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At the beginning of this year, he was sure he was going to be the CEO of ThomKnox, that Taylor Thompson would be his fiancée. That his life was on a fast track in a known direction.
Then it went off track.
His solution? Enter the unknown. Don’t worry about consequences. Stop planning his life and live it instead.
“And now you’re doing nothing but thinking of the future. No wonder you’re losing it.” He laughed to himself as he sat and opened his laptop. “Ad’s right. You are an idiot.”
And even though he mentally shook it off, he couldn’t get past the idea that something had changed between him and Addi. Something she knew that he didn’t.
Something that was going to threaten everything he’d just decided.
Forty-seven minutes later, Bran dropped the handset of his phone on the cradle and leaned back in his chair. Scrubbing his face, he buried a yawn in his palms. A soft knock on his office door preceded Addison peeking through. He waved her in.
“That man could talk a caffeinated squirrel to sleep.” He expected a laugh but all he received for his lame joke was the barest flinch of her lips. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”
“I—um.” She handed him a black velvet bag. “I wanted to give you this. It’s your watch.”
He dumped the Rolex into his palm and examined the shining face. “Thank you. You didn’t have to go to the trouble, but I appreciate it.”
He unclasped the band and laid the watch on his wrist.
Addi sank to her knees in front of him, her eyes cautious, her smile shaky. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Whatever it is, the answer is yes.” Especially if she was going to take off his pants and dive under his desk.
She let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, boy. You’re not going to make this easy on me are you?”
He cupped her jaw. “I will absolutely make it easy for you.” Get her a pillow, move to the conference room. Anything.
Her throat moved delicately as she swallowed but her ocean-blue eyes never left his. “Brannon.”
That earlier premonition pricked its ears.
“Addison,” he said carefully.
“You’ve meant a lot to me for a long time. A long, long time. I had no idea how much more to me you could mean. This...this has been a whirlwind and I wasn’t expecting it. I know you weren’t expecting it. I know that right now, the last thing you’re expecting is this.”
Warning! Warning! Abort mission! Clear the area!
But there was nowhere for him to go.
Addison was on her knees giving him a speech. And with her earnest words bouncing around the room, there was only one way the speech would end. She wasn’t offering a kinky in-office sex act, but something very, very different. Something he recognized, because he’d nearly attempted the same thing with Taylor, to his detriment, at the Valentine’s Gala this year. A mistake he was saved from making by Taylor and Royce kissing at the gala.
Addi was about to make a similar mistake. He had to stop her before she said or did something she regretted—something she couldn’t take back.
She flipped the watch over in his palm.
There, on the back of the face, was an engraving that hadn’t been there before. An engraving she’d had carved into his seven-and-a-half-thousand-dollar watch. Two words, one question mark.
Marry me?
His heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to escape. And because his mouth was dry and his tongue was welded to the roof of his mouth, he hadn’t formed any words yet.
“I love you,” she continued. “I’m totally and completely in love with you. I know you’ve had a rough year, but if I learned anything from attending Joe’s celebration of life, it was that if I feel something I should say it. Before it’s too late. You want to live in the moment, Brannon. So do I.” She rested her hand over his and the watch and smiled. “This moment is real. It’s happening. What we have is bigger than sleepovers and shared Pestle & Pepper. And by the way, can we go there for dinner because I’m starving?”
Her smile shook, but she glowed with happiness. With surety. She was waiting for his answer.
God. He was being proposed to.
