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“All right,” Saxon says, “sorry guys, show’s over.” He takes my hand, picks up one of the throws, and leads me out of the room, onto the terrace.
It’s a little cooler now, especially this high up, and he puts the throw around my shoulders and pulls it tight around me. “Do you need to sit down?” he asks.
I shake my head. I’m shivering, but not from the cold. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“What? Hey, don’t worry.”
“Please, don’t regret it.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“You said ‘I’m going to regret this.’”
He rolls his eyes. “I meant asking you in front of everyone. That was a mistake. I should have known better. I was trying to be romantic, and make you feel part of the family, but it’s a private thing, and I should have waited until we were alone.”
He’s still holding the box. He sees me look at it, opens the lid again, gently extracts the ring, then holds it out to me.
“I can’t,” I say, still shaking.
“Why?” Obviously, he’s going to ask me to explain.
“It’s a diamond.”
“Engagement rings usually are.”
“Saxon, it’s enormous.”
He looks at it. “I wanted to show you how special you are to me.”
Something about his words melts me a little. “You didn’t need to spend thousands of dollars on me to show me that. You show me every day.”
“That’s sweet. But even so. It’s a symbol of how I feel. Of how much I love you.”
I swallow hard. “You don’t have to marry me. Not yet. You can wait, until you’re sure.”
“I am sure.”
“But we’ve known each other less than a month. I’m having your babies. How can you separate that from how you feel about me?”
“You told me you couldn’t separate me being the father of your children from how you felt about me as a man. And I agree. I can’t separate the two things. You’re the mother of my sons. And I find that incredibly sexy.”
My lips curve up a little. “Kinky geek.”
“Yeah, okay, if you like. Look, I’m excited about the babies. But it’s you I want. I fell for you the moment I saw you in that bar, with your hair, and your dancing, and your Doctor Who jokes. And then seeing you again in the office… I can’t tell you how happy that made me.” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “I’m just crazy about you. I want to be with you. I want to call you my wife.”
I pull the throw tight around me. “You really want to marry me?”
“I do. Soon.”
I think about what that means—wearing a big white meringue dress, hundreds of people watching me, being the center of attention—and my heart begins to race.
“Nope,” he says, obviously spotting the look on my face. “Doesn’t have to be like that. If you want, we’ll go somewhere quiet, just the two of us. I don’t want the fanfare. I just want you.”
He knows me so well. Oh my God, I’m so in love with this guy, I’m having to hold myself together with both hands so I don’t collapse into a sobbing heap.
“I’ll ask you again,” he says, fixing me with a firm gaze, “because I caught you by surprise last time, and your brain shut down. I won’t kneel, because everyone’s watching in there. No, don’t look round, look at me.”
I look up into his eyes, which are almost black in the semi-darkness.
