love even more, harder than ever before. I became obsessed with competing with her, and she inadvertently helped me grow my company into more than what I ever thought possible. She became my lifeline. This incredibly beautiful, batshit crazy girl, became the highlight of my entire damn life. She gave me purpose, and she doesn’t even know it.”

I stare at him, scared to ask him the one question on my mind. Did he fall in love with the girl in his story, with me, or did he fall further in love with real estate? I know better than to ask questions I might not like the answer to, so instead, I reach for him, my hand cupping his face. “Maybe that girl was falling in love with you the whole time, through every battle, every prank, every single thing you did that ensured you’d be on her mind as much as she was on yours, and maybe she just didn’t realize it.”

He grins as his nose brushes against mine. “Maybe I did it on purpose. Maybe I just wanted her to think of me, even though I knew I didn’t deserve her attention.”

“I think she disagrees,” I tell him, my lips brushing against his and my hand wrapping into his hair. “I think you might just be uniquely perfect for that crazy girl.”

He groans when I tighten my grip on his hair and kiss him, losing myself in him, in this moment. God, I’m so in love with him, and I’m starting to think he feels the same way. We’ve come so far from where we started, all in a matter of months, and I just know… this story we’re writing together, it’s my favorite one of all time.