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His mouth curved into a smile. ‘I’ll let you know when I’m joking.’ He snapped the box shut again and put it back in his pocket.
‘Hey! Don’t I get to look at it a bit more?’
‘I thought you might like to think about it for a while.’
‘Jack, ask me again. Please, I know my answer.’
He nodded. He knew her answer too. It had always been this way with Jack. Friends, lovers—they were like two pieces of a jigsaw that fitted perfectly.
He sat on the bed, holding her hands between his. ‘Will you marry me, Cass?’
‘Yes, Jack. I’ll marry you.’
He took the ring out of the box, slipping it on to her finger.
* * *
They’d talked for hours, lying together on the bed, side by side. He’d told her his dreams and she’d told him hers. And all of those dreams began slowly to morph into plans.
He was so happy. It felt as if a great weight had been lifted off him, not just the weight of the last months, when he’d struggled to cope without Cass, but the weight of years.
‘You want something more to eat?’ Jack doubted it. In his remorse at seeing her so thin, he’d raided the kitchen again and she’d worked her way through two sandwiches, a banana and a pot of yoghurt.
‘No. I... Were you serious when you said you didn’t want sex?’ The tone of Cass’s voice intimated that she was pretty sure he hadn’t been.
‘I only want sex under certain conditions.’ Her eyebrows shot up and Jack couldn’t help smiling.
‘Really? Well, you can’t just leave me guessing. What conditions?’
‘To show how much I love you. To celebrate with you, comfort you, be your companion.’ He leaned in to kiss her lightly on the lips, his body burning with need. ‘I’m not going to rule out cheap thrills...’
‘I like the sound of cheap thrills. Would it be quicker to tell me what you don’t want?’
‘Yeah, much.’ He eased his leg between her knees. ‘I don’t want you to be worrying about what time of the month it is, or whether your temperature’s just spiked. I want you to see me, Cass. Only me.’
Neither of them had been able to deny that they wanted a child together, but they’d agreed that what they already had was enough. Now was the time to test that out, whether Cass could really leave her own past behind and risk all her broken dreams against what they had now.
‘I’d really like that...’ She gave him a dazzling smile. ‘No expectations, then?’
He wouldn’t go quite that far. ‘Yeah, I’ve got expectations. That thing you do... The one that drives me crazy...’
‘Which thing is that?’
‘Every single one of them. All I see is you, sweetheart.’
‘And all I see is you.’
She wound her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. Then she whispered in his ear, ‘Take your clothes off...’
EPILOGUE
JACK FELT AS if he’d been sitting here for hours, although in truth it was probably only ten minutes. He looked around, towards the entrance of the church, and Mimi elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Do that again and I’ll be having words with you, Jack.’
‘You’re supposed to be looking after me, not haranguing me.’ Jack had asked Rafe to be his best man and he’d refused, telling him that Mimi was the one he’d crewed an ambulance with for seven years. So convention had been thrown to the wind and both Mimi and Rafe sat beside him.
‘She won’t be late.’ Rafe leaned over. ‘Cass is never late.’
‘She’s already late.’
