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14
I arrivedat Edelman’s while they were still in the midst of the lunch rush. The woman in charge of seating inspected her nails with a bored expression as she relayed the information that there was a fifteen-minute wait.
Like hell. I’d waited forty-two years for this woman. I wasn’t wasting another second.
I didn’t look at her as I stormed into the restaurant, ignoring the cries of annoyed patrons who thought I was trying to skip ahead of them in line. The woman was calling out for the owner of the restaurant, but the moment my eyes landed on my girl where she stood taking a table of businessmen’s orders, all the noise faded out.
“Juliet!”
Her head whipped toward me and her eyes widened in surprise. She looked around in confusion, watching the scene as I rushed to her while the owner and one of the male waiters rushed to me.
“Sir, you need to—”
“Fuck off, I’m not staying.”
A hand grasped my shoulder and I snarled at the boy who touched me. He pulled his hand away like he’d been burned, fear obvious in his eyes. He couldn’t have been more than twenty and he looked like he was ready to piss his pants.
“Don’t poke the beast,” I hissed with a sneer.
The owner didn’t look nearly as concerned. “Sir, if you don’t leave immediately, I’m calling the police.”
I looked back in time to see Juliet mutter something to her table before hastily rushing over to diffuse the situation.
“I’m so sorry, sir. Please don’t call the police. This is my boyfriend,” she said softly to her boss. “Ethan, what are you doing here?”
Her tone didn’t faze me, but her blush sure did. God, I loved the way she looked when she blushed. It was a lot redder than usual though, which was ultimately what brought me back to reality.
With a jolt of surprise, I realized the background noise hadn’t faded out the moment I saw her like some cheesy movie. No, the noise had stopped completely when every pair of eyes in the restaurant turned toward the giant man causing a scene. The only sounds were the occasional clinking of a glass being gently placed on a table and the occasional hushed whisper.
The color staining her cheeks wasn’t from my presence or a slight embarrassment. It was from total public humiliation.
Even though I realized this, the crazed blood pumping through my veins and the box burning a hole in my pocket couldn’t be ignored.
“I love you,” I practically yelled in the silence, startling Juliet to the point where she jumped. She looked around nervously as the whispers rose and I softly repeated, “I love you, Juliet. More than anything else in the world.”
I could see in her eyes the moment when she forgot all about the people surrounding us. The blush began to fade as her forehead crinkled with a confused frown.
“I love you, too, Ethan,” she whispered. “But why—”
Before I lost my nerve, I bent down and kneeled on one knee. I dug into my pocket as the whispers got louder with excitement and I briefly wondered what I would have thought if I witnessed a spectacle like this.
I probably would have rolled my eyes while internally commending the man for his blatant display of affection—the opinions of others be damned. When I looked up at Juliet, I could tell she felt the same way. She was still embarrassed as hell, but there was something in her soft expression that gave me the feeling she was impressed.
It took a fuckload of nerve to propose in front of at least fifty spectators. I deserved some points for that.
“Marry me,” I said as I raised the box and opened the lid. “Let me be the one to take care of you forever.”
A tear rolled down her cheek as she looked from the ring to my face.
“I’ll take care of you, too.”
“I know you will, angel.”
There was a brief moment of hesitation—that moment where she was surely questioning if she was insane enough to go through with this—before she finally nodded. Her smile as I slid the ring on her finger was the best thing I ever saw and when I rose to my feet to kiss her, I barely heard the loud clapping that surrounded us.
Juliet did and she pulled away with flushed cheeks, though she was still smiling as she lifted her hand and inspected her ring.
Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t done embarrassing her. I did resist the urge to scream ‘Mine!’ and beat my chest like a fucking crazy person, but I didn’t even try to stop myself from lifting her up and carrying her out of the restaurant. The clapping turned to laughter and shouts that made her cheeks a darker red.
