Mr. Smithfield - Louise Bay Page 0,100

And I haven’t finished my hair because you’ve interested me plenty already this morning.”

I watched as she had to do exactly nothing to her hair for it to look completely amazing. She stepped into her strappy black heels. “Yeah, I’m going to need you to wear those for me later when everything else is off.”

“That can be arranged.” She glanced at me as she dropped her phone into her bag. “In the meantime, let’s go and watch our best friends get married.”

I held out my hand and she took it. “Us next, right?”

“Us next, what?”

I pulled the hotel room door closed and we started down the hallway. “You know—getting married.”

She shook her head. “You’re crazy. I’ve been back in London a week. We’ve only just told Bethany.”

“I’m not saying we need to start thinking about it next week, but I want to marry you. That’s not a surprise, is it?” I wanted to do it all with Autumn. I wanted to make love with her, wake up with her, cook, travel, father her children, and spend my life with her. I’d wait if that’s what she wanted, but I had no doubt about where I stood.

“I guess not. And I’m not saying no, obviously. I need to find a job and figure out where I’m going to live—”

“What do you mean, figure out where you’re going to live? Are you thinking that we might not be living together?” I was clearly making assumptions about our future that I shouldn’t have been. A pit opened up in my gut, but I took a breath and waited for her answer. I was beyond jumping to conclusions.

She shrugged. “We haven’t talked about any of this stuff. But we’ll work it out. It’s not like we don’t have the rest of our lives together.”

Relief and warmth and sunshine flooded through me, closing up the pit again.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too,” she replied. “And I want to live with you . . .”

“But?” I could hear the unspoken word echoing down the hallway. We got to the lift and she turned to face me.

“But honestly, I don’t want to live in the house where your ex-wife picked out the wallpaper.”

“That’s just as well, because the house is up for sale.”

She tilted her head as a smile crept across her face. “It is?”

“I want a fresh start with you. I don’t want to live in the past anymore. And I want to live in our house. Not my house. You’re not going to be an overnight guest or the nanny. You’re going to be my wife. My best friend. My partner. We should pick out the place we’re going to raise our family together.”

“Raise a family?” she said, looking like I just asked her the difference between a turret lathe and a toolroom lathe.

“I hate to tell you, but Bethany comes as part of the deal.” I knew that’s not what she meant, but she was so easy to tease.

“Of course,” she replied. “But . . . Gabriel . . . I’m not ready for—”

I slid my hand around her waist and pulled her closer. “I know. I’m thinking too far ahead. I just want to future-proof the house. We’ll wait as long as you want. I want you to be happy.”

“You always know the perfect thing to say,” she said, and we stepped into the lift.

“Now you know that’s not true. I’m going to get it wrong a lot. I’m impatient and surly at times. But promise me you’ll always know that you are at the center of everything I do. You and Bethany. You two are everything I think about, everything I am. I might need you to help me back on track from time to time but know that I love you, even when I veer off course.”

The lift doors pinged open, and we made our way toward the suite where Dexter and Hollie were getting married. “Gabriel Chase, I love the way you love me. I love you just as hard. And I’m going to make mistakes too. But I know that we’ll be with each other until one of us isn’t in this world anymore.”

I nodded, knowing what she was saying because it was exactly how I felt. We had just strolled through the corridors of a hotel on the way to a wedding, but it was as if we were the ones who had just been married. Our promises wouldn’t get any stronger for being made in