Page 99 of My Fiancé's Brother
I shook my head. “Both my parents were only children. All my grandparents are gone. It's just me left. I'm the last one left.”
“Who helped you when your granny left?”
I swallowed and shook my head, giving him a smaller smile. “She did.”
He studied me for a long moment. “Tell me.”
“She was diagnosed with cancer in my third year of University. And she asked me to move back home with her. She made an 8-page list of everything she thought I needed to know before she left.”
His smile was beautiful. “Like what?”
“Everything from how to manage my finances, how to cut fresh flowers to put in a vase, how to iron a blouse, how to properly set the table,” I gave a short laugh. “We had so much fun. She made everything so much fun. We laughed together so much that year.”
His eyes traveled over my face.
“She also planned every detail of her funeral, from what she wanted to wear to what music she wanted to play. She died four days after I graduated. It was like she had timed it, so it didn’t disrupt my exams.”
I smiled at him, feeling stupid that not only was I talking about my granny, but I was also now going on about her death. Wow. Sexy pillow talk. But the words kept coming out of my mouth.
“Every day for a month after she died, she had a handwritten letter for me.”
“Wow.”
“I was a bigger mess after she left than when my parents died.”
He picked up one of my hands and gently kissed it. “You're strong like her.”
I shook my head. “Not really, but some people tell me that I have her eyes.”
“Surviving is a sign of incredible strength, Emily.”
Said the man who had survived much, much worse than me as a tiny child. “Is that why you're so strong?”
He went completely still for a long moment. I reached up and cupped his face with my hand, knowing that I didn’t want to push him on anything.
He nuzzled his lips into the palm of my hand and gave it a soft kiss. His gaze met mine. “Want some birthday cake?”
I started to laugh. “What?”
“We have half a birthday cake downstairs,” his eyes looked at the clock. “And we still have thirty minutes of birthday left.”
I giggled. “Yeah. I totally want birthday cake.”
He rolled over and tossed a t-shirt of his at my head. “You can wear that.”
The green t-shirt I pulled over my head enveloped me in his delicious smell. It was so big it came down to my knees. I watched as he pulled his grey shorts up over his hips.
“Come on birthday girl.”
In the hallway, I picked up the picture book off the floor of the wet dogs.
We made our way down to the kitchen. Jackson pulled the cake out of the fridge and cut a piece so big that he had to put it on a dinner plate. He pulled out one fork, and we sat at the island. I flipped through the book, laughing over the hilarious photos of wet dogs, while he routinely fed me bites of cake.
“Look at this one.”
“Are you sure that’s a dog? It looks more like a drowned rat.”
“Look at the ears on this dog.”
