Page 130 of The Broker

“Thanks,” he said to her.

She flashed him a smile. “Well, thanks for not making me sit at the kids’ table.”

He feigned seriousness. “We had a lengthy discussion about it, and I was the deciding vote for you to join us.” He jerked his thumb toward me. “Can you believe this guy was against it?”

She chuckled at his bullshit that he probably thought was charming, but I found annoying. His gaze shifted to me, giving me a look that said,I like her.

My irritation with him vanished.Me too.

When he turned to leave—

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I opened the fridge and handed him the bottle of wine.

Once he was gone, I returned to the sink and my stack of drying dishes, while she handwashed the pieces Tyson had just used.

“Game night?” she asked quietly.

“It’s a tradition, and I need to apologize in advance. My family is so competitive, they can be kind of obnoxious.”

She laughed. “Should I apologize in advance for beating all their asses?”

“Definitely. They’d love that.”

We fell into comfortable silence for a moment before she pulled off one of her rubber gloves. She’d done it so she could unlock her phone and turn on the camera.

“Picture,” she asked, holding it high up and at an angle.

I leaned in and stared at the screen, seeing her wearing the rubber glove and me with the dishtowel cast over my shoulder. We stood together with bright, happy smiles, and it might have looked staged, but those grins on our faces?

They couldn’t have been more fucking real.

I’d never thought I would want something like this, but shit, she’d changed me so much. And I’d done the same to her, hadn’t I? Not just with her flourishing business, either. We’d grown into better, more complete people with each other.

Everything else? It was just a bonus.

Because we were all each other needed.

. . .