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“There’s word of a blizzard that’s supposed to hit tomorrow morning,” Noah announces, joining me in the living room that is plush and wonderful, with high-end brown couches made of some sort of velvety material. “You might want to let your boss know we aren’t going anywhere until it ends.”
“He’s in between trials,” I say, “so he won’t be overly flustered.”
“What would he do if you just didn’t come back?” he asks as he sits down and offers me one of the two cups in his hands. “Orange brandy hot chocolate.”
“Oh my gosh,” I say. “It sounds wonderful.”
“It is,” he says. “Try it.”
I sip and the warm, wonderful beverage explodes with chocolatey delight in my mouth. “It’s perfection, and as for my boss, we’ve been together for years. It would be like severing one arm. We’re like one body. We’re really good together.”
He sets his cup down and takes mine to do the same. “We’re really good together.”
“Yes,” I say. “We are. I really should have you meet Cole. I don’t know how we’ve never made that happen. It’s been months.”
“We’re really good together,” he repeats.
“Yes,” I say again, warming all over. “We are.”
“You’ve changed me.”
“I have?” I ask curiously. “You don’t seem changed.”
“I am,” he says. “In ways you don’t understand, but one day, you will. I need to leave the country.”
I blanch, stunned that we’ve gone from saying how good we are together to this. “What? When? For how long?”
“An extended period and soon. It’s a company job. They need me there in an urgent way. It was unexpected, but it’s necessary.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling my breath catch. “So this trip is a goodbye trip.”
“No. This trip is not a goodbye trip. Woman, I’m not saying goodbye to you ever, unless you make me. Even then, I’d fight to keep you.”
“I don’t understand,” I murmur.
He goes down on one knee in front of me and reaches under the couch to produce a blue ring box. “Come to Europe with me. Come everywhere with me for the rest of our lives. Marry me.” He opens the lid to display a stunning, platinum emerald-cut diamond ring. “Marry me. I love you. I love you so damn much.”
I start to cry. I don’t know why. I just do.
“You’re crying,” he says. “That can’t be good.”
“It is,” I say. “It is. I love you so damn much, too. Of course, I’ll marry you.”
A gunshot jolts me back to the present. A gunshot outside where Aaron is right now. Where the man I still love so damn much is. I don’t know what to do. Do I go help him? How do I do that and not end up dead? If I’m dead, I can’t help him. Oh God, I don’t know what to do.
Chapter eleven
Ashley
Silence follows the gunshot, and I’m a wreck. I count the seconds: one, four, twenty, one hundred. I can’t take it. I have to know Aaron’s okay. I turn to open the door at the same moment there’s a knock. “It’s Aaron, baby. Let me inside.”
I set the gun on the counter to my right and quickly unlock the door only to have him rush inside, snow plastered all over him. He pulls the hood of his coat down and looks at me. “It was a damn bear,” he huffs out, slamming the door behind him and locking it. “Damn thing came at me. I didn’t want to kill it, but fuck, it tried to kill me.”
“Oh God. I did that. I’m the reason you went out there. I made you kill a bear.”
“I didn’t kill it,” he says. “I managed to scare it away with the gunfire, which is a miracle.” He shrugs out of his coat. “Bears don’t scare easily. Not big ones like that.” He pulls off a pair of gloves I didn’t even know he’d grabbed when he left. “And you were right. There was something outside the window. A big fucking something.”
“But you knew it wasn’t a person,” I say. “I should have listened to you. You’re the CIA agent.”
