Page 147 of An Engagement for Erica

“Because I was afraid,” she said.

“Maybe I was too. I think if I hadn’t pushed you so much we might not be here today. That’s hard to overcome.”

“I don’t think that is the truth,” she said. “I had feelings for you before. If I hadn’t passed out and just ended our contract, I know we would have gone and had that date.”

“But things changed and then you ghosted out of my life,” he said. “I still reached out, but you barely said two words back. When I saw you again, I knew I had to try. I didn’t want to start from scratch. Call it impatience on my part, but why do it if I could put it out there and see your reaction?”

“If you hadn’t done that, I think we would have still ended up here, but at a slower pace.”

“And then my grandfather had his stroke. I wasn’t even thinking. If you told me no, I would have ended the thought of it.”

“But I said yes and it brings me back to doing stupid silly things without thought that you’d never do if you didn’t love someone.”

“Are you saying you loved me back then?” he asked.

She put her coffee down. She didn’t need the prop like she thought she would.

She moved closer to him and hugged him. “I think I did. To quote you, I probably didn’t know what I was feeling, but it was something. The two of us have made a lot of mistakes in the past few months.”

“And done a lot of right things too,” he said. “Don’t be hard on yourself. I don’t think we’ve done all that much wrong.”

“Probably not,” she said. “But we have to clear the air. We can’t go back and change anything, but we can fix what might be broken. I happen to be pretty good at fixing things.”

“You’re the best,” he said, smiling. “Which is why I hired you in the first place.”

She didn’t want to have any doubt about her ability to do her job, but she needed to know.

“Did you only hire me because you wanted to get closer to me for a personal relationship?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I wanted that. I really did. But thatisn’twhy I hired you. It’s what I said the night you passed out. We made a great team. I still believe it. Now I know we can make one in more than a working relationship. What about you?”

“I wouldn’t have come here to lay it all out if I didn’t feel the same way,” she said.

He kissed her on the forehead. “Where do we go from here?”

“We throw that ring out,” she said. “And we talk about it as if it’s this funny joke or chapter in our relationship. I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen. Just like I shouldn’t have tried to act like I didn’t pass out in front of you. Things happened, they are there, they can’t be changed.”

“I don’t think I’d want to change it now,” he said.

“You know what?” she said. “I don’t think that I would either!”

EPILOGUE

One Month Later

“I’m soglad you could come for dinner, TC,” Erica said the first weekend in January.

She’d had Christmas here—her father came to town and stayed, her sister, Tucker, Theo and Daisy, and Clara and Norman also since they were in town for the holiday.

They’d spent Christmas Eve at TC’s with Tucker’s mother and Norman. If she thought it was odd that TC welcomed his ex-daughter-in-law’s boyfriend with open arms, she didn’t say a word.

If there was one thing she’d learned in the past year, it was to just let go and do what felt right rather than trying to plan it all out.

“I’m happy to be invited,” TC said. “Everything seems to be going well with the two of you now?”

“It is,” Tucker said. “Now that we have cleared the air. I know we just saw you two weeks ago, but I thought it’d be nice to have this dinner with the three of us.”

“Not starting over though,” TC said. “An idiot can see how much you two love each other. I guess that is what I saw the first time, even full of drugs from a hole drilled in my scalp.” TC shook his head. “I have to remember not to jump the gun on assumptions.”

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