The corners of her cheeks start to bend, but she doesn’t smile. I work harder for it.
“You are young. Beautiful. Smart. You have the whole world at your feet, Mallory. Why would you stifle your potential by staying with someone that wants to keep you in a box?”
She perks up, the smile I’m dying to see starts to slide across her cheeks. “You think so?”
“I know so. Now you just need a plan and I happen to be an excellent planner,” I chuckle. “What do you want to do with yourself?
“I was telling Sienna the other day that I might open a yoga studio someday.”
“And . . .”
She shrugs.
“That’s it?” I ask. “You want to maybe open a yoga studio at some point in the future?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” she says defensively. “Look, Graham. I’m starting all over. I know that’s hard for you to understand, being who you are, but I’m doing the best I can to basically recreate dreams and decide who I am in the midst of my life.”
“Hey,” I say, reaching for her hand and placing mine on top of it. “I didn’t mean anything by that. It came out as a jerk thing, and I didn’t mean it like that at all. I was wrong.”
“I know I get protective over myself right now. I just am so afraid I’ll slip and end up in some position where I’m cut down.”
“I’d never cut you down. The only people who cut others down are those threatened by their height. The higher you get, the more lovely I think you are.”
Her cheeks flush. Her hand rolls over and she squeezes mine. “That’s very nice of you to say.”
“I only speak the truth.”
She relaxes in her chair. “Tell me about you, Graham. What are your life plans?”
“I just want to keep doing what I’m doing until I can’t,” I say simply. “This business is my life. Growing up, I just wanted to be my dad. Not emulate him or pretend to be him—I wanted to be him. When he stepped back and made me President of the company, it was the proudest day of my life, you know? My father sort of passing the torch.”
“That’s awesome,” she grins. “But I feel like everything you do and say has to do with the business. What about outside of that? You have this huge family. Do you want that too?”
I bring my hand away from hers slowly. “I don’t think I’ll have a family as large as mine, no. I mean, there are six of us and I’m not getting any younger,” I chuckle.
“But do you want kids? Is a family a part of your future?”
Taking a sip of wine, I consider her question. More than that, I consider it in context of who she is and who I am and what this is between us. Or what it could be. And what I’m capable of letting it be. “Maybe someday,” I say, figuring that’s fair enough. “I’m not averse to having a family. Clearly, I love having a big family and I think that having children is always a blessing. But it’s not something I think I’m ready for right now, nor do I think I’ll be ready for it in the foreseeable future.”
“I didn’t think so,” she almost whispers. Her features glow as the candle in the middle of the table dances back and forth. She tosses me a smile that she has to try too hard to look natural and takes a sip of her wine.
“What about you?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“A family? Someday, yeah, absolutely. I hope to have a family of my own. I’m not sure what the point of life is otherwise.” She glances at me softly. “I’ll be honest—I like being in a relationship. I liked the teamwork aspect of it and making dinner and going grocery shopping. I grew up watching my parents do those things together. They enjoyed that, looked forward to it. Maybe it was all they had together, I don’t know. It just seems like a part of life that really makes life . . . life.”
“Well, my parents certainly didn’t grocery shop together,” I say, trying to imagine my dad with a shopping cart. “But I can understand what you’re saying. For some people, relationships work.” I look her square in the eye. “They just aren’t for me.”
My chest tightens, my steak threatening to come up as I watch the fire in her eye start to wane. A part of me wants to grab her hand and tell her I want to have her in my life in some capacity, what that is, I don’t know. But that wouldn’t be fair. To either of us.
“I’m going to use the restroom,” she says, scooting her chair back.
“I’ll order the cake.”
“What?”
“Cake, Mallory. We’re having cake,” I say, trying to win back that smile.
“Make it vanilla with vanilla icing.”