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CHAPTER ONE
Carrie
As soon as I turn around, my gaze drops to the man on one knee in front of me.
“Not now, Telford,” I scold him. “We’re on a tight deadline.”
He ignores everything I just said. “Love Bug, you own the key to my heart, so go ahead and use it to open our wedlock.”
I flash him two thumbs down. “Epic fail, Tel.”
His nose scrunches, causing his eyeglasses to wiggle. “What? An epic fail? Why?”
I motion for him to stand. “Get up.”
He darts to both feet, straightening the employee ID badge hanging from the lanyard around his neck. “Will I ever get it right?”
I can’t promise he will, so I do the next best thing and offer the reassurance I know he needs. “Stop searching online for proposal scripts. You’ve got this. All you need to do is speak from the heart.”
“From the heart?” A look of horror flashes over his expression. “How? What? Why?”
I hold in a grin. “Yes, from the heart.”
He taps his chest before his hand jumps to his forehead, pushing a few strands of his blond hair aside. “This heart and this mind don’t communicate.”
“They communicate non-stop.” I glance at the clock hanging on the wall in our lab. “You’re a scientist. You know this.”
“I’m not talking about my subconscious mind.” He rolls his eyes. “I’m talking about my conscious mind and its inability to come up with even one original romantic thought. Do I need to remind you about what happened last Valentine’s Day?”
Shaking my head, I shudder. “Please, no. Don’t do that.”
Ignoring my wishes yet again, Telford Harpin sighs. “I ordered what I thought was a singing telegram. It was actually a strip-o-gram, Carrie. A strip-o-gram.”
Even though I’m well aware of what went down on February fourteenth, since it happened right in front of me, I stay silent.
Telford has brought up that mistake at least a dozen times since.
I admit, I’ve replayed the moment in my mind more than that because the stripper was all kinds of hot. Telford stood in shock in the corner of the lab with his mouth hanging open until the stripper was down to his tighty whities. That’s when Tel decided to step in and pull the plug on his elaborate Valentine’s gift. It was in the nick of time because one of the executives of the company we work for showed up just as the stripper finished putting his clothes back on.
Crew Benton, the COO of Matiz Cosmetics, greeted the stripper with a hearty “hello” before he strolled over to Telford and me to discuss the project we were working on at the time.
It was a close call that could have ended horribly.
Telford glances toward the door of our lab. “I need guidance here. Your sister got engaged recently. What was her proposal like?”
“Her fiancé was naked.” I smile. “My sister was, too.”
“Naked?” The look of horror reappears on Tel’s face. “I’m not proposing naked. No damn way.”
I glance at his perfectly pressed white button-down shirt before my gaze drops to his brown pants and beyond to his sensible shoes. “Just because it worked for them doesn’t mean it will for everyone.”
“Their proposal wasn’t in public, was it?”
I bark out a laugh. “No. Abby told me that Declan dropped to one knee after they… you know. It all sounded very romantic. He gave her the ring that her late mom wore.”
My stepsister’s face lit up when she told me her engagement story. I’ve never seen her happier, but I suspect I will a week and a half from now when she gets married.
Telford clicks the pen in his hand. “It’s not my style, but I guess it’s a proposal Abby will never forget.”
