Only One Mistake (Only One 6)

She smiles. “I did, but the bed was cold without you.” I hold her face in my hands, kissing her lips.

“We have to leave in ten minutes,” I remind her, and her eyebrows shoot together. “We have three houses to visit today.” I look around. “I hate this place,” I say. “It’s cold, and the only thing good about it is you sitting here.”

“Well, when you put it like that.” She gets up, and she is wearing my shirt, her stomach sticking out just a touch. “I’ll come with you.” She walks past me, and all I want to do is take her in my arms, so I do. My hands go straight to her ass. “If you continue doing that, we are not going to leave in ten minutes.”

She pushes my chest away from her and then walks back to the bedroom. I follow her as she gets dressed next to the small bag she brought over yesterday. Just looking at the bag with her clothes in it gets my blood going, but I push it down, knowing that if she likes a house today, we are going to have to have a whole different conversation, and it’s a conversation that I’m not going to lose.

“So what’s in door number one?” Jillian looks over at me as we sit in the SUV and head to my least favorite house of the bunch.

“House number one is six bedrooms, ten bathrooms,” I say, looking over at her, and she just looks at me with her mouth hanging open. “A media room.”

“You lied to me,” she huffs out, and I’m taken aback by what she just said. “We aren’t going to look at houses,” she says. “We are going to look at mansions.” I laugh nervously, grabbing her hand and bringing it to my lips. When we pull up to the house, I look at her reaction, just in case she actually likes it and doesn’t want to tell me. I can tell from her face she isn’t impressed, and I breathe a sigh of relief. The whole time I watch her face to see if she likes it when she stands in the middle of the monstrosity of a house. “What does one do with all this space?” she asks, going around in a circle. “How long does it take someone to clean?”

I laugh at her. “If someone buys this house.” I look around. “I can guarantee that they have money to hire a cleaning lady.”

“How much is this house?” she asks, and I smile and look away. “Michael.”

“Five point two,” I say, watching her face.

“Million dollars?” she gasps, and the fact she still doesn’t know how much I make is refreshing. The fact she doesn’t know what my family is worth is even bigger.

“Okay, let’s go check out house number two.” I hold out my hand, and she grabs it.

“What are the other two worth?” she asks, and I shake my head, opening the SUV door for her. I don’t tell her because the third one is the house I want. But I’ll only get it if she likes it because if I have my way, she’s going to be living there with me. “What did you do today, Jillian?” She mimics a conversation that she is going to have. “I went to see million-dollar homes wearing eight-dollar Gap flip-flops.”

When we pull up to the second house, she has the same look as the last one. It’s the same as the first house. But when I pull up to the house I want, I look over at her and see that her eyes glisten. “This house only has five bathrooms,” I say, and she shakes her head, getting out.

“You know you’re slumming when your house only has five bathrooms,” she jokes as we walk up the circular walkway. The white two-story house has a great layout plan, and if I have my way, lots of rooms to fill up. “I like that little balcony.” She points up at the balcony on the second floor. “This house also doesn’t look huge,” she says, and when she walks in and gasps. It might look small from the outside, but the minute you walk in, you are greeted with the big family room that goes all the way to the back The whole back wall is windows, showing you the backyard. “I take it back.” She looks around, seeing that the stairs are on the left to go upstairs, and you can look down from upstairs. On the right-hand side is the dining room, and she walks over to it to peek inside it. I don’t say anything the whole time. I watch her eyes as we move from room to room.

The house is open concept, another thing I love about it. “So what do you think?” I ask her when we stand in the middle of the kitchen. That one has a massive island, exactly like I had growing up, which pulled me to this house even more.