My Fiancé Butt-Dialed Me Mid-Affair, So I Married His Brother novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Renegotiated

We drove home with the windows down and the note on the dashboard.

My father went to sleep in the loft with a tin of Kendall's shortbread on his chest.

Kendall took the room with the good radiator and shut her door on a loud, happy snore.

The house was quiet.

Hayes lit the stove in the front room, and for the first time since I had known him it did not smoke.

He stood in front of it with his back to me and his jacket off.

"It's warm," he said.

"It's yours."

"It's ours."

I crossed the floor and put my hand flat on his back.

He turned around, and I looked at his face in the firelight.

It was not the face of the man who had stood up in my engagement party.

It was lighter, and tired, and wide open.

"I need to say something," I said, "and I'm going to say it before I lose my nerve."

"All right."

"I love you."

His eyes closed.

"I loved you in the study, I think," I said. "Before I knew it. I loved you in the kitchen when you said you'd lose the house. I loved you on that boat."

"Joanna."

"You don't have to say it."

"I love you," Hayes said. "I loved you across a lawn in July with an egg in your hand. I've been an idiot about it ever since."

I laughed, and then I kissed him.

It was slow, with nothing hurried in it, and his hands came up to cup my face.

"Upstairs," I said against his mouth.

"Yes."

We went up in the dark, and he lit one candle in his father's room.

I turned my back to him, and he drew the zipper of my navy gown down my spine, one tooth at a time.

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