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“Let’s go up to the top of the Empire State Building. I’ve never been.” Van points to where we can see it sticking up between some lower buildings.
My mouth drops open. Does he not notice that now might not be the time? “Seriously?”
“What else do we have to do now? Don’t let that ruin our day.”
He kind of has a point. We can still have a fun day in New York City. So, we walk in that direction. He pays for our tickets, and we wait in line for the elevator.
“I can’t believe Lance. I told him when he moved here to keep his distance from her. Oh god, have they been having an affair?” I ask out loud, but Van doesn’t chime in.
He starts talking to the people next to us who are from Florida. He’s asking for places to visit there and when he says he’s from Alaska, he gets the same questions you always get as an Alaskan which mostly relate to people’s assumptions of what it’s like to live there. Like, do moose just walk next to our cars on the highway and is it either always dark or always light, never in between?
I’m still muttering to myself about Lance and how he’s putting himself in a bad situation when the elevator reaches the top.
Van takes my hand and leads me out to the observation deck. “It’s beautiful,” he says. “Let me take a picture of you.” He positions me with the skyline behind me. “Smile.”
I smile and he takes the picture.
I look back out at the view, silently contemplating until I say, “Van, you’re gonna have to talk to him.” It’s then I notice he’s not standing next to me. I look to my right and my left, but there are just strangers staring at me… smiling. Creepy.
“Brin!” Van says my name, and I spin around then look down to see him on bended knee. He has a box open with a sparkling diamond ring nestled inside.
“Oh my god,” I say, wanting to bend down to his level, but he slides closer and takes my left ring finger.
“This past year has been the best of my entire life and I selfishly want you by my side for as many more years as I have on this earth. Will you marry me?”
A crowd is forming, and people are oohing and aahing.
“Of course!” My tears spill over, and he slides the ring onto my finger, snapping the box shut and stuffing it in his pants before standing. Then he presses his lips to mine.
“I love you,” he whispers and kisses me again.
“I love you.” I hug him and rest my head on his chest.
The best place on earth is in his arms and I will never take one second of our time together for granted. The universe gifted me with another great love, and I have no plans to squander this gift.
Can’t get enough of Brinley and Van’s story?
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Is Lance’s wedding venue suggestion to Kenzie as innocent as he claims? Find out in the next Lake Starlight book, The Trouble with Bad Boy Roommates! CLICK HERE
Cockamamie Unicorn Ramblings
Rayne’s been dying to write a young widow story for a while, and as much as we all wish things were perfect in Lake Starlight, that would make for some pretty boring books. So, we picked Brinley to be our young widow who lost her husband as a newlywed.
This story went a lot of places, at first our hero was going to be the complete opposite of Liam—a conservative guy who wore a suite to work, but then we thought it would be more fun to see Liam’s reaction when his daughter wanted to date someone who outwardly looked a lot like him. We even played with the idea of making Van a tattoo artist working under Liam but as much as some of you might not have minded that, it felt too much like we were writing Liam and Savannah’s story all over again.
As you know, we like to stack on trope on top of trope and the roommate trope was decided on at the end of Calista and Rylan’s book. A light bulb just went off and that’s why they wouldn’t be able to get away from another. Forced proximity for the win!
We will say, keeping the secret about how Sawyer died, and that Van was the diver was tricky for us. We had to do it in a way that Van didn’t KNOW he held the secret. We wonder how many of you guessed it?
Lake Starlight is our happy place and it’s so awesome writing stories in this world and bringing in cameos of other family members!
As always, we have a lot of people to thank for getting this book into your hands…
