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“Wait, Baby.” Xander touches my hip as I begin to retrieve my Sylvanian rabbits, but I don’t want to wait, because the horse and cart have stopped right outside the Basilica. I want them in the background.
“No.” Playfully, I turn my back to him and keep searching for my set. Today moved slower than most. So unlike Xander, who generally crams as many activities into a day as possible until I am exhausted, and then he fucks me into a coma. But today, we rode the cart, ate ice cream, and lazily made love. It was such a sweet, easy day.
I need this scene.
So, I find my miniature horse and cart. “I have to set it up now. I want to get the horse and cart as the backdrop.”
He tries to turn me around. “You don’t need the horse and cart for this one, Baby,” he presses.
I shake him off. With my head stuffed in the bag, I riffle around with my back to him, needing the other bridle. “I do. I need it because—”
“Goddammit, Woman, will you turn around!”
I whirl to face him. “What?”
And my breath catches.
Xander is on his knee on the cobblestone road with the graceful yet gothic presence of St Mary’s as his backdrop and a circle of tourists lingering to witness this gorgeous man at his most vulnerable, at the feet of his lover.
In his hand is a navy box, and it’s open. Sparkling from within the case is a huge heart-cut solitaire diamond.
My mouth parts.
He clears his throat, and I clear mine. “I’m so fucking nervous, so give me a break and say you’ll marry me, Woman.”
I press my hand to my chest, unable to feel my heart beneath my palm as it skips around my throat and between my ears. “Xander.”
“I told you I would ask you on a slow day,” he says, his stunning blue eyes, showing flecks of warmth—orange and gold—reflective of the surrounding lamps. “I told you it wouldn’t be fast and spontaneous.”
I’m speechless.
“We are both walking contronyms, Baby,” he starts, staring at me with the passionately intense gaze he wears so comfortably. “Not just contradictions... that's too obvious. We are all the extremes at once. Hot-headed. Romantic. Fragile. Stubborn. Rude. The thing I've realised about our messy personalities is that they make sense to each other.”
He swallows. “What you hate, I hate. How you see the world, I see it, too. And the way you want to love me is the way I need to be loved. I was lost, Baby. I didn't fit, and I was looking for something, but I didn’t know what. And all along it wasyou.”He stands to close the gap between us because my feet won’t work, and he feels the pull of our gravity, too. “You answer the question of me.” I look down and watch him slide the golden ring on my finger as tears glide down my cheeks. “So, tell me,”—he adds, and I crane my neck to meet his possessive gaze— “do I answer the question of you?"
Now, I can barely see him through the wells over my eyes, the lamps from the cafes creating a dull glow in the blur. "Yes, Hothead. You do. I’ll marry you."
He holds my hand between us, using his thumb to tilt the diamond, catching small specks of light in the many facets. I study it adoringly. “Do you like it, Woman? There is this big inclusion in the top corner. I know you’re not meant to have them, but the rest is flawless. I kinda liked it. It’s messy. I thought that maybe, the imperfection made it…us.”
Wood isworthless without the grooves. Wine is cheap without the tannins and the grippy texture. We appreciate imperfections in some things but not in others.
Not in diamonds.
Not in people.
Definitely not in Lovit daughters.
Beaming, I admit, “It’sperfect.”
“Your mum helped me choose it. She didn’t see the inclusion…” His words trail off with hidden meaning.
I look from the ring to his face, finding a strange grin on his lips. “What’s that look for?”
“Well, when I called your mum”—his voice is amused— “she was with Mac. I heard him from the other side of the phone. He called you a crook, and she laughed like a schoolgirl. I think they’re dating.”
My beach-bum and my mum?
The four daughters didn’t keep him away…
