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“I love you, too,” she blurted out as she snapped back to life and took a deep breath of relief. “Even after you said it first, it was still a little scary to finally say the words out loud.”
“You scared me for a second,” Sutton admitted with a smile. He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. He’d missed the feeling of touching her these last few days. Actually, he’d missed everything about her, but didn’t want to push her if she wasn’t ready to talk. Now he had her back in his arms for the second time and, this time, he wasn’t letting go.
The warm sensation of love filled his chest for the first time and urged him on. He told himself before he came here today that he was going to say everything that was on his mind. If she rejected him, he would cope with that and move on, but so far, so good.
Forcing himself to break off the kiss, he sat back and looked into the golden brown eyes that had first captivated him at the party. “Lauren, I know that you have a lot on your mind with the restaurant and all. But do you think you can answer one more question for me?”
“Of course,” Lauren said. “What is it?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about us these last few days and about what I would say if you finally answered the phone again. I’ve run it over in my mind dozens of times. And the most important part is not only that I love you, but that I can’t envision my future without you in it any longer. I want to be there when you open the doors of The Eatery for the first night and the hundredth night and the thousandth night. And I want you to be at my side when we walk back into the family estate with our names cleared at last.”
Sutton clutched her hand and slipped off the couch onto his knee. “But most importantly, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Lauren. Which is why I was so happy to hear you say you’d thought about becoming a Wingate. Because honestly, truly, the only thing I would ever change about you...is your last name. Will you marry me?”
Tears started welling in Lauren’s eyes. Thankfully, a smile spread across her face and allayed his fears. “I will,” she said. “Absolutely, yes!”
Sutton leapt to his feet and pulled Lauren up with him. He wrapped her in his arms, hugging her tightly against him before capturing her lips in a sizzling kiss. There was a time this week when he thought he might not
get to hold her again. And now, he had his bride-to-be wrapped in his protective embrace.
When he could finally bear to pull away from her, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small jewelry box. “I picked this out, but if you don’t like it, we can absolutely take it back for a different design.” He opened it up and held up the engagement ring he’d chosen for her. It was a bezel set, round, two karat solitaire with channel-set diamonds in the platinum band. It was beautiful, but it was even more important to him that the ring would be easy for her to wear. She was in a constant state of putting on and removing food service gloves and he didn’t want it snagging or, God forbid, falling into someone’s meal.
Now he just held his breath and waited for the verdict. And it came when she plucked it from the box and slipped it onto her finger, beaming with pride.
“It’s perfect,” she breathed. “Actually, it’s beyond perfect. I never dreamed of anything as lovely as this is.”
“Do you mean it? I didn’t want it to interfere with your work, so I chose a setting that was mostly flat.”
Lauren admired it for another moment and then caressed his cheek. “I do mean it.”
“I’m glad. And I know you’re busy ramping up the new restaurant, so I don’t want you to worry about the wedding right now. There’s no hurry. Maybe by next summer, you’ll be comfortable enough to take some time away and could use the break. And if I’m lucky, maybe the Wingate Estate will be back in our hands. If so, we can have a beautiful wedding there. Or wherever you want, really. It’s entirely up to you.”
“All I care about is the food,” Lauren said with a smile.
“I thought you might say that. It’s going to be hard to find a caterer talented enough to make you happy, but I look forward to taste testing until we find one.”
Lauren shook her head and looked at him with eyes full of love and excitement. She had the same expression on her face as she did when Gracie offered to invest in the restaurant. He’d been jealous that day that he hadn’t been responsible for making her dreams come true. But now, as she looked at him with the same unabashed joy, he realized he’d succeeded. She had more than one dream and he was a part of them all.
“You are amazingly thoughtful, Sutton Wingate. You bring me bouquets of fragrant herbs instead of pretty, but useless flowers. You choose an engagement ring that won’t snag on anything so I can wear it always. You offer to eat your way through Texas with me to find just the right caterer. Who would’ve expected that underneath it all the big, bad wolf was such a softie?”
“Don’t tell anyone,” he said with a grin. “You never know when you might need your wolf to huff and puff and blow someone’s house down.”
“What a big heart you have.”
“The better to love you with, my dear.”
Epilogue
The restaurant was really coming together.
Lauren took a step back from the accent wall they were painting bright blue and smiled. Her vision was coming to life and soon, she would have everything she ever wanted.
“I feel like a Smurf.”
She turned to where Sutton was rolling the wall a few feet down. He was covered in tiny blue speckles of cast off, in addition to smears of white, red and black paint all over his clothes. They’d been painting for what felt like days, but they were in the homestretch. From there, they’d have the new hardwood floors laid and they could bring in all the new furniture Gracie had ordered.
“You make an adorable one,” Lauren said as she leaned in to give him a kiss.
“That only makes me feel slightly better,” Sutton returned as he laid down the paint roller.
