Page 192 of Brighter Together

I laugh.

Then I take one of them.

“I spent a long time thinking Greenview Manor was enough.”

Her fingers curl around mine.

“I loved the hotel. I still do. But somewhere along the way, I let work become the excuse for not having much of a life outside it.”

Ella’s eyes fill.

“Then you came along and made me realise I actually wanted one.”

Her bottom lip trembles.

“A life, I mean. Not just work and FMR and occasionally seeing my friends when I managed to fit them in.”

I glance around the tiny campervan.

“I want more of this.”

“Cold burgers?”

“Obviously.”

She laughs through her tears.

“I want ordinary evenings with you. Holidays. Arguments about who forgot the milk. You stealing my side of the bed.”

“You steal mine.”

“I owned the bed first.”

“That is not how relationships work.”

“Exactly. Which is why I think we should make ours permanent.”

Her eyes widen again.

I open the box.

The platinum ring catches the last of the light.

Small sapphires sit across the band instead of diamonds.

Ella once told me she doesn’t particularly like diamonds.

Blue, however, she loves.

Her hand flies to her mouth again.

“Tommy.”

“I love you. I want you beside me for all of it.”

I hold the ring between us.

“Will you marry me?”