Chapter 22
Nora
I’d fallen asleep beside Cole feeling better than I had in days. For once, I hadn’t gone to sleep bracing for the next thing to go wrong.
He’d told me I was nothing like my father. I believed him.
I stirred in bed as Cole shifted beside me. My eyes slowly opened, and I found him staring right at me with a smile on his face.
I giggled, my cheeks hot. “That’s kinda creepy.”
“Still smiling.”
“That proves nothing.”
He chuckled. “I like looking at you.”
I smiled, using my thumb to caress his stubbly face. “Sometimes I can’t believe I’m lying here with you.”
“Hmm, why?”
“I was attracted to you from the moment I saw you, but I didn’t think we’d ever get past our history,” I said.
He smiled. “I felt the same way.”
“About the history or the attraction?”
“Both.”
“And now… are we past it? Our history?”
“It stopped mattering to me after you gave me your virginity,” he said softly.
“That’s not exactly an answer.”
He didn’t say anything else.
I blushed. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone else.”
He smiled as he started tracing his fingers down my arm. “I’ve been a lucky guy lately.”
I grinned. “So have I.”
His gaze met mine. “You’re mine, Nora. Every single inch of you is mine, and I want you to remember that every day.”
My breath quickened at his words and the way he trailed his fingers from my hand to my hip.
It hitched with anticipation when he slid them between my thighs.
I lifted my leg and gave him access as he slowly slipped his fingers inside me.
My eyes fluttered, and I sighed in relief as his fingers filled me.
My body instantly became hot, and despite our lengthy sex session last night, I wanted him again.
I shifted closer and brushed my lips across his while Cole stroked my already wet pussy.
He slipped his tongue into my mouth and deepened the kiss.
Cole suddenly stiffened when his doorbell rang. He broke the kiss and stared at me, his fingers still inside me.
“Ignore it,” he said, locking lips with me again, but then the bell rang once more, and I tore my lips from his.
“You should probably answer it. It might be important—that, and the fact that it’s annoying,” I said.
Cole huffed out a breath and pulled the covers off him. I lay there smiling as he quickly went to his closet to pull on some pants. I watched his every move, enjoying every angle of his sexy body.
“Stay right there. We’re not done,” he said, pulling on a T-shirt.
I was smiling hard as I glanced over to check the time on his phone. “I should get up too. I want to see the inn today.”
“We have time. I want to be inside you for another few hours.”
The idea was tempting, but I knew I’d probably be sore by the end of it. Cole had the libido of a rabbit.
I looked around for my clothes and gasped when I realized they were probably on the floor somewhere downstairs.
“My clothes are downstairs,” I whisper-yelled.
Cole frowned slightly. “It’s not a problem.”
“What do you mean?” I gawked at him. “Someone could see from the door.”
“Then whoever’s there can learn some patience.”
The doorbell rang again.
“Fuck!” Cole exclaimed as he headed toward the door. I tiptoed behind him, quickly running down the stairs to get my things before he opened it.
Cole chuckled. “I’m gonna enjoy taking them off again,” he said, walking toward the front door.
I slipped into the kitchen, quickly getting myself dressed and glancing into the living room to see if I’d left anything behind.
“Hello,” I heard Cole say as he opened the door.
“Hi, I’m Andrew Jameson. I handled Ellen’s estate planning. A signed amendment turned up in her safe-deposit box last week. It was never in the estate file, which is why neither of you heard about it earlier.”
“You’re a lawyer. Jameson and Watkins.”
“That’s right,” Andrew said.
Cole cleared his throat. “Er—come in,” he said, and I panicked. I quickly ran to the kitchen sink to splash some water on my face before blotting it with a paper towel.
“Take a seat,” Cole said, his voice louder now that he was in the living room. “Give me a second.”
His footsteps approached, and I stood there, waiting for him to appear. He wore a look of confusion.
“Ellen’s lawyer is in my living room. He says they found another estate document, and it concerns both of us.”
“Both of us?”
“Come on.”
He gave me a deadpan look and walked into the living room. I sighed, following behind him, my cheeks burning.
I saw Andrew Jameson standing there. He pushed his glasses up his nose when he saw me.
