Page 148 of Secret Paths

“What?”

He looks down at our joined hands.

At the rings.

Then at me.

His face is so open it almost hurts to see.

“I am trying not to say something dangerously sentimental.”

“Good.”

“Failing.”

“Also good.”

He smiles, and I pull him up the last few steps.

My bedroom is exactly as I left it this morning. Cardigan over the chair. Book face down on the bedside table. Laundry basket full. A pair of tights abandoned near the wardrobe because past Mandy is an inconsiderate chaos gremlin.

Peter does not look at any of it.

He only has eyes for me.

I turn to face him at the foot of the bed. For a moment, we stand there like we have never done this before.

In some ways, we have not.

Not like this.

Not with rings on both our hands and no secret waiting outside the door. Not with my proposal still warm between us. Not with the future no longer treated as a trap I must avoid stepping into.

I take his left hand and lift it to my mouth.

The ring is cool against my lips.

Peter goes very still.

I kiss the ring first. Then his knuckle. Then the inside of his wrist, where his pulse is fast beneath my mouth.

“Mandy.”

My name sounds different when he says it like that. Not uncertain. Not guarded. Just full of everything we no longer have to pretend is casual.

I start on his shirt buttons, kissing each patch of skin as I uncover it. By the fourth, his patience gives out. He pulls the shirt over his head, catches me around the waist and lifts me.

I laugh. ‘Efficient.’

“I have a fiancée waiting.”

“Demanding woman, is she?”

“Terrifying.” He kisses me. “I adore her.”

The words set off a ridiculous flutter of butterflies in my stomach.

He sets me on the edge of the bed and stands between my knees. I undo his belt while he pulls my blouse over my head. Our rings catch and click together, and we both pause to look.