Page 61 of Unmasking Mr. Crown

She lifted her eyes up from the glow of the screen. "Are you asking if there was a lightning bolt moment? Stars across a crowded room?"

"Was there?"

She shook her head. "No. Cecil and I aren't that kind of love."

"What kind are you?"

"The slow-burn kind. We knew each other for years. We grew up together. I thought he was the most loud-mouthed, egotistical, self-absorbed bullshit artist in the world. Everyone kept trying to push us together and we kept resisting."

Dash nudged her. "Really? Even with that much in common?"

She laughed. “Please. Honey, looks are deceiving.”

"But you're soulmates,” he said quietly. “I've never known two people more in love."

"We don't feel that way all the time. There are times when we can't keep our hands off each other—yes, even old farts like us. Then there are days when we can’t stand to be in the same room. He calls me his Trollmate. I call him my Lump-of-Coalmate."

Dash grinned. "That proves it."

"I wish it were that simple. There were plenty of times we wanted to walk away. We both had attorneys on speed-dial at one point."

Her words hit him like a freight train. He’d seen their arguments over the years–loud, dramatic, theatrical. Yet underneath it all, an unshakable love.

"Miranda," His hoarse voice dropped. "I had no idea."

"No one does. We both drink too much. We're both stubborn. We fight like feral cats behind closed doors. But losing Eli … that nearly broke us.”

Dash squeezed her hand. Eli’s death. He still remembered the day the news came, the heart-shattering loss of their only child.

"Love isn't perfect," she continued. "It's not all romantic dinners and horse-drawn carriages. Love is work. Real, honest to goodness work.”

"You two make it look easy."

“That’s because Cecil picks me up on my darkest days, and I do the same for him. There isn’t one day where I said, ‘yep, he's the one’ and left it at that. We keep discovering it, over and over. He reminded me to pack my contact lens solution. I left him the last sleeve of Thin Mints.”

“The give-and-take of everyday life?”

“Exactly. It's not about the rooftop moments. I mean, the rooftop moments are wonderful and we've had our share. But really, when it comes right down to it, it's about fixing the leaky roof together."

Dash let her words sink deep, to a place he hadn’t acknowledged in months.

"Spending your life with another person can be the most beautiful thing in the world. But, at times, it can also be the most painful.”

“I’m glad y’all didn’t give up on each other.”

She squeezed his hand. “Me too.”

Miranda turned back to her phone. Again, Dash focused on the city outside his window. If only he could’ve recorded every word. She’d served up life lessons before, but this one was different. And delivered at the moment he was most ready to receive it.

“And to answer your original question—no, I can't tell you how I knew Cecil was the one. I just know the universe kept pushing Cecil and me back together. And when the universe deems it to be so …"

"Cecil is one lucky sonuvabitch."

"I’m the lucky one. He's a good man. And I know with absolute certainty he’d go to the ends of the earth for me."

"And you'd do the same."

"Well, I'd drive across Harris County at the very least," she smirked. "But never during rush hour."