Burned Hearts (Burned 3)

He continued to stare, completely at a loss for words.

I gave him a few moments to let my news sink in.

A few more to process.

Several more to form a coherent thought that I hoped wouldn’t include you fucking did what?

“Dane?” I tentatively asked when it seemed a couple of minutes had ticked by.

He opened his mouth to speak. No words came out.

I repositioned myself, sitting up and straddling his midsection.

r /> “Say something,” I urged.

I’d never stumped him, rendered him speechless. Not even when he’d found out I was having his baby. Dane Bax was not a man you caught off-guard or left stupefied. That was his job, actually. Particularly when it came to me.

“Dane?” I waved a hand in front of his face. “You okay? Honey?”

He suddenly came around. His hands clasped my waist and he moved me slightly so that he could sit up, with me still in his lap. “You only call me honey when you think you’ve done something I won’t like.”

“Have I?”

“I don’t know.”

My stomach took a dive south. Shit. Maybe I should have asked his permission first. Warned him well in advance of my intentions.

What had I been thinking?

He moved me again and climbed out of bed. Did his token pacing while I watched. And resisted the desire to gnaw on my lip or my nails. My stomach stayed hunkered down around my knees, all twisted up.

When I couldn’t take the silence any longer, I said, “Look, Amano told me you’d probably mow the whole thing down since the lobby had been destroyed, and maybe that’s because it’ll never be the same. I mean, even with the same team and the same plans, it’s not going to be exactly the same. I had to order specially crafted fixtures, but they’re very similar, Dane, and so very, very stunning. I swear. I wouldn’t put a trash receptacle on that property if it wasn’t the most artistically designed container imaginable. You know I’d never—”

“Ari.” He held up his hand, effectively cutting me off. His tone had done that just as well. “You’re rebuilding the Lux?”

“Yes.”

“My hotel?”

“Yes.”

“You?”

“Well.” I let out a nervous laugh. “Not me personally, obviously. But I am overseeing the whole thing remotely. After all, it was constructed once. It’s not as though the people I rehired haven’t already connected Part A to Part B and so on. Even better, it was determined that the main building is structurally sound. I have certification for it. We’re currently rebuilding the center section. No small undertaking, but at least we don’t have to—”

“Ari.” Again with the hand. “You’re rebuilding my hotel?”

“Am I not speaking English?” I inquired, a bit perplexed.

“Our hotel,” he mused. “You’re rebuilding our hotel.”

“You did make me sign papers at our wedding that gave me half of the Lux,” I reminded him. “All of it, in the event anything happened to you. And for a while, I did think something had happened to you, so—”

“You are unbelievable.”

I gazed at him, not at all sure what went through his mind. My apprehension mounted. “Is that unbelievable in the good sense … or the bad sense?”

“Baby.” He grinned, yet his eyes burned with a different emotion. Not just delight, but … awe. “You never cease to amaze me.”