“Yes,” I whisper.
“Did you say yes?” he asks.
“I did. Sophie agrees with me.”
The next few moments are a blur as he kisses me long and hard.
“Thank you, Cassie.”
“What for?”
“For loving me even when you thought you had no reason to. For having faith in me regardless of the past. For being here with me when all I need is you and Sophie. For the next few nights, you’re all mine. We’ll see if we can find our dream home and then bring our girl to see it. I wish she could be here too.”
I lean my head against his. “If we don't find anything while I’m here, we can both come up for the school holidays.”
He strokes my hair, and I close my eyes.
“I’d like that. The sooner we’re all under one roof, the better.”
He kisses me softly.
“Today when I came in, who was that woman in the waiting room? She gave me a weird look.”
He sighs. “A patient. She got too attached, so Ethan’s taken over her last surgery. But I’m thinking we should have transferred her somewhere else so she wouldn’t be in our building.”
“Does that happen often?”
Patrick shakes his head. “Most of the time, it’s a one-off. Something that needs to be corrected or a reconstruction. But her case involved multiple consultations and more than one surgery, so I became a bit of a regular part of her life for a while.”
I reach up and cup his cheek. “You are rather gorgeous.”
He laughs and turns his head to kiss my palm. “I only worry about what you think.”
“You’re as hot as you were when we were at school.”
Patrick squeezes me against him. “You are even more beautiful.”
“Flatterer.”
He shakes his head. “Just a man in love.”
34
CASSIE
The third house we look at—I fall in love.
It’s a four bedroom with plenty of backyard space. Not too far from Patrick’s work, but any closer and the price would shoot up.
As it is, buying a house in Auckland isn’t cheap. But if we pool the funds we have, and based on Patrick’s salary, we can do it.
I stand in the spacious kitchen, marvelling at the sun shining through the sliding doors out to the deck. “This is going to be lovely in the mornings.”
“You want it?”
I nod. “I want to try.”
Patrick grins and kisses me while the real estate agent’s cheeks redden and she looks away.
