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more. “I’m serious, Savi. Let’s do something. Something legit.”

    I pushed up on my side, too, since basking was clearly over. “Something legit,” I repeated. “I already have that. So do you.”

    “Our parents have that,” he corrected. “My dad, your dad—they started something, they didn’t just take over from someone else.”

    “Okay—”

    “I want that,” he said, his voice low, his expression fierce. “I want it with you. I want everything with you.”

    I felt tears burn the backs of my eyes, such an unfamiliar sensation at such unfamiliar words. And wherever it was coming from was finding its match in me. What the hell? My heart felt a ping of something I normally pushed aside, but I had to be practical.

    “That takes time and money, Ian,” I said. “Two things we don’t have an abundance of.”

    “I have something in the works.”

    Ah. “Of course you do,” I said on a smile. “So much for legit. I thought we were backing off all that.”

    “No, I’m serious. I’m saying that with this we can start something real,” he said, reaching for my face, holding me with his eyes. “Something we build and make for us. You, me, and Abby,” he said. “I’m saying trust me. It’s always been us, Savi. We—” He stopped, his voice thick, his gaze piercing me.

    “We what?” I whispered, hearing the quiver and hating it. Hating that I was holding my breath, waiting for him to say something I never thought I even wanted to hear. Suddenly I did. More than anything in the world, I wanted to hear it.

    His eyes searched mine, his jaw set tight, like he was about to sell his soul. I knew the feeling.

    “We could have something. Be a family,” he said, the words so slow and soft it was as if he was trying them out on his tongue. “Have what we used to imagine in that old stone house.” I felt the hot tears leave my eyes and track down my cheeks, and Ian wiped them away with a finger. “If you—” His eyes burned into mine, saying it. Saying it. “Ask me to stay.”

    “Stay,” I breathed before I could give it another thought.

    He let out a breath and closed his eyes, waiting what felt like an eternity to open them. When he did, they were vulnerable. Something he rarely showed.

    “I love you.”

    My chest squeezed all the air from my lungs and pushed more tears up and out of my eyes instead. Holy fuck-shit.

    “I love you, too.”

     

    I shut my eyes tight against the memory. I wasn’t the one to kill all of that, he was. And while I was a big girl, he hadn’t just done it to me. Abby was ten, then, and had cried and missed her Uncle Ian for what seemed like a fucking lifetime after he left what he wanted to call our family, until one day she just stopped asking. I don’t know which broke my heart more.

    I tried to be the mature, logical, independent role model, but the truth was she probably had me beat. What would Abby say if she could see me wigging out over him like this?

    Ian was the past, and the one I learned from. That was it. Duncan was funny and sweet and sexy and smoking hot, and I was being given the opportunity to know him a little better.

    On that note, I revisited the black jeans with the black lacy jacket and the red tank top. With flats. It looked business-ish but feminine, and the black made my boring blonde look more exciting. Good grief, being girly was exhausting.

    At least I had a plan. I took a last look in the mirror. My hair was pretty good—or as good as my hair got. Straight at the top with wavy ends. It was going to do that, independent of anything I tried to do, so I let it be. Just enough makeup to enhance without being distracting.

    “It’s not about Ian,” I whispered to my reflection, shaking my head slowly.

    My phone sang from the dresser with piano chords, my daughter’s ringtone, and I answered with a nonchalant, “Hello?”

    “Are you nervous?” came Abby’s voice.

    I frowned. “About?”

    “Your coffee