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“I amnow.”
He spins me around and steals my champagne. “Care to dance?”
He looks like James Bond wishes he wore a tux this good. My mouth waters at the sight of him. “Yes.”
Everett leads me to the dance floor, and much to my surprise, he is an incredible dancer. When he dips me, I’m breathless. He presses a kiss to my lips as he brings me back up.
“Where did you learn to dance like that?”
“One of the side effects of being raised a MacMillan is you have to know all the high society things we are expected to know. Dancing, etiquette, all that fussy stuff. I never really enjoyed it until now. How about you?”
“I’m just following your lead.”
He smiles, and zing go my heartstrings. “I hope so.”
“What’s that mean?”
He takes a breath, then says, “There’s something in our room that I need to show you. Is it okay if we go now?”
“You’re making me anxious. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to talk about it here. Come with me?”
“Um, okay.” I follow him to our room upstairs. It’s as posh as I’d ever imagined a room could be, but I’m too nervous to enjoy it. Did something happen to Owen? Is he going back to smoke jumping? Could he be done with me? Is that why he was talking about never getting married? So he could let me down gently?
Stop catastrophizing. Breathe.
I don’t want to breathe. I want answers.“Okay, we’re here. What’s going on?” Everett spins to face me and falls to his knee, and I gasp. “Are you okay?”
He laughs. “I’m fine. That was intentional. It was supposed to look smooth and dashing, but I guess that’s out the window.”
“Oh. Okay. Maybe warn a girl next time you choose to fall.” I clutch at my chest, trying to will my heart into its normal rhythm.
“You could have warned me that I was about to fall—"
“What? You said it was intentional.”
He laughs again. “No more comments. Please save all the questions for the end of the presentation.”
“Presentation?”
“See? That’s another question. Zip the lip.”
Something we often tell Owen when he’s interrupting us. So, I zip it.
“As I was saying, you could have warned me that I was about to fall in love with the most wonderful woman in the world when I met you, Aria Bueller, but you didn’t. You let me figure it out on my own. And I’m not a smart man, so it took me way too long to figure it out. But I’m here now. Now, I want to wake up next to you every day. Smile when I see your lunchtime texts. Race home every evening to you and our son. And fall asleep with my arms around you every night. There is nothing more important to me in the world than this. I want everyone to know it.” He pulls out a box from his tuxedo pocket. “Aria Bueller, will you marry me?”
Tears fill my eyes, and I’m speechless for a breath. “No.”
He blinks up at me. “Aria—"
“I won’t let you do this. Everett, you told me you never want to get married. Your brother said the same thing—"
His head drops forward against my stomach. “Shit.”
“What?”
When he looks up again, I don’t know what to make of his expression. “I thought you saw the receipt from the jeweler, so I told Cormac to say that, and I took the opportunity to reinforce it when those cartoon ducks got married. But I was just trying to make sure you weren’t suspicious, Aria. I meant none of it. This is what I want.”
