FOUR YEARS AGO
HIM: I don’t get it.
HER: What?
HIM: I’m watching Neil get married, and I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would spend tens of thousands of dollars on a few hours, when you can say I do in front of a judge and then spend the money building your future—if you even have a future, because we all know there’s more than a fifty-percent chance someone is going to cheat, and they’ll be getting a divorce before they hit their ten-year anniversary.
HER: Do you even have a romantic bone in your body, Fireball?
HIM: I haven’t had a single complaint from anyone I’ve kissed.
HER: Sex isn’t romance. You’d know that if you read one of my books.
PRESENT DAY
As I watched Maisey’s face, thelaughter and tease and even the heat from our kiss disappeared behind her blank wall. I’d mentioned the ring, and she’d gone cold.
My vulnerable heart, so recently exposed, took a hit. Did she not want this? Did she not want me? Had I somehow cleared my way through the smoke only to find my house really was on fire?
No. Screw that. Maisey had feelings for me. I’d even go as far as to say she loved me. Not as a friend, but as something more. It was part of the reason I’d worked so hard to keep us in the friend zone. I hadn’t wanted to mislead her. Hadn’t wanted her to end up like Delilah with blood coating her wrists.
But maybe I’d pushed her away for so long that she’d gotten as good as I had at denying us. Denying the feelings that had always been there. Because that was the simple truth—I’d always loved her. Fate was laughing at me. My disbelief in soulmates was having a good chuckle.
We were fated soulmates, but we were also so much more.
I needed to tell her. I knew it was important for her to hear the words so she’d understand exactly how far of a leap I’d taken, but would she believe it? Would she believe it after the years where I’d scorned love and happily ever afters?
Words were cheap. If I’d learned anything from reading romance novels, it was just that. The hero had toshowhis heroine what he meant. A grand gesture.
I could do that. I could give her that tonight and turn an evening that would have already been special into something truly magical.
Maisey moved away from me, glancing at the clock with a frown. “Let me just text Fallon. I don’t know why she’s not here yet.”
“I told her not to come. That I was taking you.”
She gave me that look—the one that said I’d overstepped—but it only made me smirk. “I know, I know. I’m taking the protective-hero thing too far again. But the truth is, I’m not ready to let you out of my sight. Last night, when I got the call you’d been attacked…”
I couldn’t finish. I tugged her hand into mine, squeezing it, while I took several long, slow breaths. Finally, I choked out, “Keeping you close today is more for me than you.”
Maybe the stupid-ass tears that had welled had done the trick, because she simply gave in.
And a few hours later, when she began apologizing for taking so long picking out a dress, all I could do was remind her that I’d signed up for the trip. Still, a flicker of anxiety was starting to creep in, because by the time lunchtime came around, she’d barely managed to find a dress and a pair of shoes—an outfit she hadn’t even allowed me to see or let me pay for—and we hadn’t even begun looking for the most important thing on the list, the ring.
When she suggested we stop for a bite at one of the mall’s restaurants, I insisted we didn’t have time for a sit-down meal. Even though the food court felt like the wrong place to take the woman you loved on the day you bought her an engagement ring, we were pressed for time if she still wanted to hit up the lingerie store before we went to the jeweler’s.
But once we were in the lingerie shop, all thoughts of hurrying flew right out the window. As I watched her pick through lace bras and barely-there thongs, I remembered her words from this morning and knew she wasright. I was going to beg her to take off whatever dress she bought simply to see her in that sheer excuse of a bra and panty set she’d picked up.
While she was in the dressing room, I texted her, telling her exactly what I wanted to do to her in and out of the underwear she was trying on, and she came out with a delightful pink coating her cheeks.
“You’re a menace,” she said.
“Darlin’, it’s your own fault. You can’t bring me to a place like this and expect menotto have those kinds of thoughts.”
“You’re the one who demanded to come along.”
I stroked her cheek while we waited in line. “Can we go to the jewelry store now?”
She studied me for a long moment, and something in her look caused the ugly worry I’d had this morning to return.