Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 85484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I bury my head in his chest.
“Do you even know how many kids my brothers are going to have? And Paige? Fuck. Our nieces and nephews will run to our house to escape my siblings.”
I smile against him. “I could be okay with that.”
He groans. “Oh, wait.”
“What?”
“There is one more condition.”
My heart beats harder. What now?
“You’re going to have to be okay with raising Banks because I can’t get out of it. I’ve tried,” he says.
I laugh, my whole body shaking. The light is back in Jess’s face.
Rain begins to fall around us, coming in at an angle and drenching us from head to toe. But we don’t move. We don’t even flinch. We just stare at each other and smile.
“What about your family?” I ask.
“They love you. My dad thinks you’re his long-lost daughter.”
I laugh.
We begin to sway back and forth, my arms draped over his shoulders, as thunder fills the sky.
“I love you, Jess.”
He lowers his face and kisses me softly. “I’ve waited for you to say that forever.”
“I’ve waited to say it forever.”
“I was starting to think maybe you never would.” He grins. “I want to take care of you, Pip. We’ve given up so many years apart that I don’t want to give up anymore.”
I take a deep breath. I’m not sure where he’s going with this. I’m not sure where I want him to be going with this either. But for the first time in my life, I feel like whatever he says will mean the two of us together.
This must be what it means to be loved. If so, I’ve never had this before.
It’s a feeling of safety—not just physically, but emotionally.
It’s being respected enough to be honest.
It’s being valued enough to be transparent.
It’s not just being seen, but also being heard, and knowing that no matter what you do or say—the other person will still be there. Even if you screw up.
Maybe even because you’ll screw up. At least you know you won’t have to do it alone.
This is a feeling I’ll never forget.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“I don’t want to leave room for misinterpretation.”
I grin, my heart so full it might explode. “So interpret.”
He chuckles. “It’s me and you. We’re doing life together now. There’s no more fake relationship situations, no more pretending. I’m extending my seven days to get you to fall in love with me until forever. I’ll make you fall for me every day for the rest of my life.”
My God, this man.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him.
He rests his forehead on mine. “So …”
“So …”
He chuckles. “So I need you to please tell me you’re in the same way.”
I start laughing, wrapping my hands around him.
“I mean it. I need to hear you say it.”
“Jess Carmichael …” I wink at him. “I’m. All. The. Way. In.”
He kisses me slowly, tenderly, and completely as we dance in the rain.
25
PIPPA
Jess strokes my arm as we lie in bed and listen to the rain.
I think we’re both processing our new future together, as well as the fact that we go home in the morning. It’s easy to be a couple here—where reality doesn’t exist. We’re funneled away from work stress, busy schedules, and life stress. Exactly what a couples retreat is supposed to do.
I grin against him and hold him a bit tighter.
There was no way of knowing when I sat down and conceptualized my retreat idea a few weeks ago that it would end like this. I didn’t plan on having a fake ex-husband when I blurted out that I had one—and I didn’t expect it to be Jess freaking Carmichael.
Or that the retreat would turn out to be exactly what I needed.
Jess kisses the top of my head.
What we needed.
Maybe I was onto something without even knowing it. I was shooting in the dark, having had no real relationship experience to go on. I hate, hate that Chuck the Fuck was a tiny bit right again.
There it is—Chuck and right in the same sentence again. It’s blasphemy.
Yet by stopping the routine mechanics of life and giving the universe a chance to reframe my relationship with Jess, something truly amazing bloomed.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“About how brilliant I am.”
He chuckles.
“Do you think we would’ve gotten here without Chuck the Schmuck needling me and my reaction?” I ask.
His fingertips leave a trail of goose bumps in their wake. “I’d like to think so.”
“I’d like to think so too. But …” I pause. “Maybe even assholes have their purpose, you know? If it weren’t for him getting that reaction out of me, I wouldn’t have been at Shade House to vent to Kerissa that day.”
“True.”
“And if you take it one step farther—if my parents hadn’t written me off, I probably would’ve had more support and would’ve been able to afford an apartment in Lakely. So their jerkishness in a long, roundabout way, moved me to Kismet Beach.”