Drew felt a rush of conflicting emotions, and he wasn’t sure which to express first. Nikki had been talking at an auctioneer’s pace, explaining herself, the entire time they had been driving. Now they were near Harvey’s mansion, and Drew breathed deeply to keep from sounding too angry when he talked.
“Why in the world would you deliberately keep something like that from me, Nikki? Were you only dating me because I was the one who bought your grandparents’ home out from under you? And to what end? What did you think—?”
“No!” She sat facing him as he drove. “I was dating you because I—I liked you. And I never planned to not tell you. I just didn’t, and then too much time went by and we kept dating and it would have been weird to tell you after we got so…involved.”
His laugh was short on humor. “Oh, that was a good plan. This isn’t weird at all. I mean, I feel as if I’ve been the brunt of some bizarre joke the entire time we’ve been seeing each other.” He pulled up Harvey’s driveway and parked. “Your family—what did you do, tell them to wait until I left before openly discussing what a jerk I am for interfering with your plans for your family home?”
“Obviously not! Couldn’t you tell my father completely forgot about it until you two were talking on our way out? I stopped fussing about losing the house quite awhile ago.”
“I guess so, since I never heard about it.” And then it dawned on him. He pointed at her. “That’s what the funny looks were about. Oh, Nikki, there were so many times you thought about it, weren’t there? I even asked you about that, about the annoyed faces you kept making, back ages ago. I asked if there was something I had done that bothered you. You had plenty of chances to be honest with me.” He held the steering wheel and stared outside. “And I kept going on and on about ‘my house this’ and ‘my house that.’ I feel like such a selfish jerk.”
“That’s not how I see you.”
Now the past several months streamed through his mind. He groaned and gripped his forehead. “What you must have thought when I asked you to decorate for me.” He looked at her again, still baffled. “What did you think? How could you do all of that without coming clean? You just let me be an idiot with my stupid little project.”
“But you weren’t an idiot. And it wasn’t a stupid project. It was the same project I would have had if…”
“If I hadn’t swooped in and trashed your big dream.”
“Drew, look. I was upset at first, I’ll admit it. Maybe longer than just at first. You bought the house just as I had saved enough to make an offer. My Realtor had expressed an interest to the seller—”
“That was you! You were the other person interested in the house! That’s why I offered them the full asking price.”
“But we didn’t know each other yet, Drew. I’m sorry I ended up costing you money.”
He heard a hint of anger—or maybe hurt—in that comment. He tried to soften his tone.
“That’s not even an issue, Nikki. If you honestly didn’t know I was the buyer, you couldn’t have deliberately affected what I paid. And I had already made the offer by the time we met. That’s right, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “I think so. It was all happening about the same time, I think. I didn’t realize you were the buyer until the first day we went out. Right before we went to Ashworth’s soda fountain—when I stopped at the house and you were in the kitchen with your general contractor. I guess I thought I’d tell you about my great-grandparents if we ended up liking each other enough to keep seeing each other. And then I just couldn’t find a comfortable time to tell you. But what I was going to say is that I no longer look at you and see the man who—how did you put it? Trashed my dreams?”
“You no longer see me that way? Nikki, how could you? I mean, we’ve been—” How could he delicately ask how she could have let him kiss her and stroke her face and gaze into her eyes all these months when she resented him even a little? The thought embarrassed him all over again. “I mean, what’s wrong with you?”
He saw her flinch, and then she looked down at her lap.
The meanness of his question lingered there in the air after he said it. But he couldn’t bring himself to take it back.
“I don’t know,” she said, her head still down. “I honestly don’t know what I was afraid of.” She looked up at him, and he saw that she was fighting tears. “I guess I was afraid of something like this.” She gestured back and forth between them. She opened the car door and stepped out.
“Nikki.”
“Mmm-hmm?” Her voice was falsely light, and she didn’t bend down to look at him through the window. He doubted she’d be able to say anything else without crying.
He leaned toward the passenger seat so he could look up at her. “I’m sorry I’ve been so angry. I was just caught by surprise. I think I need to do some thinking. Can I call you later?”
She gave him a polite smile and nodded. She lifted her hand in a negligible wave before turning and walking swiftly toward the mansion.
He drove down the driveway and passed the spot where he and Freddie had first seen Nikki walking out of Harvey’s house with Riley. That had been the day he’d thrown the leash on Freddie and sought her out. He had tracked her down as if she were the sweetest prize. That seemed so long ago. A lot of time had gone by. Now he knew her so well. Or did he?
This new facet of their relationship—new to him, anyway—was important enough for him to weigh seriously. How had it changed the way they would relate to each other? Did they need to fix something between them? Could they?
He headed home. If he had any hope of making clear-headed decisions here, he was going to have to spend a little time in prayer.