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“What the hell?”
“Don’t ask questions,” Jo said. Daisy giggled. Poppy’s lips were pursed in an attempt to stop what appeared to be an unstoppable smile.
Poppy stole my champagne and set it on a table as we passed. In front of us, the crowd parted as I was hauled toward the open front door. But I couldn’t figure out what was out there. I caught a glimpse of a trailer and white fiberglass—a boat?
Confused, I was towed out into the sun, momentarily blinded. I held up a hand to shield my eyes.
“I don’t understand what …”
My eyes adjusted, my hand falling with my jaw—not at the yacht in front of the house. Not at the banner that read Come Sail Away. But at the sight of Sebastian Vargas in a white captain’s suit standing on the deck with a smile so bright, I nearly had to shield my eyes again.
“Daddy!” Priscilla called from Mom’s hip.
“What … what are you doing?” I called up to him on a laugh. How could I not with him in that stupid suit? It made no sense that it looked so good on him. No sense at all.
Nothing did.
He stepped to the ladder and offered his hand.
I blinked. Looked around. Jolted forward when Jo pushed me. Got a hand from Wyatt, who first helped me onto the trailer, then grabbed me around the waist and practically threw me up to the ladder. My heart pounded—partly out of fear that I was about to break my neck trying to climb a boat ladder in heels—and a moment later, Sebastian was hauling me onto the deck.
A tug, and I was flush against him.
“Please tell me you didn’t buy me a boat,” I joked, because none of this could actually be happening.
“I have caviar and Steely Dan too.” His smile tilted, his dark eyes mischievous.
I shook my head up at him, confused by our proximity, by his hands on my waist, by that look in his eyes. “What is this, Bas?”
A pause as he gazed down at me. “There’s too much we haven’t said, too much we’ve avoided, and look where we ended up? Without each other. That isn’t what I want. Is that what you want?”
I shook my head. My tongue was useless.
“Then this is me telling you I don’t want to say bon voyage. Presley, I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve lived for the times when you were mine, wishing I could keep you. And now I finally have the chance, a chance I’m not going to let get away. A chance that means more than it ever did because now I have a shot at everything I’ve ever wanted and thought I couldn’t have. Leaving isn’t an option—it never was.”
“Leaving Lindenbach?”
“Leaving you. If you’re sailing away, I’m coming with you. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. I love you. I’ve loved you since the first second I ever saw you.”
Too shocked to believe he was here, telling me he loved me right here on a yacht he’d better have rented, I kept making jokes. “You sure that wasn’t my bikini you fell in love with?”
A tilted smile. “That didn’t hurt. But it was you. It’s always been you. Tell me I’m not too late. Tell me there’s still a chance for us. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you from the start, but I … I didn’t know if you even wanted me forever. Even now, I’m gambling. You can still tell me you never wanted me—it won’t be weird.”
A laugh slipped out of me. “Weird? You realize they’re all filming this, right?”
He glanced over the edge. “Should we give them a real show?” When our gazes met again, his hand cupped my jaw. “Tell me you love me, Presley. Tell me I can have you and I’ll give you everything. Say the word, and I’ll follow you anywhere.”
“What about the Peace Corps?” I asked, still scared to believe. “What about saving the world?”
“I helped save this town, and that saved the people I love. I can’t imagine anything more important than that. Than you and Cilla.”
The truth of the moment sank into me, up my limbs, into my heart, warming it like hot tinder. He was here, right here, promising me what I’d only ever dreamed of. And there was no choice to make. Because I didn’t want to be anywhere he wasn’t either.
I lost myself in the endless darkness of his eyes as the last of my worries flapped in the wind. “Are you sure?” I asked gently, quietly, terrified he’d take the out.
“I have never been so sure of anything, not in my whole life.”
I let go of the rope on my fear and let the wind take it away. “Then you’re in luck—I’ve loved you since that day at the river too. Though my inclination was definitely about your wet swim trunks.” When he laughed, I threaded my arms around his neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
