AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We slip into an easy conversation, me filling him in on the latest antics of my nieces and nephews and him telling me about his parents. He also tells me about a football day he’s got planned with Pete, the two of them having become firm friends over the last year. And I’m so engrossed in our talk that I don’t realise where we are until a low-flying plane rattles the windows of the car.
‘What the—?’ I frown as I watch it land on a runway beside us. We’re on a private airfield, one I’ve never been to before. ‘What are we doing here?’
I turn to him and that grin is back on his face.
‘Valentine?’
He cuts the engine. ‘Come on, they’re waiting for us.’
‘Who’s waiting?’
He doesn’t answer. Just slips off his sunglasses and steps out, walks around to my door and opens it for me, offering out his hand. I take it, my head shaking, a frown still tugging at my brow.
I scan the airfield, the hangar, the people milling about with equipment and what looks an awful lot like parachutes, and my stomach gives a little flip.
‘Valentine, what are we doing here?’
He turns into me, pulls me up against him. ‘We, my love, are taking a leap together.’
‘A leap?’
He nods and presses a kiss to the tip of my nose. ‘I want to prove to you I’m ready to live again.’
‘You’ve done plenty of that already; you don’t need—’
‘Shh.’ He kisses me quiet, his lips turning up into a smile as he looks into my eyes. ‘No more half-lives...for either of us. I want us to live it to the max.’
‘By jumping out of a plane?’ I say, feeling my pulse skitter nervously, my stomach doing another flip. ‘You do remember that I’m scared of extreme heights?’
He chuckles. ‘It’s as good a time as any to face that fear.’
I shake my head. ‘Why is it I feel like I could take on the world so long as you’re by my side?’
‘The feeling’s mutual.’ He strokes my hair back from my face, raises my sunglasses on my head and the look in his eyes steals my breath away. ‘Which is why the jump isn’t the only leap of faith I’m proposing.’
‘No?’
He presses a sweet kiss to my lips just as another aircraft zips past, whipping my hair up and around us.
‘No...’ He lowers himself to one knee as his hand lifts and in his upturned palm is an open box with a beautiful solitaire diamond at its heart.
‘Valentine?’ It comes out as a whisper. He can’t be. He can’t.
‘Olivia Carmel, I love you, I will always love you, and I want to live my life to the full with you by my side. Will you marry me?’
A sob chokes up my throat. I try to breathe, press my hand to my chest as my eyes well. ‘Yes, Valentine! Oh, yes!’
I drop to my knees, uncaring of my white jeans as I grip his face in my hands and kiss him. Once. Twice.
‘But, baby...’ I break away, stare up into his eyes that I have come to adore so much ‘...there’s no way I’m jumping out of a plane.’
‘Wanna bet?’
