Chapter 24
JUNIPER
TWO MONTHS LATER
I lie in Rafe’s comfortable king-size bed and stretch my arms above me. I feel so comfortable being here, loving the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen. I roll over and sniff the pillow. His scent is everywhere.
I feel like a little bit of a creeper in how much I love smelling his clothes and his sheets, but I guess that means that I really love him.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” he says, walking into the room.
My eyes light up as I look at him wearing a pair of loose shorts.
“I was going to make crepes if you’d like some.”
“You know I would love some.”
“Nutella and strawberries,” he says as he sits at the edge of the bed.
I nod eagerly as he leans down and kisses my forehead.
“You know me so well,” I say, and he laughs. “Thank you for making dinner last night. It was absolutely delicious.”
“You’re welcome. It wasn’t that hard. I just made some steak and mashed potatoes.”
“And you made broccoli too.”
“Yeah, but the broccoli was still a little hard.” He just shakes his head.
“I don’t mind hard broccoli.”
“You don’t mind when I’m hard, right?” He does a little wiggle and I can tell that he’s happy.
There’s a lightness to both of us now that we’re together and I wonder if our bodies were just waiting for us to get together.
I’d never experienced life like this before.
Never felt so free, so joyous, and I wasn’t going to take one second of it for granted.
“Really, Rafe?” I say, and he chuckles.
He pulls my hands so that I’m sitting up. The sheet falls down, and he looks at my naked breasts.
“I love you being here. I don’t know how I’ve gone so many years without having you in my bed to wake up to.”
“I don’t know either,” I say, laughing.
“It’s going to be really weird when I move in here permanently though.”
“Are you sad?” he asks me, his eyes looking inquisitive. “I know it’s going to be a big move, finally getting rid of the place that you’ve shared with Mia for so long.”
“It’s a new start, but it’s not like we’re not going to see each other. She spends most of her time with Luke, and I spend so much time here. It doesn’t make sense, paying rent for that place. I’ll just pay rent here.”
“I don’t pay rent. I own my place. So, you save that money,” he says.
“I’m not going to not pay anything.”
He looks at me with a contrite expression. “I want to take care of you.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” I say. “I’m grateful that you want to, but I want to pay my way. I don’t want to feel dependent on you.”
“You’re only dependent on me for good loving,” he says as he leans down next to me.
I sniff. “Is the bacon burning?”
“Oops,” he says as he jumps up and goes running into the kitchen. “Let me take care of that, and I’ll cook your eggs and crepes, and I’ll be back.”
“Okay, darling.”
I grab my phone and scroll on Instagram and look at photos of Mia from her boat ride the previous evening. I then scroll and look at photos from Paris a couple of months ago.
It seems so long ago, how he took me on the trip, how we made love in every part of the hotel room in Paris, how we took a boat ride down the Seine, how we took a train to Versailles, how he surprised me with a trip to Champagne, where we drank real champagne, and all the baguettes and fromage and chocolate croissants.
It was an amazing trip and just confirmed to me all the different reasons why he was so special.
“I am back,” he says, carrying a tray with a single red rose along with a plate with two rashers of bacon, a fried egg over medium, and a crepe that looks absolutely delicious.
“I made you a cappuccino as well.” He grins. “I’ll be back in with some freshly squeezed orange juice.”
“You spoil me.”
“Because I love you,” he says.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?”
“I am going to eat something,” he says, winking at me.
“Rafe,” I call out as he chuckles and exits the room.
He hurries back with the coffee and orange juice and places it on the side table.
“Have some real food.”
“I consider you real food,” he says, nibbling on my shoulder.
“Rafe, really?”
“What can I say? I’m only hungry for you. You’re the taste that satiates me. You fill me up.”
“That is not a good enough meal, Rafe. I’m not going to make love to you unless you eat some of this crap and have some bacon.”
“I don’t need you to make love to me just for me to eat you out.”
“Rafe?”
He bursts out laughing and gets onto the bed and lies back. “I was thinking, do you want us to buy a new place?”
I look at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was wondering if you wanted us to buy a beach house or something so you could have a view of the water.”
“A view of the water on Coconut Beach. Do you know how much money that would cost?”
“I have a fair idea,” he says, nodding.
“I can’t afford a beach house, and as far as I know, you can’t afford a beach house.”
