Her eyes widened, cheeks reddening, and then she nodded. “Of course.”
She pushed the sign-in notebook to me, and I scribbled my name. When I finished, I gave her the notebook back and leaned across the counter.
“Do me a favor, Carol, and don’t mention this to Mia when you see her.”
Carol looked surprised, and then she nodded. “Okay,” she said quietly.
She seemed off since the last time I had seen her. Maybe something had happened with Mia.
I brushed it off as nothing and walked through the halls until I reached Mia’s mother’s room. My chest felt tight, and I swallowed all my insecurities, knocking on the doorframe.
The door was open slightly, and her mother called out the door, “Mia, is that you again? Did you forget something?”
I peered my head into the room, and she smiled widely.
“Michael.”
My heart raced, and I swore I could feel myself starting to sweat. I didn’t know why I was getting so worked up about this. It wasn’t the first time I had asked the question to a woman’s parents. But last time … it had been expected of me. I’d had a child to raise.
Now … this was what I really wanted.
Mia was what I wanted.
This meant a lot to me.
Eden was the closest person to Mia. And I wanted to show Mia that I was more serious about this than I had been about anything in my entire life. She wasn’t some fresh pussy to me. She wasn’t someone I would ever give up on, no matter how hard it became between us.
She was mine, my Mia.
I wasn’t going to leave when times got tough, when rumors about us were spreading like wildfire around the town because of my ex-wife. Nothing would stop me from loving Mia with all I had.
“Mia just left. You missed her,” she said.
I stepped into the room. “I actually wanted to talk to you.”
With wide eyes, she pushed herself to a sitting position, tilted her head, and grinned up. “About what?”
There was a lump in my throat, and for a moment, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. This was real. I was really doing this. I swallowed it and took another step into the room. “About Mia.”
She nodded to a chair next to her bed, and I took a deep breath, inhaling Mia’s perfume. When I was about to come out with it, she placed a frail hand on my wrist and smiled.
“Mia loves you more than anything—I hope you know that. She’s never really had a strong man in her life. She’s afraid to love—really, truly love—Michael. But I can see it in her eyes when she talks about you.”
My heart warmed. I knew Mia loved me. It had taken everything I had to tell her about Linda and my past the other night. But when she’d looked over at me … God, it was like … I didn’t even have words for it.
“I love her too.” I smiled.
A smile tugged at her lips. “Good.” She released my wrist. “Now, what do you want to talk about?”
I rubbed my sweaty palms together and tried to roll the tension out of my neck. But when I couldn’t, I saidfuck itand decided to come out with it already. “I want to spend the rest of my life with Mia, and I wanted to ask you if—”
“Are you asking what I think you’re asking?” she asked me before I could continue, a sparkle in her wide eyes. She hadn’t even let me finish. She gulped, tears filling her eyes. “Because yes. One hundred percent yes! Mia deserves someone like you in her life forever,” she said, so much emotion on her face and in her voice.
CHAPTER23
MIA
“Michael!” I shouted, jumping into his arms as soon as he walked through the door. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and locked my legs around his waist, pulling him tightly to me. “Michael, my mom has her memories back!”
