He’d watched her taillights disappear down the road, red flickers swallowed by the dark, and he’d felt the same dizzy awe he’d known the first time she’d agreed to a date. Back then, he’d thought “yes” meant he’d won something.
Now he understood it meant responsibility.
He shrugged off his coat and hung it by the door. His heart still hadn’t settled; it was pounding hard enough that he could feel it in his fingertips.
Seduce me.
Every reckless instinct urged him to follow her home right now, to show up at the door of the house he’d built and make herremember every touch, every breath. To kiss her until they both forgot the months they’d lost.
But that wouldn’t be enough.
Not this time.
Tom walked into the living room, sank onto the couch.
For a moment he just sat there. Breathing. Trying to ground himself.
From the kitchen came the soft clatter of dishes—Linda finishing the last of the cleanup—and the faint hum of Gerald’s laugh drifting down the hall.
It was the sound of a home fully lived in, and when Tom lifted his gaze, the room matched it perfectly.
The overstuffed cushions with their mismatched patterns. The crocheted throw in colors his parents would’ve called an eyesore. The gallery wall of uneven frames—photos, postcards, tiny bits of paper and ribbon. The knitted coasters. The half-finished craft projects shoved into baskets.
It was all too much. Too bright. Too busy. Too loud.
But now instead of cringing, instead of wishing for clean lines and neutral palettes, something in his chest tightened with an ache so warm it almost hurt.
Helikedit.
No—he loved it.
All of it. The chaos, the color, the homemade crookedness on every surface. This room was what happened when someone filled a home with love instead of taste.
It wasn’t ugly. It wasn’t garish. It was completely, wonderfully alive.
His parents’ house had never felt like this.
He wanted this sort of room in his life. He wanted to come home to this. He wanted his wife’s crafts everywhere. On every surface, in every space. He wanted her on his mantel, wrapped around his curtain rails, hanging on kitchen hooks, folded on the back of armchairs.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, emotion pressing at his ribs.
If he ever got her back, this is what he’d be choosing. Not clean lines, not restraint. This.
Her.
He drew in a shaky breath.
He wanted her. God, he wanted her. But more than that, he wanted her to be herself.
He stood, the decision settling into him like gravity.
Tomorrow, he would start figuring it out—the next square, the next gesture. Something worthy of her yes.
So seduce me.
He wasn’t going to mess it up this time.
CHAPTER 55
