time to say everything. And if I’m being honest, I don’t know what everything is right now. So if you don’t like vague, then it has to be nothing. And I hope I’ve completed my sentences well enough so you do know what I mean.”
“You can’t be mad because I’m going out of business. I’m sorry. That’s just not allowed. So if I’ve offended some delicate part of your ego because I’ve managed to separate what you’ve done to me professionally from what you’ve done to me personally, then maybe you need to start practicing what you preach a little better.”
“What I preach?” Kael rested his hands on his hips and leaned forward a few inches. “What does that mean?”
“It means … you can’t give me that look like you’re not okay with being someone’s sex toy when you don’t want anything more from a relationship than sex.”
“I never said that.”
“You did!” My voice boomed, eliciting a quick glance from his employee in the kitchen.
“No. I didn’t.”
“You don’t believe in monogamy.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I never said that.”
“You totally said that.”
“I said I wasn’t sure if humans are meant to mate for life.”
“Same thing.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Not the same thing. I never said humans can’t be monogamous or that some don’t have a natural desire to be monogamous. But monogamy doesn’t mean mating for life. It simply means one partner at a time—for however long. And maybe that’s eternity, but that should be a choice not a contract.”
My lips parted in preparation of saying something, but that something never came.
“I have to open my store.”
When I didn’t move, not one blink, he reached forward and hooked my index finger with his. It made that malfunctioning organ behind my ribs ache. “I don’t expect anything, and I don’t think you do either. But I also don’t want to be with anyone else right now. So call it monogamy or just good old infatuation with one person, but that’s where I’m at right now.”
I stared at our hooked fingers. “For how long? How long will you only want to be with me?”
“How should I know?”
Because my heart likes to know these things before making an investment.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Expectations are a prelude to failure.” He released my finger.
My gaze lifted to meet his. “What are we without expectations? Lost?”
“Free.”
“How would you feel if you found out I was having a …” I cleared my throat as Bella glanced up from her plate on our first night alone again since the boys left after Thanksgiving.
“A what?” She paused her fork near her lips.
I hadn’t touched my food. Kael was the only person who knew I was planning on closing the store after Christmas. Why I chose to tell him first … I had no idea.
“What if I said I’ve been intimate with someone for the past month? How would you feel?”
She squinted at me, mouth agape. “Skeptical. Uh … I’d ask who? There’s like … one maybe two eligible men in this town who are worth looking at.”
“Who?”
Bella shook her head slowly and shrugged. “Mike Holmes and Brian Hosier.”
Pathetic. Epperly was so dang small. It didn’t take her more than two seconds to name two of the three eligible bachelors in Epperly.
“Is this hypothetical? Or did you have sex with our banker or Dad’s attorney? Or are you thinking of dating one of them? What’s going on?”
“I’m not having sex with or dating Mike or Brian. My question was how would you feel? Regardless of who it hypothetically is or would be.”
Her gaze dropped to her plate as she used her fork to pick at her eggs. “I mean … it would feel a little weird. It’s always been Dad. But I’m not naive. I know you’re too young to never think about getting married again.”
“Whoa. No. I’m not talking marriage, Bella.”
Her head shot up. “You’re not?”
I laced my fingers behind my neck and looked up at the ceiling on a long inhale. “What if I wanted …”
“Sex?” Bella laughed as if it were a ridiculous thought.
Releasing my neck, I leveled my head, eyeing her without blinking. “Would that be so crazy?”
Her head jerked back a fraction, eyebrows knitted while her eyes shifted side to side for a few seconds. “Kinda. I mean. You just want to live with someone? You don’t want to get remarried?”
I raised her so well in the eyes of the church—except for a few minor slips like losing her virginity before marriage