Page 83 of Based on You

The bookstore was dark from the outside, but lit from within. Hundreds of flickering candles glowed through the frosted glass, small and warm.

I pushed the heavy oak door open.

The patterned rugs had been pulled back. Pillar candles covered every flat surface: the checkout counter, the wooden display shelves, the wide window ledge, the small step between the front room and the back. Strands of small, warm white fairy lights ran above the shelves, tracing the ceiling. The draped signing table from my launch sat in the middle of the room.

In the center of the table was a single copy of The Quiet Hour, Book Three: The Assistant.

Simon stood beside the table.

He wore a tailored black tuxedo. He'd shaved clean. He stood with his hands resting loose in front of him, watching me come through the door.

I stopped just inside the threshold, my breath snagging.

"Simon," I breathed. I took in the sea of candles, the glittering lights, the lone book on the table, and finally him. "What is all of this?"

The corner of his mouth curved into a devastating, slow smile. "You look beautiful, Violet."

"You look incredibly dashing yourself," I managed.

A breathless laugh escaped me before I expected it, and he crossed the room, taking both of my trembling hands in his. He looked into my eyes a long moment without speaking, and when he finally did, his voice came out low, gravelly, and unhurried, each word placed with care.

"I've been thinking about what I want to say to you for four whole months," he said. "I wrote it all down, then threw it away because it sounded too much like a corporate contract, which is probably a sign that I've been running a company for too long." He looked down at my hands, his thumb stroking my knuckles. "So I'm just going to say it simply."

He looked back up, his gray eyes piercing mine.

"You're the most observant person I've ever met. You saw broken things in me that I hadn't let anyone else see, and instead of using them against me, you wrote them down and gave them to people who needed them. I didn't understand that for a long time. I understand it now." He paused, stepping a fraction closer.

"You made my cold house into a real home. You made my grieving niece laugh again. You made me see that the cynical version of me who'd decided he was better off alone was just a terrified coward hiding in an expensive suit. You were patient enough to wait while I figured that out, and then you were brave enough to walk away from me when I didn't deserve your patience."

I pressed my lips together, tears threatening to spill.

"I spent a long time afraid of loving someone fully," he continued, his voice thick. "I spent a long time thinking that if I held onto things loosely enough, losing them would hurt less. It didn't work. I lost you anyway, and the losing hurt exactly as much as I'd always been terrified it would." He paused, holding my gaze. "And I'd do it again. I'd gladly let it hurt again, if this was what came after."

I pressed my free hand against my aching sternum.

He let go of one of my hands.

He went down on one knee.

My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. I stood frozen in the middle of the candlelit bookstore, looked down at this man kneeling on the floor in his tuxedo, and felt something enormous I didn't even have a name for yet. Far larger than simple happiness, and hiding underneath it was the small, toxic voice I'd carried for years: You don't deserve this. But then, quieter, rising from somewhere deeper and truer: Maybe that's not the right question to ask anymore.

"I love you," he said, his voice filling the quiet room. "I've loved you for much longer than I knew what to call it. And I will not stop. I'm just not built for stopping when it comes to you." He reached into his pocket and opened a small velvet ring box. "Violet Paige. Will you please marry me?"

I stared at him, overwhelmed. The room was still. In the corner of my eye, I caught Sloane holding her phone up to record. Olivia stood beside her, both hands clamped over her mouth.

"Yes," I gasped, the tears finally falling. "Yes."

He stood up in one fluid motion and kissed me before I'd finished saying the word. I put my hands on either side of his face and kissed him right back. He pulled away just long enough to slide the cold, heavy ring onto my trembling finger.

"You once told me you'd give me anything I wanted," I said, my voice unsteady against his mouth. "If I found her for you."

He huffed a laugh, his forehead dropping to mine. "You never said what it was."

"I know." I looked down at the ring, then back up at him. "I think I was waiting until the answer was you."

I looked down at the diamond, then back up at him, and laughed a full, real laugh, because I didn't know what else to do with something this beautiful.

Olivia screamed at the top of her lungs.