“This is Nora Adams,” Cole said, and I swallowed, offering a stiff smile.
“Ms. Adams,” Andrew said. “I know you’ve been dealing with the estate administrator about the repairs. This is separate.”
“You can speak to both of us now,” Cole said.
I took a seat beside Cole. Andrew sat opposite us, pulling some documents from his briefcase.
“You’re both named in the amendment,” Andrew said.
My brain jumped straight to the inn. The repairs, the money, the opening. I’d spent weeks making decisions about all of it, and suddenly there was a document on the table making decisions for both of us.
Cole’s head turned sharply toward Andrew. “Together? Why?”
“The amendment doesn’t say.”
Cole went rigid beside me, his hand closing around his knee. I knew that stillness by now. Something about this had hit him hard, even if I didn’t know exactly what yet.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“For the next ten years, the house and inn stay in a trust. Nora, you can live in the house. When the ten years are up, it becomes yours.”
I nodded slowly.
“Cole, you’re in charge of the inn and can choose who runs it. At the end of the ten years, it becomes yours.”
Cole stared at him. “She put me in charge of the inn?”
“That was her decision.”
“What happens if I refuse?”
“Someone else would run it, but the inn would stay in the trust for the full ten years.”
“And neither of us can sell?” I asked.
“Not until the ten years are up.”
I thought about the money I had already spent. “What happens to the repairs?”
“The trust will repay the approved structural work. Whoever runs the inn will cover the furniture and business expenses.”
I glanced at Cole. He looked ready to tear the documents in half.
Andrew placed two sealed envelopes on the table.
“Mrs. Adams also left each of you a personal letter.”
“I don’t want any part of this,” Cole said.
“Mr. Sullivan, you aren’t required to decide today.”
“I already decided.”
“Cole,” I said.
He stood and walked toward the window.
“Could you give us a minute?” I asked Andrew.
“Of course. I’ll contact you both tomorrow.”
Andrew left, closing the front door behind him.
I turned to Cole. “This doesn’t have to change anything. You can ask me to run the inn, and we keep going.”
In my head, it was the obvious fix. He could still choose, and I could keep building the inn. The look on his face told me that wasn’t what he’d heard.
“You’re doing it too.”
“Doing what?”
“Handing me a plan before I’ve even said yes.”
“I was giving you an option.”
“No. You were giving me the answer that works for you.”
I stood. “I’m trying to fix this.”
“Gregory said the same thing when I told him no. Make it work. Then the beam came down.”
“Don’t put his choices on me. I didn’t ask you to ignore a safety problem. I said we could keep going.”
“I know.” Cole rubbed a hand over his face. “But right now, it all sounds the same.”
That hurt worse than I expected. I had just walked away from my father for treating people’s choices like obstacles, and now Cole was treating me as if I’d done the same thing.
“Then listen harder.”
I stared at him. That morning, he’d told me our history didn’t matter anymore. Now one piece of paper had my father right back in the middle of us.
“Gran left you the inn because she loved you.”
“She tied me to it for ten years.”
“You can walk away from managing it. Andrew just said that.”
“And leave it to some stranger while you lose everything you came here for?”
“None of that is my fault. So quit taking it out on me.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He looked away.
“What happened between us was our choice,” I said. “Gran couldn’t make that happen.”
“How do I know she didn’t plan this whole damn thing?”
“Because she couldn’t make me fall in love with you.”
That wasn’t how I’d planned on telling him.
Cole stared at the letters on the table. “I need some space.”
“From this?”
“From everything.”
I gripped my purse. “Me too?”
He took too long to answer.
“You said I was nothing like my father.”
“You’re not.”
“Then stop looking at me like I set you up.”
His jaw clenched. “Maybe I’d be better off without another Adams in my life.”
Cole opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t take the words back.
I grabbed my purse.
“Nora—”
“You wanted space. Now you have it.”
I left before he could answer.
Back at the house, I threw clothes into a suitcase while I cried. I still loved him. That was exactly why I couldn’t stay up the road and wait for him to decide whether he saw me when he looked at me or just another Adams.
By noon, I was gone.