She took a deep breath.
This was it.What she’d been missing for so long.
Him.Them.Together.
The silence was broken by Ginger meowing as she came over to investigate.Thea looked down at the orange cat rubbing against Nathaniel’s leg, smiling at Ginger’s insistence that Nat pet her.
“Hey, kit,” he said, waiting for Thea to reclaim her own balance before reaching down to pet her.
Thea let out a deep sigh.What was it about being here with him that let her relax so completely?“I need to finish cleaning,” she said, shifting her weight as if to walk away from him, but he caught her waist and pulled her back.
“Just wait a moment,” he murmured.“You need to let yourself rest occasionally.”
His hands slid up her back to grip her shoulders, and Thea smiled in anticipation of what was coming next.“May I?”he asked.
Thea melted into his touch as he began massaging her shoulders.
“How did you know I needed that?”she asked as he began working through all the sore spots.
“Because you always carry your stress right here,” he said as his fingers pushed into the sore spot in her shoulder.
“Ow,” she said, cringing under his touch—not because she didn’t want it, but because it was blissfully painful.
“I wondered if that had changed,” he admitted with a chuckle.
“It didn’t,” she admitted, “unfortunately.I’ve missed you helping me with it, though.”
There had been more days than she wanted to think of where her ability to work had been impeded by the knot in her shoulder preventing her from moving well.
“I will help you with it for as long as you want,” he said gently, his fingers stopping their probing and beginning to rub soothing circles along her back.“I never stopped loving you, Thea—even when you were ignoring me and pretending you hated me.”
“Oh,Ihatedyou,”she interjected, unwilling to let him think she had been pretending.“But that was before I let myself remember what it was like to be loved by you.”
Nathaniel’s hands slid from her shoulders to her waist, and he gently spun her around.“Can we start over?No hate, no avoidance, just you and me in the café that you built in my building, and all the memories of our past.”
“The good ones,” Thea pointed out.
“Only the good ones,” he said with a chuckle.“We don’t need sad ones.”
“I need to lock up,” Thea said softly as he reached up to smooth her hair away from her face.
“You want to lock the door?”he teased.
Thea narrowed her eyes at him.
“Did you know that you are even more beautiful now than the day I first met you?”Nat asked.“And I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen that day.”
“Are you trying to distract me?”she asked.
“Would I do that?”he asked, his fingers trailing down her neck.
Thea sighed.“Yes, you absolutely would.”
“Thea,” he said quietly as he began leaning in and she closed her eyes.
The door swung open, and the bell rang, and Thea’s eyes burst open.Who was coming in after hours?
“Hello,” Dietrich’s voice called.“There’s someone here to see you.”
