Page 17 of Oops I Fell For The Billionaire Next Door

His head snaps up. Dirt on his jaw. Soil under his nails. Those whiskey eyes wide, startled, and then something I can't look away from. Hope. Raw, unguarded, stupid hope on the face of a man who could buy this entire mountain.

"Desi."

"The thyme needs six inches minimum or they'll compete for root space once they spread." Crossing the distance between us, I crouch beside him. Take the trowel. "And you're not breaking up the root ball. If you put them in like this they'll stay pot-bound."

"I watched a video."

"The video lied." Turning the seedling out of its plastic cell, my thumbs work the roots apart, loosening the tight spiral, giving them room. "You have to break them up. It feels rough but it's how they establish."

He watches my hands. Studies the motion. Picks up the next seedling. Tries it. Does it wrong. Tries again. Gets closer.

"Why are you planting groundcover?"

"Because I want my walkway to look like something. Because I realized I have a house with no garden and a neighbour who builds living things for a profession and I didn't once ask her what she'd plant here." He sets the seedling in the hole at the right depth. Pats the soil. "Because I figured if I can't buy my way into your life, maybe I can dig."

My throat tightens.

"Beck."

"I cancelled the water heater. Cancelled the roofer. Cancelled the board meeting in Vancouver because none of it mattered as much as figuring out how to show you that I'm more than a checkbook." He's still kneeling. Dirt on his hands. Looking up at me. "I don't know how to do this, Desi. Every relationship I've ever had was built on what I could provide. Nobody ever wanted the part of me that doesn't come with a price tag. And then you gave me a cactus mug and poured coffee and told me about your parents' restaurant, and I wanted to be someone worth more than what I can buy. But the only tools I had were the old ones."

"So you're learning new tools."

"I'm trying." He holds up the seedling. "I'm terrible at it."

"Your spacing's still off."

"Teach me."

Two words. Simple. Stripped of every defense he has. And they break through the last wall I was holding.

"You can't fix my roof."

"I know."

"You can't fix my stove or my water heater or my life."

"I know."

"But if you want to show up at six in the morning and plant groundcover wrong until I teach you how to do it right, then yeah, Beck. You can do that."

His eyes close. Just for a second. Then open, bright.

"I love you." He says it on his knees in the dirt with soil on his face and a badly planted thyme in his hand. "I love you, Desi. I don't know when it started. Might've been the porch, might've been the mug, might've been the first time you called me out on my own driveway with mud on your boots. But I love you and I'm not going to buy your forgiveness. I'm going to earn it. With my hands in the dirt. However long that takes."

"Get up."

He stands. My hands grab his shirt. Pull.

"I love you too, you ridiculous man."

His mouth finds mine. Warm, desperate, tasting like bad coffee because of course his espresso machine broke again and he made instant. My hands are filthy. His are worse. Dirt transfers everywhere, smearing across my jaw when he cups my face, streaking his shirt where I grip fistfuls of fabric. His tongue strokes mine and the sound I make vibrates through both of us.

"Inside." His voice is raw.

"Your house doesn't have a bedroom yet."

"You have a bedroom."