Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 32729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
“You’re admitting you were wrong?” she asked.
“I was, wasn’t I?”
She didn’t answer him.
“It hurt,” she said. “Hearing you say that.”
“I can imagine.” He reached out and pushed some of her hair out of the way. “Do you want me to wash your hair?”
“You’re offering?”
“Yeah, that is why I asked. Has the whiskey messed with your head?”
She couldn’t help but laugh, then it was pretty much stuck in her throat as Diego started to get undressed. Liana pressed her lips together as her husband got naked, and he didn’t move in front of her to sit in the bath but actually moved behind her. She leaned back against him, and Diego took hold of her hands, locking their fingers together.
Neither of them spoke, and for several minutes, they just laid together. It felt nice, especially as he held her hands and she felt the warmth of his body at her back. It was at that moment she realized she didn’t want this to end.
Diego, surrounding her, comforting her, felt amazing.
****
Business would keep him in the city for the next month. There was no chance of him taking her back to his country home, so after going to a few random stores, he found that Halloween decorations were in full swing. He had never celebrated Halloween. Certainly not while he lived alone. When his parents were alive, there were a few occasions they did celebrate and there was candy. That was a long time ago.
His men helped him gather the few items up to the main penthouse suite. According to the updates he’d been getting from her guards, Liana had not left the penthouse in the last few days. She was still coping with the aftershocks of getting drunk.
Stepping into their penthouse, he carried everything to the sitting room.
“Diego?” Liana asked, stepping out of the kitchen and coming to a stop in the sitting room.
The guards he had placed with her had already left, so he stood in the center of the sitting room, complete with a fake black tinsel-covered tree, that had different sizes of pumpkins and ghosts and ghouls. There were fairy lights in Halloween colors.
“What is all this?” she asked.
“This is for you. We’re not going to get a chance to go back home for Halloween. I’ve got a lot of business to take care of here, and I thought you might like the chance to, you know, decorate.”
“You would be happy for me to decorate your place in fairy lights and pumpkins?” Liana asked.
She wore an apron around her waist, and her long blonde hair was pinned back. She was dressed in a pair of jeans that had seen much better days. Also, a sweatshirt on top.
“Yeah, I would. It might warm this place up a little, and you’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“This is not my place, Liana. This is our place, and you can decorate it however the fuck you like.”
Her arms were still folded across her chest. “Okay, if you want to.”
“Come,” he said. “See what I picked up, and if there is anything missing, we can head back to the store.”
She had her doubts, he saw that, but he had pretty much picked up everything that didn’t require a garden.
Liana came closer and started to rummage in the bags and lay them out on the coffee table. He had also gotten lots of candy as well. He wasn’t quite sure if there were kids that lived in the building, but children were everywhere. Surely the candy would come in handy.
“This is amazing,” Liana said.
He hadn’t expected the way she threw her arms around him and hugged him. All he had done was go shopping for a few items, it wasn’t that big of a deal. However, he would gladly do it again and again, to continue getting hugs like that.
“I just need to put the dinner into the oven. I’ll be right back.”
“What is for dinner?”
“It’s called Hunter’s Chicken. It is one of my mom’s recipes.”
“Love it,” he said.
Liana left to go into the kitchen, and Diego picked up some black and purple tinsel. Snapping the wrapper that came around it, he moved to where the mantle was and started to lay it across the shelf. She came back and started to help him, and together they began to make his home Halloween festive.
During the process, he started to realize that his home didn’t have a lot of personal touches. At Liana’s parents’ home, there were pictures. Constant memories that surrounded people as they entered their home. He had seen pictures of Liana from a baby to now.
Stepping back and looking at his penthouse suite, they had artwork. He didn’t even know the artist. The place had been decorated by a professional, and all he had demanded was for it to be clean. That was it.
Now, it didn’t look like his home. It looked like a place to stay, but not a home. Diego gripped the back of his neck, not liking the feelings rushing through him. He had never truly considered what a home was supposed to look like.