Mid Life Love: At Last (Mid Life Love #2)(75)

Since we’d spent last Christmas overseas, we were hosting the holidays at home this year per his request. He’d never had a “real Christmas” before so he insisted on having his mom and Hayley over so they could all share their first one together.

“Hey mom?” Ashley walked into the room with a pan of burnt black brownies. “I followed the directions and everything...I even used the right pan. What the hell is up with these things?”

I stepped over and looked into the pan, sighing. “You make straight A’s in college?”

“Yeah, so?”

I shook my head. “What temperature did you put them on?”

“Six hundred.”

“Six hundred?! I thought you said you followed the directions?”

“Caroline’s casserole needed to be baked ASAP, so I just halved the time. Thirty minutes at three hundred degrees equals fifteen minutes at six hundred. That’s basic math. You of all people should know that.” She shook her head at me and shrugged at Jonathan. “This was clearly an expired box of batter...I’m going to go buy some more.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Jonathan pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

“She’ll learn. My mom is going to help them with everything tonight.”

I sighed and kissed him back.

I hooked a few more ornaments onto the tree and could literally feel Caroline walking into the room.

“Yes, Caroline?” I looked over my shoulder.

“I just got me and Ashley’s final placement scores from the FAA practice-test. Our demonstration flights are in May. May fourteenth to be exact.”

“Okay?”

“I’m telling you now because we have to book a time slot in your schedule six months in advance if we want you to be there. You’re always working.”

“What? That’s not true!”

“I’m not complaining.” She smiled. “I’m just saying that—Wait, why am I even telling you? I’ll call both your secretaries and make sure they put it into your schedules.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and left the room.

I shook my head and let out a sigh. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, she was right: C and C’s Charming Designs was still making a name for itself, but it’d been growing beyond my wildest dreams—so fast that I was opening a new store overseas in a year. Statham Industries was now worth more than Jonathan’s largest competitors combined, and he’d been considering taking an extended leave of absence—just to spend more time with me.

In fact, every morning when we woke up for work, he’d kiss me and whisper, “Say the word,” waiting to see if I would ask him to step down, practically begging me to.

On the one hand, I wasn’t completely sure if I wanted him to do that—even if it was “only six months.” He was excited about the changes his company was making—all the new products they were releasing next year, and I didn’t want him to think I hadn’t noticed that.

On the other, even though our sex life was f**king incredible—I couldn’t think of a single day when we didn’t have sex at least once, we didn’t see each other that much. Unless Ashley and Caroline came home for a visit or we threw a party, we both worked extremely hard during the week and we only got to share small parts of the weekend with one another.

Don’t get me wrong, he always did small things to let me know I was on his mind—endless flowers, beautiful gifts, and home cooked dinners that I could never master, but I spent more time at work than I did with him and it hurt me sometimes...

“What are you thinking about?” Jonathan tilted my face towards him.

“Nothing...Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened to that lawsuit Ryan filed against you?”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re thinking about your ex-husband?”

I rolled my eyes. “You never told me...”

He pressed a kiss against my forehead and smiled. “He pressed charges against me for assault and battery.”

“And?”

“And I have the best lawyers in the world.” He smirked.

“Jonathan!”

He sighed. “They sent him a copy of the security tape that shows him pushing you down the steps...” He clenched his jaw. “With a note telling him to drop the charges or we would press counter charges...So he dropped his claims...And then I pressed charges anyway.”

My eyes widened. “What? Why?”

“Because he could’ve killed you...” He ran his fingers through my hair. “We settled out of court under our own terms. You’ll never see him again.”

The tone of his voice told me not to ask anything further about that subject.

I didn’t even want to know.

He clasped my hand and led me over to the couch. “Tell me what you were really thinking about.”

“You stepping down for six months...”

“Do you really want me to do that, Claire?” He looked into my eyes. “I will.”

I glanced at the fire that was blazing in the heath, at the bright red stockings that hung over the bricks, and at our huge family portrait that hung high above our massive Christmas tree. I realized that I wanted these family events to happen more often, and I didn’t want it to have to be a holiday for him and I to get alone time.