“It’s the way you said it.” I drop my head and bury my face in my hands. “You made it sound like you love me because I’m your best friend, but you two are so much more than that to me.”
Grant pulls my hands from my face. “Look at us, Emma.”
They both have an arm propped on the table, and they’re leaning toward me, making it easy to see both of them. And both men are looking at me with hope and love. So much of each emotion, it’s pouring out of them. If Daisy was right and they’ve looked at me like this before, I don’t know how I missed it.
“I’ve loved you both for so long, and I always hoped something like this would happen between us. But the thing is…I want you for more than a weekend. I’m looking for more than a fling. And I won’t share either of you.”
“We want that, too,” Grant blurts.
“And we would never ask you to share us with another woman,” Ryan says, resting his hand on my thigh under the table.
“What about Louisa and Elena? Alex made it sound like you two were shacking up with them in the presidential suite.”
Grant brushes a strand of hair from my face. “I’m guessing it sounded like that because you don’t know what we’ve been doing here the last several months.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Ryan looks at Grant. Grant nods, and then Ryan takes a deep breath. When he lets it out, he says, “We’ve been building a future. Here.”
“What Ryan is trying—and failing miserably—to say is that we bought this place.”
“You bought the lodge?”
Both men nod, and Ryan continues. “It started about four years ago when we invested in a friends’ company. He needed money to get his business off the ground. He paid back the loan with interest, and we invested that money in the stock market. Those investments paid off ten-fold. Earlier in the year, we saw this lodge go up on the market. I remember my parents bringing me here when I was little, and I used to love it. Grant and I talked it over and—”
“We bought it,” Grant
finishes. “We did our research first, of course, and then decided to go for it. It was important to Ryan, so it was important to me.” Grant’s hand finds Ryan’s under the table, and I look down at their linked fingers resting on my thigh.
When I look up, Ryan’s eyes are shining, and Grant is smiling, and I’ve never been so happy.
“What are you planning to do with it?” I ask.
Ryan looks around as though he’s visualizing all the changes he wants to make. “We’ll get it looking beautiful and running like a dream, and then…who knows. Maybe we’ll sell it for a profit or, if it’s doing well, maybe we’ll keep it.”
“When are you starting renovations?”
“We’ve already started. The presidential suite was our first project. Grant and I put the finishing touches on it about a week ago. That’s also where Louisa and Elena come in.”
“Louisa is the general manager of the lodge, and Elena is the interior decorator we hired,” Grant says.
“Oh.” Well, don’t I feel stupid. “I told Alex we’d been friends since we were little. I bet she thought I knew you bought the lodge, and about the renovations.”
“Probably,” Grant says. “Alex is great. So is the rest of the staff. They’re dedicated to getting the lodge exactly where it needs to be.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it sooner? I could’ve been out here helping you with it.”
Ryan reaches for his water and takes a drink. “Because you’ve been busy with school, and we didn’t want to interfere with that.”
“Well, school is over now.”
Grant grins. “We know.”
“So, where does this leave us?”
“Who’s hungry?” Alex sings, walking toward our table. She balances our plates on her arms and passes them out.
“Let’s eat,” Grant says, sliding my salad in front of me. “We’ll talk when we get back to the room.”