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“Are you asking me if I want out?” There’s an edge to the quiet calm of his words that sends a quick thrill through me. I don’t know why.

“Do you? Want out, that is.”

I still can’t look at him. I’m afraid of what I might see.

“No, Faye.” Tate pushes off the back of the couch where he’d been leaning. He closes the space between us until he’s so close I can feel the heat radiating from his chest. “I don’t.”

I do look at him now. Twisting my lips to the side, I sigh. “I just don’t get it.”

“What?”

“You had perfection with Laura and…”

“And she wasn’t⁠—”

I cut him off. “She wasn’t me. I know.” My arms cross over my chest defensively. I’m not sure why I’m defensive. “But what is it about me?”

Tate’s eyes scan my face. I don’t know what he’s looking for and I don’t know if he finds it.

He shrugs. “You’re easy to love.”

“You love me?” It comes out breathlessly.

He moves in even closer, voice pitching low. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”

“No. I—I don’t know.” I drop my hands only to lift them to scrub my face. “I don’t know, Tate.”

“You don’t have to know,” he assures me gently. “You just have to let me be here for you. With you. I can love you enough for both of us.”

My eyes search his. I can feel the knit between my brow, scoring deep. “That’s not fair to you.”

“You’re all I want.” He lifts a bulb as though we aren’t having a serious conversation, hanging it on the tree.

“But what did you want before me?”

“What do you mean?”

“From life,” I press. “Where did you want your life to go? What did you want from it before I—” I catch the words, ‘messed it up’.

“Everything that I already have,” he says easily.

My frustration grows, slipping out on a low growl. “I mean your dreams. What did you dream about having? Becoming?”

He turns to face me fully now. “I never had the kind of dreams Holt had. I never wanted fame. I want a good, honest career. I wanted to work for the family business, and that’s what I’m doing. I wanted to meet a woman who takes my breath away every day, who I love and who loves me. I want to make that woman my wife. I want to build a family. I want to grow old knowing that I lived and loved well.”

I don’t realize I’m crying until Tate catches my tear. I sniffle. “Is that all?”

Tate laughs, soft and low and gentle. “That’s all, sweetheart. A simple life.”

I wouldn’t call what we’re doing simple at all. Still, I murmur, “Okay.”

“What do you say we turn on a movie?”

“You want to watch a movie? Now?”

“Like you said, we have tomorrow off.” He throws a look at the newly decorated tree. “And we’ve got to appreciate all our hard work, now, don’t we?”

With another sniffle, I nod. “I’m getting in my jammies. These jeans are killing me.”