“Well, maybe I can.” He grins. “Would that be something you’d like though?”
“Rafe, what are you saying?”
“So, obviously, you know Mia and I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. And when I say a lot of money, I mean compared to Luke Haverbrook, whose parents practically own half the island.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“And as such, when you compare my family to the Haverbrooks, it really is like we are just solidly middle class. But I might or might not be a millionaire in my own right.”
“You what?” My jaw drops. “How? What? I know Mia’s not a millionaire.”
“She also doesn’t own her own veterinary practice, and she also hasn’t been investing for years.
Well, let’s just say, I have some stocks that have done well, and my practice is doing well.
Very well, in face. What you may not know is that I also have some apartments that I rent.
And if I can combine my assets and money together, we can buy a beach house if that’s something that you want. ”
“Rafe, you are not buying a beach house just because …”
“Just because what?”
“Just because you think I might want one.”
“You do realize that my only job in life is to make you happy.”
I laugh at his words. “Not yet. We’re not married yet.”
“But you do know that I plan on making you my wife, and I plan on making you breakfast in bed every weekend, and I plan on having at least five kids with you.”
“Five kids?” My jaw drops.
“Unless you want six.”
“That’s a lot of kids for me to push out, Rafe.”
“Plus …”
“Plus what?”
“Plus, are we going to have enough bedrooms?”
“I’ll make sure we have enough bedrooms. I just want you to know that just because I’m not Luke Haverbrook or August Pitt, I can still take care of you. I want to take care of you.”
“I’m not with you for your money or what you can provide. You know that. I’m with you because I think you’re funny and cute, and you love animals, and you’re kind and you’re sweet, and you always look out for me and Mia. And, well, you’ve always just been someone that I knew I could rely upon.”
“Really?”
He sounds surprised by my words, and I nod.
“You’ve always been there for me, Rafe. It’s probably one of the reasons why I fell for you in the first place.
I never had the most solid background, and I never really had anyone I could depend upon to really just be there and look out for me.
And you’ve always been that person, and it’s always meant something.
And obviously, it helps that you are extremely good-looking and that you are sexy and hot.
But you always make me laugh. You love animals, and any man who loves animals is a good guy.
No matter that you’re grumpy and mean and can be way overprotective at times.
I know you’re going to make a great dad, and I can’t wait for us to have a family, but I want to make sure that everything is equal between us.
And it doesn’t have to be fifty-fifty equal because I don’t know that I’m ever going to make a shit ton of money at Salty Pages.
And that’s okay because I don’t need a shit ton of money, but I just want to make sure that we’re never in a position where you feel taken advantage of or I feel like you’re treating me differently. ”
He nods slowly. “I understand.” He cocks his head to the side and runs his fingers through my hair. “Did you know one of my greatest joys when we were younger was when I would brush your hair for different parties you would go to?”
“What?” I am taken aback at his words.
“Yeah. Weird, right?”
“I didn’t know you liked brushing my hair.”
“I guess it was just an excuse to get to touch your silky tresses.” He grins. “And then to look into your beautiful, big brown eyes as you admonished me for not brushing out all the knots.”
I laugh at him. “I did not admonish you.”
“Well, at least only a couple of times. It’s okay. I like a spitfire.”
“You think I’m a spitfire?”
“I do, but that’s part of the reason I love you.”
“Is it crazy that we’re together? Is it crazy that this all happened so fast? I almost feel like I’m going to just wake up one day and it will have all been a dream and I will be so depressed.”
“I think for some people, this seems like it’s fast, but that’s because they don’t know us.
They don’t know our history. They don’t know these feelings have been dormant in both of us for a really long time.
But that doesn’t matter because we know us and we feel it.
And that’s really the most important thing. Don’t you agree, Juniper?”
He kisses my shoulder and then my neck, and I turn to look into his eyes.
They’re as blue as the ocean, and I know I could get lost in them.
“Juniper, you’re the first person I want to see in the morning, the last person I want to see at night.
I’ve dreamed about a moment like this forever.
And, yeah, maybe our getting together was pretty fast, but everything just came bursting out of us.
I honestly think my feelings for you really started getting out of control when Mia and Luke were going through everything.
It was at that point that I just knew I wanted you, and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to hold it in. ”