I reach up and softly remove her blindfold. “And I want us to build a family together. A future.”
She gazes up at the house. “This is ours?”
“Yes. It has six bedrooms, meaning we can grow our family in the way we want. You can have an office, maybe one overlooking the garden, where you can write your bestsellers and finish your studies and make your mark on the world.”
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers. “It’s perfect.”
“I could say the same about you.”
She turns in my embrace, laying her hands against my chest. “I love you too. You know that, right?” She blinks as tears slide down her cheeks. “I love you so much.”
“Good.” I grin. “Hopefully that means I’m not about to make a complete jackass out of myself.”
Her hands fly to her mouth as I lower myself to one knee. I reach into my jacket pocket, my hand trembling slightly, the way it rarely does. But this is the most important moment of my life, of our lives.
“I asked for your father’s blessing,” I say. “And he said yes.”
I take out the ring box.
“Lorena, before I met you, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life alone. I never thought I’d find a woman who makes me feel so intensely, who makes me love so freely. I never thought I’d find someone as absolutely perfect as you. So Lorena, my sweet Lorena… will you marry me?”
I open the ring box to reveal a glinting diamond, set within a white gold band. It’s full and luxurious but also dignified like my woman.
She’s sobbing behind her clasped hands, and then she starts to nod up and down, slowly as though it’s taking a few moments for the reality of the situation to hit her.
“Yes,” she cries after a pause. “Oh my freaking God, yes, yes. Yes!”
I take the ring and slide it onto her finger. Leaping to my feet, I sweep her into my arms and find her lips. She melts into the kiss with a moan, and I squeeze her harder, hold her tightly, letting her know I’m always going to be here for her.
“I love you so much,” she whispers between kisses. “I’m so glad everything worked out.”
“I love you, Lori. I love you. I love you.”
I can’t stop saying it, telling her between each kiss, as we hold each other. And begin our forever.
Epilogue
One Month Later
Lorena
I try to focus on my writing, the words flowing across the page. I’m moving my fingertips as quickly as I possibly can, as though if I force enough words out of me, I won’t have to think about the object sitting in my top desk drawer. The story is coming together nicely, the pieces slotting into place, just like they did in real life with my fiancé.
I can’t stop saying – or thinking – that word.
Fiancé.
It sounds so final, so certain, everything that Lukas and I are striving for in our shared adventure.
Pausing, I sit back in my computer chair, looking out the window at our well-maintained lawn. The day is drizzly but it does nothing to dampen the beauty of our home. It’s too easy to imagine all the fun and fulfillment this place is going to give us, with plenty of room for our children to run around, a swimming pool for them to make wonderful chaos in, and a tall tree at the back, perfect for huddling under with a book and dreaming a lazy afternoon away.
It's a family home, and I can’t freaking wait to start our family.
The only reason I haven’t called Lukas is that he has an important meeting today, coordinating with a charity and several of his gyms to bring them under his banner. It means underprivileged people will be able to get gym memberships at vastly discounted rates.
“I want this badly, Lori,” he told me in bed last night once we’d settled down after letting our lust flare, our bodies pressed together. “But the charity owner is trying to drive up the registration fee. It’s bullshit, and pretty shitty he’d do something like that when he’s supposed to be a charity.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Meet with him, convince him. That’s mostly what a businessman does.”
I don’t want to disturb him, but it’s impossible to stay focused on my writing. There’s too much trying to bubble up inside of me, my fingers twitching for the top drawer.
But once I take it out, I know I won’t be able to keep this contained. I’ll end up calling him and blurting it all out over the phone.
Instead, I walk through our large home and find the latest selection of boxes in the living room – decorations we’ve ordered online to help make the place feel like a home. I spend the rest of the afternoon hanging pictures, laying out rugs, and generally giving our house a homey feel.