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I sighed. Ezra had always been the type to do whatever he wanted. It was one of the things that I admired most about him. He did the things that made him happy without giving too much pretense to the things that didn’t.
My father said that he found it one of Ezra’s more frustrating qualities, which I happened to agree with. It made him unpredictable.
“If we don’t go out there, your mother is going to blame me.” Ezra’s mother had come crawling back into his life once she realized that her son hadn’t needed her or her money. It had been almost comical - until I realized that I was going to have to spend my time dealing with the woman who thought I was nothing more than trash.
The news that I was the Ivanov heiress didn’t help since now she also blamed me for a slight bout of negative press Ezra had received when his political opponent Patrick O’Connor had gone on trial for my kidnapping.
We’d been dragged through the mud during those weeks, but somehow, it had actually made his candidacy stronger. The whole subplot gave Ezra a weird bit of edge that people seemed to enjoy.
“Your father routinely blames me for his shipments being inspected,” Ezra reminded me, lifting a brow. “Luckily, I don’t care about what either of our parents think.”
I chuckled and allowed Ezra to lead me into a side room. I gasped as I took in the decoration of the room we were inside of.
“What is this?” I asked.
The party room had been decorated with banners and Americana. It was tasteful and gaudy all at the same time. Though Marcel and I had both agreed that it was difficult to be too elegant with the color scheme we were given.
But this room was different. It was swathed in cream silks with the only color in the room being the soft pink roses that seemed to be atop every available surface. A single violinist played in the corner, and I felt my eyes welling with tears.
“What is this?” I asked.
Ever since I returned the night O’Connor abducted me, Ezra had gone out of his way to be loving. He showered me with affection, affirmation, and frankly, more orgasms than seemed appropriate. But he’d never spoken the words I’d so longed to hear from him.
“You’ve been by my side in all of this,” he said, turning his intense blue eyes on me. I shivered at the sight of them. “Without you, there’s no way that I would be here. Hell, without you, I don’t think I’d even want to be here.”
My cheeks reddened at the compliment. Ezra might not have verbalized his love for me, but he showed me every day how he felt.
I opened my mouth to tell him just that, but he placed a finger on my lips. “Let me get this out,” he said.
I nodded, taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady my racing heart. “A lot of bad shit has happened to the both of us. You more than me, but I wouldn’t give up the bad stuff for anything. Because if Nikolai Petrov hadn’t tried to kill you, you might not have spilled scalding hot coffee on me that day in the office.”
“You bumped into me,” I corrected.
He laughed and shook his head. “I know that that’s maybe a weird thing to be grateful for, but I am. I’m grateful that you are a survivor.” He ran a hand through his hair, another nervous tick that he was unaware of. “Shit, this isn’t coming out right.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand. “I know what you mean,” I told him. And I did because I too was grateful for Nikolai, and I’d told him as much when I’d visited him in prison. I’d needed to put the fears I had of him to rest and being able to see him weak and broken had done just that.
Ezra took a deep breath. I didn’t know why he was nervous. I loved him. We were soul mates. Every terrible thing that I’d ever had to endure, brought me to him, and him to me, and for that, I could never regret the pain that I’d experienced.
“I love you,” Ezra said, and my heart soared at the words. “I’ve loved you since you ran into me with hot coffee, and every day I fall in love with you even more.”
At this point tears are streaming down my eyes, and I’m sure that I look awful, but I don’t care. I go to lean into Ezra. I want nothing more than to kiss him, and if we weren’t in a hotel full of people who were bound to come looking for him sooner rather than later, I would want to do much more than kiss him.
But before I could, he dropped down to one knee.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
He chuckled before pulling out a ring box. “Anastasia Ivanov – Annie, will you make me the happiest man alive and marry me?”
Ezra didn’t wait for an answer. He slipped the large emerald cut diamond on my finger, and at this point I was full on sobbing.
I launched myself into his arms, pressing my body fully against the hard planes of his own. My lips sealed over his, and I poured all of the passion and love that I felt for this man into my kiss.
“Jesus, Annie,” a female voice called out. “You have to answer him before you do that.”
I detangled myself from Ezra, to see Julia stepping out from behind one of the cream drapes that had been hung, Marcel in toe, and a camera in hand.
“What are you two doing here?” I asked, embarrassed.
