17. Harper

Chapter 17

Harper

The last three months have been life changing. Becoming a real couple with Miles instead of just best friends has made my whole world more colorful. I’m not sure why I denied us this happiness for so long, but being in love with my best friend is more than I ever thought it could be.

There’s only one cloud over my good mood and it’s the whole thing that kicked off our fairytale to begin with. My house. Today is the day I get to move back in, but I don’t want to. I thought for sure Miles would ask me to move in with him before we got to today, but he hasn’t. We’ve been living together, sleeping together every night, and still he’s talked all week about how much he hopes I love my house now that it’s done.

I haven’t been allowed to see it these last two weeks, so that I can see the results of all the changes at once. I feel so ungrateful that I don’t want to see it at all.

St. James C&D has done so much work for next to nothing. I gave them the insurance money, of course, but I know they put in a ton of extra work and didn’t charge me for it. Ivy did a lot of design work and even some decorating. She and Scarlett came over one afternoon and we spent ten minutes discussing paint colors and the rest of the afternoon drinking wine and gossiping about the St. James brothers.

Titan comes and sits next to me on the guest bed as I throw more of my stuff in boxes. “Are you ready to move back home?”

With a sharp bark, Titan leaves the room, letting me know exactly how he feels. Me too, buddy.

On the edge of tears, but trying to be brave, I leave Miles’s house and drive the short distance to mine, giving myself a pep talk the whole way. “I will be brave and happy. This doesn’t change my relationship with Miles. It just means that I have what I worked so hard for back.”

The pep talk isn’t doing much good.

I park in my driveway and sit looking at my house. It was once my pride and joy. I do still love it, but I love being with Miles more. Maybe I should just ask him if I can stay? Who says he has to be the one to bring up moving in together? I’m a modern woman.

I resolve to do just that and get out of my car to walk to my front door. That’s when I realize I don’t have a key. I gave mine to Ivy when she was working on the house and never got it back. Great, I have to knock to get into my own house.

I knock a little too forcefully on the front door. Seconds later, it opens and Miles is standing there looking like a snack.

“Hey, sweetheart.” His voice is like melted chocolate and hearing it makes my knees weak.

“Hi,” I say, a little petulantly.

“Come look at everything. I hope you love it.” He grabs my hand and pulls me into the house.

His happiness is kind of infectious and I find myself smiling as I walk through the entryway. Everything looks beautiful. Most of the house looks like it did before the flood. Since St. James C&D had worked on the house before, they had the original plans and could follow those. There are a few improvements, though, like beautiful crown molding and the new floors that are a significantly more expensive version of the ones I had before.

“What do you think?” Miles asks.

“It’s beautiful. You guys did an amazing job.” And they did. That doesn’t mean I want to live here though.

“Let’s go see your office. There’s no furniture, but you can still see the floors and stuff.”

Holding his hand, I walk back toward my office. This was my favorite room before, but I’m not at all excited to see it. I open the door and gasp in shock.

The room is full of candles and a silver bucket holding a bottle of champagne. There is also a set of keys sitting on a table next to two champagne flutes.

“The candles are flameless in case you’re worried. I was, with all the paint fumes and stuff. Clara told me they made these,” Miles tells me as I look around.

“It’s lovely. This was sweet of you to do.” It was, but I still feel sad about moving back in. I know I’m being ridiculous.

I walk further into the room to look at the set of keys and hear a thump. I turn and find Miles down on one knee.

“Harper Monroe, I love you more than anything. These last three months have been the best of my entire life, but every moment I’ve known you has been special. I want to have special, amazing, spectacular moments with you for the rest of our lives. You are my soulmate and my best friend. Will you marry me?”

I stand there in shock, unable to answer.

“Harper?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I burst into tears as he pulls me into his arms. “I thought you were going to let me move back into my house. I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t want to run away.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m so stupid. Of course, I don’t want you moving back here. If you did, I would move here too. And we can do that if you want to.”

“No, I like our house.”

“Me too.”

I stand in his arms for several minutes. “If you didn’t want me to move, what’s with the keys?”

“Your ring!” He jumps away and pulls the keys off the table. “I was trying to be clever, but that obviously didn’t work. My sister told me it was dumb. I put your ring on the keyring with a few keys to this house since I knew Ivy had yours.”

I didn’t even think about a ring when he made his proposal. I just want to spend my life with him. Now, I want his ring on my finger. I hold out my hand as he takes it off the keyring and slides it on. It’s a beautiful solitaire diamond.

“It’s beautiful and Clara’s wrong. I think the key idea is cute, and it would have worked if I hadn’t been in my feelings about moving out of our house.” I give him a small smile. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Harper. Forever.”