His Greatest Treasure (Greatest Love #4)

Chapter 30

30

AVERY

My legs are still jelly as we stare at the first course in front of us. I’m nursing the same glass of white wine I was a few minutes after Oliver ordered the bottle. It’s my favourite kind, but I’m already buzzing, and the only thing alcohol will do is make me completely lose my inhibitions. I’m weak enough already after being eaten like dessert on my kitchen table.

The restaurant he chose for us is high-class. We’re on the rooftop patio surrounded by lanterns and a garden of flowers that I’ve been wanting to go up to and explore. It’s romantic, and I’m flattered that he wanted to take me somewhere like this.

The filet mignon on my plate smells really damn good, grilled to a perfect sear with a light-coloured juice leaking onto the plate around it. Six sprigs of asparagus are beside it, dusted with freshly grated Parmesan and paired with a hefty scoop of fluffy mashed potatoes. My stomach growls, but it’s drowned out by the soft music playing.

“It seems the only meal we know how to eat together is one with steak,” I joke while unrolling my fork and knife from their napkin blanket .

Oliver takes a gulp of his beer, a smirk tugging around the rim of the tall glass. “I’m a simple man.”

“Are you? In what way?”

Patting his lips with his napkin, he keeps our eyes locked. “I know what I like. No use straying or trying to shake things up now. I’m content with my life now.”

“Completely? Is anyone ever really one hundred percent content?”

“Are you hinting that you’re not?”

I reach for my wine on instinct, needing something to soothe me. We’ve avoided heavy conversation so far here tonight, but we both knew it was coming. We need to dive deep before things can go any further between us.

And I really, really want them to.

“I always hoped that by the time I was in my thirties, I would be completely content. I’d have everything figured out. But a successful future seems easier to achieve the younger you are. Thirty years seems like plenty of time to get your life together the way you want it, but there are a million reasons for things to go belly up on you. If I’m being honest, I’ve never been perfectly content. And these past few years, well, I think I lost hope that I ever would be,” I admit.

“Chris plays a part in that, I assume?”

My brows jump in confirmation. “I wish I could say he hasn’t and that I haven’t allowed him to have that power over me, but yes, he does play a part in it. I’m angry with him but also with myself. Everything that happened made me resent myself and turn against my own mind. How did I allow myself to get caught up in a man who never wanted a future with me past a couple of fun years? Or why didn’t I leave him earlier? I know what a healthy relationship and marriage look like, like I’m sure you do, and while I was never married to him, I know what we had wasn’t healthy.

“My experience with him did more damage than anything else I’ve ever gone through. But I still don’t regret it. I struggle with that.”

Oliver’s hand closes around mine on the table, a gentle comfort. It’s hard to keep eye contact as I drop my insecurities on the table for him to poke and prod at, but the thought of looking away is just as unsettling.

“How are you supposed to regret something that gave you your daughter? You can want to go back and talk some sense into yourself without regretting what you gained from that relationship,” he says gently, stroking my knuckles. “Chris hurt you. He skewed the way you see and react to care from others because he didn’t show you hardly enough. Are those things supposed to make you happy, Avery?”

I swallow. “I feel guilty when I think back and wish things had been different. That’s what eats me up inside. How is it fair to have been gifted something so precious with Nova while damning her father in my mind every day?”

“Chris might be her father, but that doesn’t grant him the right to treat you poorly. He doesn’t get immunity in my eyes. He lost you because he was a fucking idiot, and one day, he’ll think back and be the one full of regret and guilt.”

I flip my hand palm up and thread our fingers. Being the one to touch him instead of the other way around is freeing in a way. Like I’m finally allowing myself to open up to him fully.

“I’ll get to the point where I’ll look around and be content with the life I’ve built. It’s taking a little longer than I’d hoped, but I know that time is coming,” I say. “And you? What makes you content? Outside of your career, what makes you happy , Oliver?”

He hesitates for a moment, and I wonder if I’ve overstepped for all of a second before he speaks, voice low and steady.

“If you asked me two months ago, I’d have told you I was nowhere near being content, Avery.”

“What’s changed?”

His wide shoulders stretch and straighten, tugging at the dress shirt around them. My breath gets caught in my throat when he takes our threaded hands and lifts the back of mine to his lips, ghosting a kiss across it.

“You. Nova. Both of you,” he states, not a single waver or hint of doubt in his voice. “I’ve spent my entire life around families. Around kids and love. I watched my closest friends fall in love and get married, have their own kids. I didn’t know the extent of my loneliness until you moved in next door and the two of you filled my house with the laughter I hadn’t noticed was missing and gave me a purpose for something more than just my job. Before you, I hadn’t dared think I could have a family of my own or that I was even ready for one, but now . . . Now, I want the two of you to be my family.”

“And you’re ready for that?” I choke, my heartbeat racing, loud in my ears.

His slight grin is beautiful behind our hands. “Really fucking ready, princess.”

“We’ll still have to move slow around Nova. I’ve never—she’s never been introduced to another man as someone important to us in that way. It was challenging explaining to her why Chris and I aren’t together anymore, but she’s been handling it alright . . . I think. It’s been four years now, and she’s strong. I’m just scared of overwhelming her,” I ramble, moisture building on the back of my neck. Nerves twist and turn inside of me.

