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He kisses my shoulder. Turns off the water and then wraps me in a towel first, then pulls a towel around his hips and secures it.

In the bedroom, he pulls one of his clean T-shirts over my head. It falls to my mid-thigh and smells like his cologne and I want to live in this shirt for the rest of my natural life.

He pulls on a pair of boxers and then pulls me into bed. We settle in facing each other, his arm heavy across my waist, my legs tangled with his.

The quiet is comfortable. The kind of quiet that doesn't need filling.

Then he says, "I was thinking."

"When did you find the time? Between the times your hands were between my thighs?"

A ghost of a smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth and it’s so sexy that I could go again right now if he wanted me.

"When we get back home. We could move to the estate. If you wanted."

I pull back a little further to get a better look at his face to see if he’s grimacing at his own offer. Everett? At the Estate full time?

"Seriously?"

"The space is better. You'd have room for a studio. A real one, not a corner of the penthouse. You seemed more at ease there than you do in the penthouse. And though it baffles me, you seem to like my family and they’re all spending more and more time there."

"What about the penthouse?"

"I have an office at the estate. I don't have to go into Seattle every day, especially with Jeremy there. He can handle the things that need to be done in person for me. And I can go into the office during the week if I need to. Most of my dealings are with video conferencing anyway." He says it like he's presenting a business case, but his eyes are saying something else. "If you'd be happier there."

"You'd do that?"

"I’m not the easiest man to be with. I know that, so if this would make you happy, I can make it happen." He shifts, and for a second I see it—the discomfort of a man who has never had to try at this before. Who has operated his entire life on logic and control and is now standing in foreign territory with no spreadsheet to guide him. "I want to try, Aria. This doesn't come naturally to me. I don't know what the hell I'm doing when it comes to you. But I know that seeing you at the rehearsal dinner and our wedding night... you seemed more at ease. And I'd rather figure the rest out from there."

My chest fills with something warm and aching. He’s doing yet another thing just for me, because he sees the things even I do see in myself. I hadn’t realized I was more at ease there but he’s right. The estate is where I am happier.

This is how Everett says what he can't say yet. Not with words but with plans. With moving his entire life to a different zip code because he noticed where I'm happiest.

"Will you stop sleeping in the office and come to bed every night?"

He pulls me closer to him, his eyes softening on me. "If you’re in our bed, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be."

Our bed. He said it like it’s already our life.

I nod. "I'd like that," I say. "The estate."

"Yeah?" He asks, a lift in his eyebrows as if hopeful.

"Yeah."

He exhales. His arm tightens around me and he pulls me even closer, tucking my head under his chin like I fit there. Like I was always supposed to fit there.

I press my face into his chest.

His heartbeat is steady under my ear.

We don't talk about the contract. We don't talk about twelve months or what happens after. For the first time since I signed my name on that dotted line, the future doesn't feel like a countdown.

It feels like a door left open.

Fall in love in France, my mother always said.

She was right.