Chapter 33

33

The man was... maybe there was far more depth to Gene Matteo Hiller than Chantal had ever realized.

"You do matter. Faster than I thought possible." The words just slipped out somehow. But they were true. At heart, all arguing for six years aside, this man was a good man where it mattered.

She’d seen that before. Even when she thought she hated him, she had seen him with his family, his son. The people he cared about.

But did she believe he cared about her? Fully, truly? The way Charlie loved Rory or her father loved her mother? Well, that was where she struggled. "But I don’t know... how lasting... whether you are serious... I mean..."

"You don’t know if what I am feeling is a passing thing?" He toyed with the button on her pajama top. They were pajamas she’d left at his house a long time ago. Genny had kept them in her room as spares for when Chantal had slept over for whatever reason or another.

Always when Gene was gone. And definitely not while he had been married to Carly. They had been like two ships who had deliberately never passed in the night. For a long, long time.

But three weeks ago, their ships had collided. In that cabin on the corner of his property. Nothing had felt the same since.

That didn’t mean that this felt wrong, though. It felt the exact opposite of wrong. And that scared her.

That was exactly what she told him, too.

Then, before she could even stop to think that what they were doing would change everything, or that his son was sleeping two doors down. Or that Gunn, the minister, for heaven’s sake, was in his own room nearby, Chantal kissed him. Pressed closer.

Slipped the cotton t-shirt over his shoulders free.

"Can I..." He toyed with the buttons on her shirt. Deliberately.

She knew what he was asking.

Chantal pulled in a deep breath and nodded. She reached for him—and kissed him.

The boldest move she’d ever made in her life.

Especially with a man.

Then everything changed between them again. Forever.