Page 128 of The Boss

He purses his lips. “Yeah,” he swallows. “I’m good, I promise.”

We finish eating, and Gino puts our containers in a bag to throw away when we leave.

He goes through the cooler again and grabs something. I watch him because, as far as I know, we didn't bring anything else with us except for some water. He then turns to look at me.

I look at his hand and realize why he’s been so nervous.

I gasp and stare at him. There's a small black box in his hands.

GINO

I feel like I’m blowing this.

Juliet just stares at me.

I’ve never been this nervous in my life.

I clear my throat, and she looks up at me.

“Juliet…”

Get it together, I tell myself. I’ve practiced this speech at least a hundred times. I even had my sister listen to my rambling of this speech, and her response was, “You could say nothing to her, and she’ll say yes.”

I swallow, and she looks at me with a small smile.

Exhaling, I start again, “Juliet, I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. When we first met, I knew I wanted to be with you. I know it took me ten years to finally do something about that. I love everything about you, your smile, your heart, and most definitely the fact that you put me in my place in more than one way.”

She laughs at that.

“So Juliet Tran, what do you say? Do you want to be with this annoying CEO the rest of your life and marry me?” I ask.

It wasn’t the entire speech I planned in my head, but I just want her to wear this ring on her finger and show the whole world she’s mine.

She looks at me with tears swelling in her eyes and offers a beautiful smile. “Yes.”

I let out an exhale, and I open the ring box. It’s a three-carat princess-cut ring with small diamonds along the band.

“Gino, this is beautiful,” she whispers.

“I had help from Vanessa and your mom. Apparently, you had this ring picked out for years,” I wink.

I called her mom a month ago, and she mentioned how Juliet always wanted a princess-cut diamond. My sister helped in picking the setting and size of the carat I should get.

“I only told my mom about that,” she whispers. “And Vanessa saw a picture I looked at months ago. Did you ask her to show her the exact ring I wanted?”

“Maybe,” I reply.

Apparently Mateo wanted to buy her a second engagement ring, so she used that as her way of getting Juliet to show her what she wanted.

Juliet bites her lip and kisses me.

The beach is quiet, so no one can really see us, and if they did, they aren’t making it obvious.

I slide the ring onto her finger. “You are never taking that off,” I growl.

“Okay, caveman, simmer down,” she jokes. “Once we get married, you can’t take your wedding ring off either.”

“Don’t expect me to,” I reply.