Millionaire Hero (Freeman Brothers 4)

“Glad to be of service,” I said.

She flipped me a sassy look over her shoulder and started doling out buns onto the tray. She shoved them into the oven, then went to the coffee maker. “I don’t have an entire piece of massive furniture dedicated to fancy coffee flavors, but I have a good dark roast.”

I laughed. “Dark roast sounds good to me.”

She started the coffee brewing and came to sit at the table with me. As she sat down, I had the strange compulsion to reach out and take her hand. I stroked my thumb over her fingers but let it fall away quickly. This was a strange place for us to be in. Not that I was hoping for a deep conversation about it. In fact, at that moment I was kind of hoping for no conversation at all.

There was no pretending it didn’t happen. That wasn’t even something I wanted. But I also wasn’t looking to serve up a big helping of emotions and feelings along with our cinnamon rolls. I was still confused as to where all of this was going.

“In all seriousness, thank you for coming over last night,” Bryn said. “It was all just a lot.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad I was able to be here for you. I can’t believe he just showed up like that,” I said.

She shook her head and stood up to go over to the coffee maker and take the full carafe out. Grabbing two mugs by their handles, she brought them over to the table and set them down in front of me.

“Neither can I,” she said. “You would think he would at least have the decency to call me ahead of time and say he wanted to come over and get his stuff. Of course, we’re talking about somebody who committed theft against the person he was supposed to spend his life with, so maybe I shouldn’t actually be so surprised at his lack of decorum.”

I was more stunned by that comment than I would really like to feel. “Yeah,” I forced out.

She sat down and watched me pour myself a cup of coffee silently. “Something wrong?”

I looked up at her and shook my head. “No. I guess I just didn’t realize the two of you were that serious. I mean, I knew you lived together and everything, but I didn’t know you were planning on getting married.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I guess, technically, we weren’t. It’s not like he had ever asked me, or we had started making plans or anything. But he was really good at saying all the things he thought I wanted to hear and making me feel like there was a future ahead for us.”

I nodded. “Did you want to marry him?”

I regretted it as soon as it came out of my mouth. That really wasn’t the type of question I wanted to ask a woman who still smelled like me while I sat in my underwear in her kitchen after waking up on her bedroom floor. Fortunately, she didn’t look at me like I was as much of an idiot as I felt like. I didn’t even know where that question came from.

“Um,” Bryn said, sounding a bit awkward as she swirled her spoon around in her mug. “I don’t really know. I mean… yeah, I guess. But… no. I don’t really know how to explain it. We were together for a long time, and I figured I was getting to the age when I should be thinking about marriage and my future and all those things. So, I guess in that way, yes, I wanted to marry him. He seemed like as good an option as any, and I didn’t exactly have a frame of reference for how it was supposed to feel to choose that one person you wanted to be with.”

“But?” I asked. I had already gone down the uncomfortable path. I might as well go all in.

“But I also didn’t feel that spark. That sense that I couldn’t imagine my life without him, or that I didn’t even want to think about sharing the most important moments of my life with anybody but him. Does that make sense?” she asked.

“Honestly? I don’t really know. But as long as you’re good with the way things have turned out, that’s all that matters,” I said.

“Well, I wish he hadn’t stolen all my money on the way out. But, yeah, I’m happy with him being out of my life. I don’t even miss him. Not at all. And I figure if our relationship was as good as I wanted to think it was, it would be harder to not be with him. Even with the crap he pulled, there should still be that little bit of me that misses him. Yet, there isn’t. I think that says a lot.”