He cringed, but it’d been hard not to react to what she’d shared. “Sorry. Go on.”
“We don’t know everything about each other. We’re learning and then throw this baby in the mix. Your lifestyle and mine are different. Not just the wealth, but how you live. And I know you’re getting better, or taking care of it. Not the way I would, but I told myself you have to be you and I’ll be me.”
“That’s right.”
“So I can handle the cleaning person because I’m not going to be the maid. I accepted that. I accepted that you’ve got morethan me. That your daily life differs from mine. We’re going to have different parenting styles. I even understand that because you don’t have a structure in your life in terms of a job like me, that you’ve got more free time to let your mind wander. Wander to things like if I’ll change my mind about how you feel.”
“I sound like a wuss.”
She laughed and patted his hand. “And maybe I sound a bit like a witch even thinking those things. But I’ve always looked for the bad before the good. I can’t change a lifetime of that. I value honesty in people and haven’t always received it. I left this island hoping to find something different and didn’t. I just found people were the same if not worse.”
“Davey The Douche. I might hunt him down.”
“Stop,” she said, smiling. Just a soft quick one. There didn’t seem to be much anger in her tone or voice now. Not even in her body. “He was one small inequitable example in the bigger picture, but it really hurt back then. I found out what he was about in his room. I think it could have been much worse if fate hadn’t intervened. But it shaped me and my trust in people. I’ve gotten better in general, but in matters of the heart, that’s just harder. I’m trying and I felt I’ve succeeded. That you’ve helped me.”
“Get it all out before I say my part.”
“I said most of it. Then you show up on the island and I’m wary but willing. That’s the best I can describe it. You made me think, feel, and do things I’ve not done with others. I fell in love with everything about you. Everything but your wealth. I don’t see that.”
“I know you don’t.”
“But it’s hard to be completely blind to it. Sometimes my life feels out of control and you’re not just on the ride with me, but you’re steering things.”
“And you don’t like to give up control. I know. I took that from you today, didn’t I?”
“You did. You’ve done it a few times. And I’m trying to understand that because I can’t always be the one in control either. That is why I said we need to talk things out. So, there you go. You can talk.”
“You said a lot of what I’ve been feeling. But where things are different is how we grew up. You were exposed to a long, healthy marriage. Me, not so much.”
“Your grandparents.”
“Yes, they had a long marriage, but it was a different generation. They rarely showed affection with each other. Then I’ve got my parents showing too much with everyone they are with.”
More than he wanted to know.
“And that’s weighed on you for years,” she said. “I didn’t believe how bad it was with your family until I witnessed it.”
“Can I confess to you I would have agreed to anything to get you to go to Nick’s wedding? That I felt once you saw my family and what they were about there’d be no surprises afterward. It’s like that weight would be lifted and out in the open before we went any further.”
“I wouldn’t have judged you on them, Arik,” she said softly. Her hand reached for his thigh and ran over it in comfort.
“I know that now, but I didn’t then. It goes back to how fast everything is going and how well—or not so well in my case—that we are maneuvering through things.”
“We’re both getting through it the best we can. I have to not let my emotions get the best of me.”
He laughed and tucked her close to his side, and dropped his arm. “You realize how ridiculous that sounds coming from the woman who had the perfected smile and nod to anything that happens in front of her, right?”
A tiny giggle escaped from her mouth. “I know. But you have always had the ability to get me to let my feelings and emotions out. Not as fast as you’d like, but still more than anyone else.”
“Yay me,” he said.
She laughed. “That’s right, yayus. I’m sorry for how I reacted. I still think you should have told me what you were doing rather than buying it and telling me after the fact.”
“I can back out.”
“It’s not up to me,” she said.
“Yes, it is. If you don’t want the house, I’ll make the call and say we are changing our minds. There is a forty-eight-hour stipulation in there because you hadn’t seen it.”
