Page 94 of Love Redesigned
She reached up and cupped her hand around my cheek. “Listen to me,” she whispered. “Look at me.”
I forced my eyes open, my heart instantly swelling at the warmth I saw in her expression.
“You don’t need them, Alex. I’m your family now, okay? Me. Isaac. You aren’t alone if you have us, right?”
“I know, Dani. I know. But this is—”
“Alex, I’m still in love with you.” She closed her eyes for a moment and took a long, slow breath. Then she looked at me again, her eyes so full of love and hope I nearly lost my breath. “I never really stopped being in love with you. I don’t need LeFranc. I don’t need New York. I don’t need Paige’s dress. I don’t need anything but you.”
Before I could even process what she’d said, Alicio pushed into the study, a wide smile on his perfectly tanned skin. “Well isn’t this a nice family gathering,” he said.
I reached for Dani’s hand, her fingers gripping mine with an intensity that kept me grounded. “Actually, we were just leaving.”
“You aren’t staying for the wedding?” Alicio said. “Isn’t that why you came?”
I looked at Dani, love and hope and courage reflecting in her gaze. “Something came up,” I said. “We’ve got to head out early.”
I reached forward and grabbed the folder of information off the coffee table, still holding Dani’s hand, then walked to the study door. I paused, turning back. “You were never good enough for my mother,” I said to Alicio.
His eyes narrowed, but then his face fell into a frown. “I agree with you on that point.”
“I think she’s probably happy to be rid of you now,” I said. “I wish you and Sasha the best. You two deserve each other.”
I walked through the house and toward the back drive without slowing, though I could tell Dani was struggling to keep up with me. Still, she didn’t complain. She just clung to my hand, running every few steps to keep up with my long stride. When we arrived at the car, she hesitated beside the passenger side door I held open for her.
“Alex,” she said, still short of breath. She bit her lip. “Will you please just say something?”
I couldn’t, actually. What would I say? Speaking would require me to make sense of what I was feeling, and I was too much a mess to do that.
Instead, I leaned in and kissed her. She responded immediately, wrapping her arms around my neck, pulling me closer than I would have thought possible.
“I’ve missed you,” I finally muttered into her hair.
She hiccoughed a laugh. “Yeah. Me too.”
“Sorry you didn’t get the dress.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving with something much more important.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dani
Six months later
Alex and I walked down King Street in downtown Charleston. We stopped in front of a small fashion boutique, where an employee was resetting the window display with what looked like samplings from a spring collection: a knee-length dress with tiny cap sleeves and a pencil skirt in pale rose, a cashmere sweater set in the same color, trimmed with gold, and a pair of skinny-fit trousers in a loud, floral print, navy with oversized roses in varying shades of pink. A handbag in the same print hung over the shoulder of the mannequin wearing the dress.
“What do you think?” Alex said.
I shrugged. “A little on the safe side, but the print on the pants is great. I’d cut the sweater set. It feels a little too 1997. The dress could work, but I’d add a gold belt, and recut the neckline into something a little more daring. Something asymmetric, maybe.”
“You sound like an expert,” Alex said.
I grinned. “More like someone with big opinions and nothing to back them up.”
“You graduated from one of the top design schools in the country, Dani. I’m pretty sure that qualifies as credentials.”
“Yes. But I’ll feel better when I’ve actually sold a few things.”
