Chapter 185: Dream Building

Naomi made a sleepy sound.

"Just one more stop, I promise."

"Hmmm..." She was too tired to argue.

Dorian felt guilty. He looked back at the road. He wasn’t even sure how she planned to survive work at the restaurant again today, especially when tomorrow she had to start preparations for Ginny’s wedding.

And Naomi also had the rehearsal dinner to cater.

Dorian’s jaw tightened slightly.

She was doing too much.

The catering business was growing. The restaurant still demanded her time. Private orders were coming in.

Her phone seemed to ring every ten minutes lately.

And Naomi, being Naomi, kept saying yes because every booking felt like proof that Chef Bennett was becoming something real.

He understood that. He loved that about her. He also hated watching her run herself into the ground.

If Dorian could take the stress away from her without interfering with the thing she was building, he would.

Which was exactly why, while Naomi had been at the restaurant yesterday, he had gone on another kind of hunting.

Dorian pulled into the parking area in front of a low, elegant commercial building and switched off the engine.

Naomi blinked sleepily, then sat up a little straighter. She looked through the windshield. "This doesn’t look like a house."

"No," he said calmly. "It isn’t."

"What’s this?"

Dorian rested one hand on the steering wheel and turned slightly toward her. "So, since we’ve established that these new clients you’re getting aren’t just a phase, and it’s beginning to look like you might eventually concentrate on catering full-time, I thought you needed somewhere with enough space to actually work."

"You’d have a proper kitchen, storage, somewhere for consultations, an office, and your own staff—"

"Staff? What are you talking about?"

Dorian went on. "You’re taking orders for twenty, thirty, forty people while still working at the restaurant. You’re doing prep wherever you can fit it, transporting food back and forth, handling calls yourself, dealing with clients yourself. You will crash at some point. I saw this place yesterday."

"If you want it, I just have to contact the realtor."

"Dorian..."

"You’re building a brand," he said. "A real one. And I’d like to help speed things along. You can build properly from here. Hire people. Take larger jobs. Have somewhere that belongs to the business."

Naomi pushed the door open and stepped outside. She stared at the building then closed her eyes for a moment.

Please, God.

Surely she was dreaming. Because lately her life had become suspiciously generous, and she still hadn’t learned how to trust good things without waiting for someone to take them away.

"Naomi?"

A second later, his hand settled gently on her shoulder.

She opened her eyes.

He was standing beside her, studying her face.

"How? Surely not now. You have Ginny’s wedding. We’re looking for a house."

"I can handle it."

"Ah..."

Dorian’s thumb moved lightly against her shoulder. "If you want something else, if this doesn’t fit what you want..."

Not wanting to cry, Naomi stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.

Dorian chuckled softly. "You haven’t even seen it."

"I just want to hold you. Just let me hold you."

"I’m not complaining, love." His arms settled around her, one hand resting against her back while the other moved into her hair. His fingers threaded gently through the strands.

Naomi pressed her face against his chest and held on tighter. She could feel the sting behind her eyes growing worse.

How exactly was she supposed to explain this to him? How did she tell Dorian that he had just placed one of her biggest dreams in front of her like it was something simple?

For years, she had imagined what it would feel like to build something of her own. Something with her name on it.

A place where she could grow.

And Dorian had somehow looked at all of that without her ever saying it and decided to go looking for it.

Naomi swallowed hard against the sob threatening to escape.

"Babe?" Dorian glanced down at her. His brows pulled together slightly. "Are you sleeping?"

A laugh escaped into his chest.

Naomi finally loosened her hold. "I just don’t think words are enough to say what I want to say."

His eyebrows rose. "That’s unusual. Very unusual," he added. "Shall I send for the doctor?"

Naomi pulled away and laughed. "I truly have no words."

"Well, I’m documenting this moment because nobody will believe me."

She shoved lightly at his chest.

"Come on. Let’s look inside." Dorian led her toward the entrance.

The moment they stepped in, Naomi stopped. The place was huge. It forced her imagination to start rearranging walls and filling corners.

She could already see it.

As they walked farther in, the space opened up even more.

They reached the back where the industrial kitchen was.

It wasn’t fitted out yet, but the bones were there.

Commercial ventilation.

Proper drainage.

Heavy-duty utility connections.

Enough space for multiple stations.

Storage areas that could be converted into cold rooms, dry storage and whatever else she needed.

Naomi slowly turned in a circle.

The rest of the building was empty.

"You can do whatever you need with it," he said. "Change the layout. Add offices. Expand the kitchen. Put in cold storage. Whatever makes sense." Dorian slipped his hands into his pockets. "Just tell me what you need."

As Dorian spoke, her heart was thundering.

Surely she was in a dream.

"Would you pinch me?"

"What?"

"I think the last two months have been a dream, so I need you to pinch me and wake me up. Actually, maybe I’ll just stay asleep," she continued. "Stay in this dream. I never want to wake up. I want to die in this dream because there is no way anyone can be this thoughtful." Naomi was gaining speed now.

"I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do in return. It feels quite one-sided, this relationship we’re in. You do all these things and it’s overwhelming because I don’t know what I’m giving you that could possibly equal any of it, and then you just keep—"

There she went.

Spiralling.

Dorian recognised it.

At first, he let her talk. Sometimes Naomi needed to empty everything in her head before she could hear anything else.

So he stood there while she rambled.

He waited and waited.

She still wasn’t stopping.

By the time Naomi finally looked like she was running out of oxygen, Dorian decided enough was enough.

He reached for her and pulled her straight into his arms. "Take a breath because I need to kiss you."