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His heart stopped, sputtered and restarted its clumsy rhythm. He had instinctively known coming here tonight would result in a conclusion. He could deal with Aubrey’s rejection one of two ways—he could beg her to change her mind, or he could accept that she’d made the decision that was best for her. He’d given her time. He’d given her his best reasons to say yes to him.
“I respect your decision, Aub.”
“You do?” Her eyebrows lifted into her wavy hair. Auburn surrounding a face he would have liked to look into for the rest of his days.
“I do. That might surprise you, given how I tried to talk you into doing things my way when we were kids, but believe it or not, I’ve changed. I respect you. I love you. Still. But I won’t stand in your way when your mind’s made up. Just promise me—” he offered a wan smile “—if I hit my head and lose my memory, you’ll tell me the truth at the start about us being a couple.”
“Of course I will.” Her tone was mild as she offered the box. A box that might as well weigh a metric ton for the strength it took out of his arm when he accepted it. “I love you, too, Vic.”
“I understand,” he said automatically. “I never should have expected you to...” He blinked at the box in his hand and then at the woman in front of him. “What did you say?”
This smile was his favorite Aubrey smile. The beaming one. “Of course I’ll tell everyone we’re a couple if you forget. Because we will be.”
He was hardly able to believe his ears.
She adjusted the collar of his jacket, smoothing the lapels with both hands. His field of vision was filled with her: red, red and more red. From her dress to her hair to the lips he wanted to kiss more than anything.
“I thought about everything you said,” she told him. “And everything Chelsea said. And everything my mom said.” She rolled her eyes playfully. “We aren’t the same people who split up ten years ago. I’m not the headstrong woman who wanted to do everything by myself. You’re not the man with world domination in mind. I’ve learned that family is everything and that my life is so, so much better with you in it. Whenever I picture my future, I see two things—me, teaching until I’m old and gray and as sassy as ever.”
He had to grin. She had enough sass to last her two lifetimes.
“And coming home to you and our house, with the curved hallway and the rich wood floors, after a day of teaching.”
He closed his eyes, unwilling to wake up from the hallucination he was surely having. That’s when he felt it. Her lips on his. Soft and plush, and pressing into him with an insistence he’d been praying for every night since he’d told her what she’d so inconveniently forgotten.
He lost her lips too soon.
“I brought you this.” She took the box from his hand and held it between them. “To ask if you wanted to put it on my finger.”
He narrowed one eye. “You didn’t fall and hit your head again, did you?”
“No. I remember everything, Vic. You coming to my apartment to say some of the sweetest words I’ve ever heard. You taking me to our dream home, which you held on to for ten years in the hopes I’d come back. The loft. The stable. The shower. Your bed...”
“Okay, okay.” He gripped her waist and pulled her close to him, inhaling her light, familiar scent. His Aubrey. For real, this time. For good. “If you don’t want me to limp out of here, you’re going to have to stop talking dirty.”
He opened the velvet box of the ring that used to sit at home on Aubrey’s hand. A ring that, like the dream house he’d bought her, had sat untouched for ten years. A ring that, until this very moment, he’d believed she was returning with an apology instead of an I love you.
“I don’t have anything fancy to say.” He dropped to one knee and looked up at the only woman he’d ever loved. Around them, the room hushed, conversations trailing off into muted whispers. He ignored them and focused on Aubrey. “Will you be my wife, and move into our dream home, and teach until you’re old and gray, and let me love you for the rest of my life?”
Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded. He slid the diamond onto her ring finger and then stood. Applause rippled through the room. With the thumb of the hand cradling her cheek, he swiped away a lone tear. “I love you, Aubrey.”
“I love you, Vic.”
He kissed her as cheers joined the applause around them. But he wasn’t thinking about the crowd or the questions that would follow. He wasn’t even thinking about what would happen after they left the party and he could finally be alone with his future bride.
He touched the ring on her left hand, thinking of one word: home.
He’d finally found where he belonged. He loved his family ranch, but his home wasn’t on the Grandin estate. Not any longer. His home was in the arms of the woman who’d given him more chances than he’d deserved. The woman who’d returned to him against all odds.
He’d happily spend the rest of his life reminding her of the reasons he loved her so that she never forgot a single one again.
