“No shit,” she scoffed.
“You’re right. I’m sorry Nina. I acted on a decision that you needed to make and I shouldn’t have done anything without talking to you first.” I took a swig of my wine and put the glass down, watching her enjoy the dinner we made.
“Thank you.” She seemed relieved. “I’m sorry that I blew up at you. I should have figured out a better way to tell you how I felt and I shouldn’t have made us talking so difficult.”
“So you were dodging my calls on purpose?”
“Well, at first I was because I felt like you were sending me to voicemail.”
“I’m negotiating the purchase of a multimillion-dollar company. I was busy, but I don’t want to keep making that excuse. I’m sorry.”
“And the love stuff? You just threw that out there and told me not to say anything?” She reached over and touched the top of my hand.
I held her hand in mine, and told her, “The love stuff with me is complicated, but the reason I didn’t want you to say it back tonight was because of the stuff that happened at your place.”
“The stuff with Ray? What does that have to do with me being in love with you?”
Chapter 21
Nina
I said it without saying it and wondered if he’d pick up on it. Colt sat across from me at his kitchen island after making us dinner. This love shit must have him fucked up. He was on his second glass of wine when he let go of my hand and leveled with me.
“The first time I said I loved you, we were fighting in my office. I didn’t even know I felt that way until we were arguing. Someone threatened the woman I loved and that was it.”
“I get it,” I told him. “People say a lot of things in the heat of the moment-”
“Nina, it was the heat of the moment, but do you really think I’m the kind of man that says things that I don’t mean? I meant it. I just don’t want you to feel obligated to say it. I don’t want you obligated to feel it. I don’t want you obligated to me for anything. That’s why I told you not to say anything about it. I just needed you to know how I felt and I didn’t want anything back for it.”
“Mr. Warner, that’s not how love works.”
He smiled. “That’s exactly how it works. People say it but one person always feels it before the other. One person always feels it slightly more than the other, if at all. Love is unmatched. I don’t mind knowing that I fell for you first. I don’t mind telling you either.”
I shook my head with a sip of wine. “That's fucked up. You get to tell me and I don’t get to tell you because somewhere in that head of yours, you don’t believe that I’ll mean it. Why?”
“You want the long answer or the short one?” he asked me.
“Whatever you want to give me.”
“My parents had issues showing their kids they loved them if they weren’t performing. I had to be the best in everything I did to even get the smallest amount of attention from them. I’m the best, but sometimes I, uh, I behave as if I don’t deserve the best.”
“A millionaire with childhood issues that pushed him to excellence. You want to hear mine?”
“Only if you want to give that to me.”
I nodded and got up from the table, taking my glass of wine with me as I padded across the open space until I reached the rear wall of the house. It gets so bright in here during the daytime. The windows moved in an increasingly larger pattern. The first window was about two feet above the floor and stopped about two feet beneath the second floor ceiling. The windows got progressively longer until they reached the center of the rear wall, where the windows became doors.
Four large glass doors began sliding into the floor at the push of a button where the freezing cold breeze off the lake hardened my nipples immediately.
“Shit! Colt!”
He grinned and pushed the button again to push the doors back into place. The last two windows were two stories tall, letting the second story get its own view of the lake. All this land and all of this quietness. It’s exactly what I wanted when I bought my condo.
“I already told you a little bit about it, but my mother worked two jobs my entire childhood to end up behind on bills. We were evicted and homeless for a while before I met my friends Dylan and Morgan. Their parents let me crash in their houses while my mother got herself together. I loved them but hated that situation. So now I do everything in my power to make sure it never happens to me again.”
“How many hours a week does it take for you to feel comfortable knowing that’s never going to happen again?”
“About 60, if I’m being honest. How many hours does it take you to feel enough love for being the perfect finance consultant?”
