He led me across the entrance, where large rocks framed the flower beds and slabs of slate created the most beautiful walkway. When I expected him to bring me into the massive front door, made entirely of glass, he walked me right by it, and we rounded the corner of the home and went toward the back.
“Holy fuck,” I moaned as soon as I saw the water. “That lake …”
I could hear him laughing. I could feel his smile. But I couldn’t look at him because I couldn’t pull my stare away from the view.
The lake was magnificent, teal and navy, the border hugged by tiny rocks, the water so clear at the edge that it looked drinkable. And all around us, in every direction, were the mountains.
I didn’t realize we’d stopped until Walker was behind me, his arms crossed over my chest, his chin on top of my head.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“What do I think? I think I’ve never seen anything more gorgeous in my entire life.”
“Could you see yourself spending some time here? Say, a week a month? A week every two months?”
I turned around to face him. “What? What do you mean?”
He pointed over his shoulder. “It’s ours, Alivia. I bought this house.”
It was then that I glanced toward the home, seeing the two floors, each with massive balconies. Both stories were made almost entirely of windows, so I could only imagine the sights from inside. I had no idea how big it was, but Walker’s house in the Hollywood Hills felt like a mall, and this rivaled it.
“You bought this?”
“Yes.” He held the back of my head and smiled. “We’re so tired, but we don’t want to go to sleep. We want to watch the sky fill with color. I do anyway. You, on the other hand, want to talk about food. You relentlessly want to feed me.” He laughed. “Breakfast, lunch, dinner. But dinner is my favorite, and you know that. Because every evening, we sit on the back porch with plates in our laps and iced tea that I brewed earlier. We talk. We watch the clouds move across the water until it gets dark.” He rubbed his nose against mine.
Oh my God.
I had chills. On every part of my body.
“I said those words.” Tears were in my eyes, and they were falling faster than I could control. “How do you remember any of that?”
“Because as soon as you said that to me, that’s what I wanted too. A place just like you described. Where we can not only make art, but live inside it.” He put his hands on my cheeks, covering the wetness. “That painting meant so much to me. I can’t tell you how many times I looked at it. So, I sent Jenner a photo and told him to work his magic. He located a few cabins, but this was my favorite, and after tweaking some of the exterior, it looked almost identical to the painting.”
He rubbed his thumbs under my eyes, catching the new batch that was falling. “You made me fall in love with the day, Alivia. And I’m pretty positive you’ve now fallen in love with the night. Here, we have both. We’ll be able to watch the sunrises and the sunsets.”
I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him.
I hugged him harder than I’d ever squeezed anything. He picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, and the lift allowed me to grip him even tighter.
“I have no idea how to explain to you how much I love this,” I whispered. “And how much I love you.” I pulled back enough to align our lips.
Before he kissed me, he growled a single word.
A word that meant more to me than love.
And that was, “Mine.”
EPILOGUE
Two Months Later
Walker
My team had built hundreds of restaurants across the country, but there was something extra special about what they’d done with the construction of Alivia’s. The detail that went into every element of the interior, the emerald green she had chosen as the main color scheme, the way the space had been conceived to be so inviting. I’d studied the renderings prior to the build-out, I’d gone over the plans, and even with the amount of experience I had, I’d had no idea it would transform into this.
A space that welcomed all.
But a space that was everything she’d dreamed of.
