Keeping Her Love by Tiger Hill Page B

was thinking.” And I can keep that creep of a brother of yours as far away as possible from you.
    “So you want to move out soon?”
    “Yeah, as soon as possible. It’s near the end of the month, so I think we have a good chance to grab a place pretty quickly. Are you prepared to make a fast move?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of stuff. I’m supposed to go dress shopping with my mom at this exclusive boutique, but then, I have wedding stuff scheduled with her for the next month. I’ll just have to cancel with her, however much she gives me her grievances about it.”
    “Good. I’m glad that this was relatively easy to resolve. I thought that you might be against it.”
    “Well, I am worried about the money issue. Not only are we telling my mother that we don’t want her money for the wedding, we now have to pay rent. It’s probably going to put our plans farther in the future now. At least, for the business aspect. We’ve already sent out ‘save the date’ notices, so there’s no getting out of that.”
    “But you haven’t sent the invitations, right?”
    “No, I haven’t.”
    “I don’t want the plans for your business to get sidetracked because of this wedding, so why don’t we extend it a few months farther into the future?”
    She gave him a warm smile. “That’s sweet of you. Yes, perhaps we will.” She laughed to herself briefly. “If I told Layla or my mother that, they’d be quite upset. Change the wedding date, what heresy! Hah. What the heck. I like being away from them already. At least if I tell them over the phone or something, I can hang up.”
    He inserted a bite of his duck a l’orange into his mouth after responding, “Exactly.”
    They finished their dinners, split a delicious crème brûlée with their coffees, and then Rhett paid the bill. They left feeling confident about their decisions, and they discussed the idea of telling the family about their plan to leave after they had found a place to move into. They wouldn’t want to carry on living in the house if there was a pessimistic air about their plans. Rhett could already imagine just how wonderful it would be to have an entire apartment to himself and his lover: afternoons spent entirely naked, making love when and where they wanted, not having to step over their words in front of their elders… Who cared about money when the tradeoff was so great!
    When they got home, they got right on the computer to look at apartment listings in the area. Using their power as a couple, they decided to split their time setting up appointments with the differing listings they wanted to take a look at. They got excited imagining what it would be like to live together as a couple, with Tula making plans on putting aside some of their savings to decorate their new space. The door to Tula’s room was closed during this whole exchange, and Tula’s father took it upon himself to make sure that it was opened when he walked down the hall.
    “What are you two up to?” He asked after swiftly knocking on the door three times.
    “Nothing!” They answered innocently, huddled in front of the computer.
    “Hopefully nothing impure,” he responded with a wink before walking off.
    Asshole, Rhett found himself thinking after he left. Oops, I probably shouldn’t be thinking that about the father of my future wife. Still… he’s just as nosey as the rest of them, in his own way. He’s Mrs. Florian with a sausage between his legs. If he had the slightest interest in weddings, he’d be crawling all over Tula’s back about that, too.
    They went to bed soon after making some appointments. Tula was tired and had to be in at work in eight hours, so there was no time to be wasted staying up with her beaux. They shared a brief kiss, and Rhett wandered back to his room.
    Soon we’ll be sleeping in the same bed, just like man and wife. I don’t know if that spoils things any or if it’s a good prep period for when we are married. Hell, I