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He’d wait for me? For two years?
I can’t believe it. After all this time… after I’ve turned him down every month for ten years… He still wants me?
I look down at him, and all at once the floodgates open and emotion bursts through me like water through a crack in a dam. “Oh my God, of course I’ll marry you, you idiot.”
His eyes light up, and he rises slowly to his feet. “Seriously?”
“And pass up the chance to wear this ring?” I tease. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I stare at it. The diamond is absolutely huge. I’ve never seen one so big. Jesus, I’m almost too frightened to touch it.
Gently, he removes it from the box, picks up my hand, and slides it onto my fourth finger. It fits perfectly, and it glitters in the autumn sun.
“It’s so beautiful,” I say breathlessly.
“I’m glad you like it.”
I look up at him then and laugh. “Of course I like it.” I throw my arms around him, and he hugs me, lifting me off my feet.
“I don’t believe it,” he whispers in my ear. “You’re really going to marry me?” He lowers me down to look at me.
My arms still around him, I look up at him and nod. “I love you so much. I always have. I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to open my heart to you. I was so afraid of getting hurt again.” I hesitate, then tell him the decision I made just minutes ago, when I came to the park to think. “Huxley… I’ve decided to stay.”
“I thought that maybe you might… Wait, what?”
“I’m not going to England,” I say softly.
He stares at me. “But… I said I’d wait for you…”
“I know, and I’m so incredibly touched by that, I want to bawl my eyes out. But I’d already decided, Hux. I’ve been thinking about nothing else for days. I came here today to make the decision, and when I sat down in this beautiful park in the autumn sunshine, and thought about what I wanted to do, and not what I thought Ishoulddo, the answer was blindingly obvious. I want to stay, and I want to be with you.”
“You’re absolutely sure? The fact that I’d wait for you, it doesn’t change your mind?”
“No, if anything it strengthens my decision.” I cup his face in my hands. “I can’t believe you’d wait for me.”
“I would.”
“I know you would. I absolutely know it now. I trust you with all my heart.”
“But I know how much the project means to you. What will you do?”
“I’ll talk to Titus. He did say he would consider going if I didn’t want to. And if he doesn’t, well, we’ll talk to Acheron and work something out. I’m not going to be blackmailed into it just to get the funding.”
The ring glitters in the sun, blindingly beautiful. I lift up onto my tiptoes and kiss him, sliding my hands into his hair, filled with such happiness that I think I might burst.
When I eventually move back, his eyes are filled with wonder. “You’re really going to stay?”
I nod and tease, “Well that way we can try to make a baby as much as is humanly possible.”
He slides his gaze down me to rest on my belly. “So you’re not pregnant?”
“Oh, I don’t know yet. Another week or so. I’m just saying, if I stay, we can practice as often as we like.”
He chuckles and hugs me. “I’d like that. I’m excited to watch our baby grow inside you. I can’t imagine how amazing that’s going to be.”
Of course, all along I’ve thought that he’s been through it all before, but although he was with Brandy when she was pregnant, he hadn’t fathered the child inside her. It’s a revelation to me, and it fills me with joy.
I slide my arms around his waist, and we stand there like that for a while, just enjoying being close, in the late afternoon sun.
“I love you,” he says.
