Page 75 of My Heart Before You

“Yes, but not in the way that you’re thinking. They’re letters from my mother.”

She felt her eyes widen, unable to come up with a response to the fact that she had so carelessly trespassed onto something that was beloved to him.

“She wrote them when it was clear she wasn’t going to get better.” The sadness of his mouth crept into his eyes. “There’s a letter for every milestone of my life that she would have . . .” he paused, “that she missed.”

Her arms reached for his shoulders, bringing him to her. “I am so sorry.”

She was apologizing for the transgression into his personal property, but also for all that he had to experience without his mother as a witness. Something she had and many others likely took for granted.

A deep inhale rose against her. “I’m glad she wrote those for me. It allowed me to feel like she was still with me after she died. I still read them from time to time when I miss her. The milestones I’ve passed anyway.”

Her head tilted up to study his face. “There are letters you haven’t read?”

A floppy lock of hair fell into his eyes as he nodded. When he didn’t expand, Emilie let her other questions evaporate into the air. Reaching up, she smoothed the tension from his sandy eyebrows with her fingertips. His eyes closed at her touch, letting out a long, halting exhale.

“Let’s have breakfast,” she said quietly.

He nodded into her hands before taking a step out of the closet. Following closely behind, the smell of coffee met her at the doorway to the kitchen, and she reflexively hummed in anticipation.

“You really like coffee, don’t you?” His playful smile was back on his face as he pulled two mugs from an open cabinet and filled them to the brim.

“Doesn’t everyone like coffee?” She grinned in response to the outstretched mug.

His laughter filled the kitchen as he shook his head. “What are you going to do today?” he asked, lifting his mug.

At dinner last night, they’d discovered they were both off today.

Feeling buoyed by his laugh, his tenderness last night, and his honesty this morning, she took a chance and ventured into new territory. “I don’t know. What arewegoing to do today?”

His eyes glinted with mischief when they glanced up from over his lifted coffee cup.

Suddenly, she wasn’t very hungry for food anymore.

?Chapter 28?

Colin didn’t know how he was going to make it through the day. He didn’t know how he was going to make it through the whole day without telling Emilie he loved her.

Already he’d barely kept it to himself as they made love for the third time in twenty-four hours, drunkenly inhaling her honeysuckle scent while her coffee-stained tongue played with his. Last night he nearly burst with it, especially since being with Emilie was so much more than physically satisfying. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced.

Now as she unabashedly bit into her chicken, mushroom, and swiss sandwich, juice dripping freely from her chin, he didn’t think he could take the pressure building in his chest. When he reached to brush the liquid away, she just stilled with a grin on her lips and let him. He loved her even more like this, when confidence and happiness radiated from her, even with a mouth full of chicken.

“Is your lunch good?” The corner of his mouth picked up.

After coffee, Colin had driven her home so she could shower and change into different clothes before they at last got something to eat.

“Mmmm-hmmm.” She put the back of her hand over her mouth. “How’s yours?”

He was holding the burger he’d ordered, but he’d been so distracted by how she seemed to look even more stunning with a post-orgasmic sheen, he hadn’t taken a bite.

“Good,” he said, sinking his teeth into what was a delicious burger.

Has food always tasted this good?

She took a long sip of her soda as Elvis’s voice crooned in the background. “So what do you want to do after this?”

Thinking he’d already accomplished what he wanted to do most twice this morning, he let his brain stretch to other activities but came up short. “I don’t know. Do you have any ideas?”

“It’s almost sixty today and sunny, which is a miracle. We could go for a walk in the Commons.” She bit into the crinkle cut fry she’d pulled through ketchup.

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