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Then he has to ruin it by offering me a ring.
I can’t take it any more. I run.
I’m in the parking lot, sobbing, kicking off my shoes so I can run faster, when he catches me. “Belinda! Belinda, wait! Honey, please wait!”
I’m crying so hard I can’t see, and he puts his arms around me. “Belinda. Did Camilla say something bitchy to you? Are you just not ready to take our relationship to the next level? I can wait, you know. I’ll wait forever for you.”
I try to catch my breath.
“I love you, Belinda. You are the one I want to spend my life with—me, that’s what I want. Not my parents, not your grandparents, me. If you don’t want me, I can’t make you. But I do want you. I want to be with you forever.”
Slowly, I raise my head. “You really are serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
I keep looking at him. At some point, I realize my eyelashes are coming unglued, so I pull them off and stick them in my purse, making Austin snort with laughter. But he gets a look at my face, and stops. “You want to marry me.”
“I do.”
“You love me.”
“I do.”
“This is real.”
“It is goddamn for real,” he says, not smiling. “I want to start this new year with you, and every year of my life.”
I take a deep breath and hold out my hand to him. “It’s a deal.”
We kiss: our last first kiss as an engaged couple.
The last first kiss of our lives.
