The Last Letter(80)

“I like you in pants.”

“That’s not the point! It’s July, Beckett! July is for shorts and hikes and suntans, and being kissed under the moonlight. And I’m in jeans with no kisses, and my legs look like a Yeti somewhere in the Himalayas lent me his coat!”

“Wow, that’s…really visual.” Don’t laugh. Do. Not. Laugh.

Oh yeah, those nails were leaving marks.

“I’m not a woman anymore. I’m a mom. A mom who can’t be anything other than a mom because her kid might not live through the year.” She deflated like a popped balloon, her hands leaving my biceps and her head landing with a small thud against my chest. “God, I’m selfish.”

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in tight. “You’re not selfish. You’re human.”

“Hair doesn’t matter. Not on my legs or on my head. Not when Maisie doesn’t even have any. I told you, we get a month of downtime, and my brain just runs amok on crap that doesn’t matter.” She mumbled the words into my chest.

“It matters because you matter. You know when you’re on an airplane, and they tell you to put the oxygen mask on you first before your kids? This is that. If you only put the oxygen on your kid, then you pass out and can’t help them. Every once in a while, you have to take a breath, Ella, or you’re going to suffocate.”

“I’m okay. I just needed to get that out.”

“I know you are, and I can take it.”

She pulled back an inch and gave me a sexy-as-hell smirk.

“What?” I was almost afraid of her answer.

“Oh, nothing. It just doesn’t feel like I’m in the friend zone.” She shrugged.

Oh shit, I was hard, and I’d yanked her right against me.

“I never said I didn’t want you, Ella. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I said the opposite. Nothing’s changed.”

She blew a long breath out through her lips, moving a strand of blond hair that had slipped free of her ponytail. “Yeah, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Hairy legs and all.”

“You’re killing me.” I took her hand and turned around, then left the residence with her in tow, winding our way to the front desk where Hailey was handling paperwork of some kind. “Hailey.”

“Beckett,” she said in a mock-serious voice.

“Take Ella right now to get her hair cut. Get her a massage, a seaweed bath, or whatever it is you girls like to do. Paint toenails, get new clothes, all of it. You have five hours, and then I need her at the courthouse. Can you do that?”

“Beckett—” Ella objected.

“Stop,” I pleaded. “You’re giving me the gift of your kids. Let me give you a few hours. And afterward, we’ll go out. To an actual restaurant with actual menus and no crayons on the table. No lawyers. No kids. Just us. And you’ll feel as pretty as you always are to me.”

“Ella, if you don’t jump this guy, I will,” Hailey stated.

Ella silenced her with a glare. “Hailey has to work.”

“I’ll handle the phones and guests,” I offered.

“You will?” Ella scrunched her mouth to the side just like Maisie. “And you won’t kill anyone who annoys you?”

“I will do my best to leave your business intact.” I pulled out my wallet and then handed Hailey my credit card. “Don’t give this to Ella, she won’t use it. Please go make her feel like a woman.”

“This is going to be so much fun!” Hailey skipped out from behind the front desk. “I’ll grab my purse, and then we’ll go!”

“And I’ll keep an eye on the littles,” Ada chimed in, having caught the end of the exchange. “I’ll put them to bed, too. You kids stay out as long as you like.” She shouted the last part as she walked back toward the kitchen.

“Are you sure?” Ella asked me.

God, she was so beautiful. I took her hand and pulled her into an alcove just off the front hall. “You’re stunning. You don’t need makeup. There has never been a moment since I met you that I saw you as anything less than an incredible, exquisitely beautiful woman. But I understand that you don’t feel the way I see you. So yes, I’m sure.”

“You’re always taking care of me,” she whispered.

I gave in to impulse, letting my thumb slide across the soft, flawless skin of her cheek. “That’s the idea.” We were too close, the air too charged, and I loved this woman too much to keep a cool head. Before I inevitably pinned her to the wall and proved to her that virginity didn’t just regrow, I needed to let her go. “I’ll see you at the courthouse at four thirty,” I promised. Then I lifted her hand, flipped it over, and pressed a long, soft kiss directly to the center of her palm, wishing more than anything that it was her mouth.

Her breath caught as I closed her grip, like she could hold on to the kiss.

“What was that for?”

“To prove that I don’t give a crap about hairy legs. Plus, now it hasn’t been seven years since you’ve been kissed.”

Her lips parted, and her gaze dropped to my mouth.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I wasn’t sure need was even the appropriate word for how badly I wanted Ella anymore. It was a constant ache that simply existed as my normal. Before I could do anything else I might regret later, I stepped out into the entry hall.