Five Years Earlier
Bella's POV
The guest cottage sat just far enough from the main house that I could pretend, most mornings, that I was living an entirely independent life instead of one Ronan had quietly built around me piece by piece.
"You don't have to keep doing this," I told him, standing in the small kitchen while he adjusted a shelf he'd apparently had installed overnight, lower than the others, exactly the right height for someone who could no longer comfortably reach the top cabinets.
"Doing what?"
"This." I gestured at the shelf, at the reading lamp that had appeared beside the armchair last week, at the grocery delivery that arrived every Tuesday without my ever placing an order, always exactly what I would have chosen myself. "Anticipating things before I ask for them."
