Holiday In the Hamptons (From Manhattan with Love 5)

“I love you. That’s what’s in my head. And in my heart.” He stroked his fingers over her chin, and her eyes filled.

“I love you, too.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks, and he brushed them away with his thumb.

“Don’t cry. For pity’s sake, don’t cry. Harriet will kill me.”

“These are happy tears.”

“I don’t want tears at all. I never want to see you cry, and I definitely don’t want to make you cry.”

“Not even when it’s in a good way?”

“Never. I just want to see you happy. I’ll move back to Manhattan if that’s what you want.”

“You’d do that for me? Even though you love it here?”

“I want to be with you. I’ll do whatever works for you.”

“What if it worked for me to stay here? To build up a business here. It’s not as if it’s far from Manhattan. I can hitch a ride on Chase’s helicopter whenever I need to get back.”

“Or Todd’s.”

She gasped. “He’s buying the house?”

“Seems likely. He called earlier. He’s bringing his family to see it this weekend. Wants us to join him for dinner.”

“Well, look at us, mingling with the wealthy. I might have to change out of my shorts.” She grinned up at him. “I could get used to living here, in your house by the water, with Lulu.”

“Are you sure? But if you’re going to stay here, what about Harriet?”

“She doesn’t want me to protect her.” Fliss let out a breath. “I think that’s going to be hard. Maybe it will be easier if I’m not breathing down her neck all the time.”

“It wouldn’t drive you crazy living here? The Poker Princesses will want to know

every detail.”

“I was thinking I could distribute a monthly newsletter, to save them the trouble of asking or listening to rumors. You could pin it to the bulletin board in your clinic. We could call it Straight from the Horse’s Mouth.”

He laughed. “If you’re going to be living here, you’ll need to bake cookies.”

“I’m an expert, although I’m not telling anyone how many batches were abandoned before I reached that lofty status.”

He lowered his forehead to hers. “You’d be prepared to stay here? Live here? With me?”

“Always.”

He lifted his head and glanced around him, a smile on his face.

“Before today it was a house, and now it feels like home.”

“Because you’ve sold Ocean View. Because you’ve finally moved in properly.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Because you’re here. You make it feel like home. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I thought I was the wrong woman for you, but that’s because for a very long time I saw the woman my father saw. Deep down I believed all the things he said about me. It was like looking into one of those mirrors that distorts everything. And that was partly the reason we never would have made it the first time around. Because I really did believe I wasn’t good enough, that I was Bad Fliss, that I’d ruined your life.”

“And now? Do you believe that now?”

She shook her head. “No. I spent most of my life proving to him that I wasn’t that person, and somewhere along the way I proved it to myself, too. I just didn’t realize it until recently.”