His smile doesn’t fall. It grows at my word vomit, a playful gleam in his eyes. “Slow is fine. Nova’s had a lot of changes in her life. I just want you to know where I stand. I’m not going anywhere. You and Nova are what I want, and that’s not going to change, no matter how long it takes. I’m in no rush.”

His words relax me. I drop my chin, rolling my lips to hide an oncoming smile. Resting our hands back on the table, he takes another drink of his beer.

“You didn’t answer me before. What makes you happy?” I ask, pulling my hand free only so we can eat before our dinner grows cold .

The steak cuts like butter, and the first taste of it on my tongue pulls a moan from me. Oliver stiffens across the table, fork and knife unmoving in his hands. His playfulness is shoved aside by the blazing heat of desire. I rub my thighs together beneath the table.

“Those moans of yours, for one,” he mutters.

I bat his words aside. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” He resumes cutting his steak and clears his throat. “I go fishing with my brother and dad every few weekends. Sometimes we’ll rent Jet Skis and take those out too.”

“Jamie likes fishing?”

“He hates it. But Dad and I do, so he comes anyway. We didn’t used to invite him, but he would get pissy, blubbering on about not being included in family activities.”

I laugh at that, the idea of Jamie saying that not hard to believe. “You always did like silence. Is that why you go fishing?”

“That and spending the time with my dad. Sometimes I think he’s trying to make up for lost days and weekends from when Jamie and I were kids and he was still in the league.”

“Mine does that too. Or he used to when I still lived in Sweden. Once he retired, it was like he was trying to replace the time he lost.”

“How was it there when he was playing? Having a parent in the NHL is hard on any family, but I’m sure the Swedish league is just as bad.”

“Gone for practice, games, interviews, special occasions. The same. Mom travelled with the team, too, for a while, but she decided to stay home with me a couple years in.”

“She was the team physio, right?” he asks before eating a bite of his steak.

“Yep. But she didn’t want a nanny raising me, so she left and never looked back.”

“When did you decide you wanted to open a flower shop?”

“I used to play in the flower fields by our house. There were all kinds of them everywhere, really. I used to pick bundles and bring them inside to decorate my room until there were bugs everywhere and Mom started getting all tense about it. There was a flower shop down the street from our house, and she started taking me there once a week instead. I’d choose a different arrangement every time, and I grew to love doing it. Having somewhere all my own where I can be surrounded by flowers all day, creating bundles for special occasions or sweet gestures, sounded like a dream to me.” I push my hair over my shoulder. “I know it probably seems lame to you.”

“No. It doesn’t. You’re doing what you love. That’s not lame at all.”

I want to tell him that that means more than I know how to explain, but I have a feeling he’s already aware of that if his understanding smile is anything to go off.

“Do you have a list of what you still need done before you can open?” he asks, directing the conversation again.

For someone who isn’t much of a talker normally, he sure seems to be chatty with me.

“More like scattered sticky notes all over the place.”

“Can I see them?”

I shake my head. “I’m nearly done. Only should be a couple more weeks, and then I can start planning the opening.”

“Avery, let me help you,” he pleads.

I fill my mouth with a scoop of mashed potatoes to stall, but once they’re gone, I sigh. “I’ve got a new light fixture that I need put in. It might turn out to be a big job, but the bathroom is in need of a sprucing up, and the painting is nearly done. Then I have to set up all the new shelves and put in my first orders of flowers. Planning the opening will come at the very end.”

“Easy,” he grunts.

“Easy? The first few things, maybe. But advertising myself is harder than you’d think.”

He looks at me deadpan, one brow lifted slightly. “You’re quite literally surrounded by celebrities. Use them. ”

“Oliver, I’m not going to use my friends that way. I don’t want to have anything handed to me,” I argue.

“It wouldn’t be handed to you. You’re the one who’s done all the groundwork to get to this point. It’s your shop, your money dumped into the place and effort spent working to get it ready. You’ll be there every day. They wouldn’t see it as being used either. They want to see you succeed.”

It’s hard to ignore the warmth in my chest at the reminder that I’m surrounded by so many people who care about me and would help with this if I asked. I’ve always known that if I just asked for help, I’d receive it from every one of the people in my life. But it’s always seemed scarier than it should be.

Putting yourself out there and asking for help means admitting that you need it in the first place. Clearly, I struggle in that department.

“I’ll talk to Adalyn. But that’s it,” I tell him sternly.

His expression evens out, but there’s a nip in my gut that tells me he isn’t going to let this be at just that. I let it go for now.

“Alright.” He finishes his beer before starting on his water. “You called me your boyfriend the other day. Is that my title now?”

“I thought you missed that.” He hasn’t brought it up since ballet on Wednesday night.

“Not possible.”

“You called Nova yours,” I return.

“I want her to be.”

I suck in a sharp breath, emotion welling up deep inside of me. It sounds good. Right . But it can’t possibly be this easy.

“I’ll prove it to you, Avery. I’m not giving you meaningless words or promises,” he adds.

“How do you plan on proving something like that?”

His eyes smolder, the brown growing deeper and darker as he watches me. I lean forward as if he’s yanked the cord tethered to the two of us.

“I’ll start with tonight. Just you and me. And tomorrow, we’ll go pick up our girl.”