Promise Me This (Wilder Family #3)

Ian took a few moments to join me, and I was glad. The sheer overwhelming fantasy of all of this made my head spin. The air had a sharp bite to it, and I let the blanket go slack around my shoulders so the cold might keep my senses sharp. Keep me from sliding headfirst into the impossibly tender, heart-rending atmosphere he’d conjured out of thin air.

Next to me on the railing, the sugary-sweet smell of chocolate reached my nose, and I glanced down at it, trying to decide whether I was willing to forgo the blanket in order to take a bite. At the sound of a door opening and closing gently, I sucked in a quiet breath.

Inside my chest waged a mighty battle.

One part of me—the rational thinker, the logical, sensible side of my brain—damn well knew that this wasn’t reality. He was giving me a gift, thoughtful and attentive to a degree that managed to make my heart stop. The gift was that he remembered. The gift was in feeling seen. That the things that mattered to me mattered to him.