Chapter Eighteen
Charlotte
* * *
“Today’s the day,” I say when I wake up in bed with Roman spooning behind me. Man, will I miss him – his warmth, his strength, his protectiveness, and yeah, I can’t forget how much I’ll miss the way he knows his way around my body so well he should own it. “I don’t want to move, but I need to get up and start packing before Tessa changes her mind.”
“I don’t want you to leave. Stay here with me,” Roman says while burying the tip of his nose in my hair, tickling my neck.
“Stay?” I repeat in surprise as his words sink in and make me smile. “I guess I could stay for ten more minutes.”
“No, Charlotte. I want you to stay here in Myrtle Beach with me. Live in my house, sleep in my bed.”
“For how long?” I ask. “A few more weeks or…”
“I was thinking somewhere between forever, and I dunno, maybe until the end of time?”
“Roman!” I exclaim as I quickly flip over to see his face. That wasn’t what I expected him to say. Is he joking? He must be joking.
“What?” he asks with his sexy smirk and unshaven jaw that usually makes it impossible to resist him. But this? Wanting me to move in? That’s just nuts.
“I can’t stay here. I have a house, a job, family and friends back home.”
“This could be your new home. You could get a job here. And I already have a house, so that’s one thing you can cross off the to-do list.”
“Being with you these last few days has been…amazing,” I tell him honestly as I comb my fingers through his soft auburn curls. “And I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through everything that happened to Tessa without you.”
“But,” he says with his strong jawline clenched tightly.
“But I can’t just up and move in with you after a month.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s insane!” I tell him.
“Please give me an actual reason, because I honestly can’t figure out what’s holding you back.”
“It’s…hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“Moving in is a huge step,” I start. “One that we can’t make lightly and one I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to take with someone else.”
“So this is about Adam?” Roman asks as he sits up. He actually sounds pissed that I’m not ready to be in a serious relationship after losing my husband!
“Yes, Roman, this is about how I loved a man once and married him. He was my best friend and soulmate. I thought we would be together forever, but fate had other plans.”
“You don’t think a person can have more than one soulmate in their lifetime?” he asks.
“No, I don’t.”
“That’s complete and utter bullshit, Charlotte! To be such an incredibly smart woman, how can you be so stupid about this?”
“Did you really just call me stupid?” I scoff.
“No. I said you’re acting stupid about this. Why are you so adamant about being alone for the rest of your fucking life?”
“I’ve told you before, it hurt too fucking much to go through that kind of loss again! And if you want me to be brutally honest, I can.”
“Oh, don’t hold back to try and spare my fucking feelings,” he huffs, jerking the covers off so he can get out of bed.
“Fine,” I snap, getting out of bed on my side so that there’s an entire mattress between us. “I’m afraid that no man will ever be able to measure up to Adam. It wouldn’t be fair for me to constantly compare you to him. I’m already guilty of doing it.”
“How?” he asks, his green-eyed stare so heated it’s almost scary.
“I dunno. It’s just little things mostly, things he did for me that you don’t or things you do differently. I mean, you’re a lot of things Roman, but romantic isn’t really one of them!”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You don’t want to be with me because you don’t think I can be romantic?”
“Not really, no.”
“Give me a fucking example,” he growls like a rabid animal.
“Example of what?” I ask.
“An example of how fucking romantic your husband was!”
“Okay,” I say as I swallow around the lump forming in my throat. “Adam didn’t use the word fuck in every other sentence when we had an argument.”
“Oh, and I bet you two never had any arguments either, did you?”
“Not really, no,” I admit. “We just got along. That’s how well we knew each other, and it’s not something I can explain. Adam and I dated for almost three years and were married for five years. That’s seven years of our lives we had to learn everything about each other.”
“He was in the Marines for several of those married years,” Roman points out.
“Yeah? So?”
“And you don’t think he ever did anything wrong while he was away from you?”
“No, I don’t,” I say confidently, to which I’m greeted with silence. “Why?” I ask. “Wait. You’re not trying to imply something here, are you?”
Roman rakes his fingers through his curls and says, “You still haven’t given me an example of what kind of romantic shit he did for you.”
“See! That right there, ‘romantic shit’ is what I’m talking about. The fact that you think it’s shit means it’s not something the president of the Savage Kings would ever do for a woman!”
“Try me,” he grits out.
“Fine! So, every Valentine’s Day, even though he’s gone, he still sends me a dozen red roses.”
“Wow,” Roman says with a grin and a shake of his head.
“What? It’s sweet and thoughtful. It means he cared enough to make future plans with a local florist to make me feel loved, as if he knew he wouldn’t get to come home alive.”
“What else?” he asks, propping his hands on top of his head, flexing his massive biceps and looking…smug.
“My week vacation here every year.”
“What about it?”
“Adam made the reservations for our anniversary week every year before he died. How many men do you know that would do that?”
Roman goes silent for a long damn time before he lowers his arms from his head and asks, “Is that it? Is that the best romantic shit you’ve got?”
“They’re pretty big ones. I can’t think of any old ones right off the top of my head…”
“Charlotte?”
“Yes?”
“Adam wasn’t psychic. He didn’t know he was going to die, so he sure as fuck didn’t buy you flowers or make vacation plans for you from fucking Afghanistan!”
“Yes, he did!”
“No, he didn’t,” Roman argues, which is really starting to piss me off. How can he act like a jealous jackass when I compare him to my dead husband?
“How do you know what Adam did or didn’t do for me?” I ask. “It sounds like you barely knew him! Whenever I ask you about him, you barely say a word!”