The Bride Changed. The Bill Didn't. novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: What She Wants

Cal's POV

I had practiced the question on the plane for eleven hours.

On Saturday afternoon I stood in her kitchen and couldn't remember how it started.

Mara sat at the table in a gray sweatshirt with her hair down, eating cereal out of a mug.

She had slept for fourteen hours.

I had slept for three, on the floor outside her door, because I wasn't sure I was allowed in.

"You're hovering," she said.

"I'm standing."

"You're hovering near the coffee."

"I'm deciding if I'm allowed to make it."

She put down the spoon.

"Cal. Ask your question."

I pulled out the chair across from her and sat.

"The hotel got a booking last night," I said. "Two hundred guests, three weeks from now. If I say yes by Monday, I'm in Italy until Christmas."

"I know. You told me in the hall."

"I could say no."

"You won't."

"I could say no," I said again, "and stay here. I could run it from your couch. I could buy a winter coat."

She laughed, a short real laugh.

Then she stopped and looked at me.

"You're about to ask me to come with you."

"I'm not."

"You're not?"

"Every person in your life has told you where to go," I said. "Dalton picked your coat. His mother picked your wedding. I picked a lawyer once, and you made me apologize."

"You did apologize well."

"I'm still not going to tell you where to live. I'm going to ask you what you want, and I'm going to shut up and listen."

She was quiet for a while.

Out the window, the old woman from the third stoop was watering her geraniums and pretending not to look at us.

"I've spent my whole life building things for other people," Mara said slowly. "Their weddings, their parties. Even Dalton's. Even this house is something I built because I thought a woman who owned a house couldn't be dumped."

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