Page 142 of Take a Chance on Me

‘I think I can manage that.’ She planted a tender kiss on his cheek.

‘Good, because I was wondering’ – he reached into his pocket – ‘if you fancied playing a little game with me?’

He held out a very worn and weathered-looking pair of dice.

‘Jacob, you didn’t!’

‘Of course I did! It wouldn’t have been right not to bring them along for the ride.’ He waggled them in front of her face. ‘Shall we?’

‘Fine.’ She helped lower him to the ground, shocked that even after a year he could still find ways to surprise her. ‘How do you want to play it?’

‘Let’s keep it simple: we each get to ask the universe a question. Evens is yes and odds is no.’

‘Simple yet totally ridiculous.’ She sighed, grabbing the dice and shaking them. ‘Will Jacob ever grow up?’

She let them fall across the sand.

A five.

‘Aha’ – he smirked – ‘I could have told you that one for free.’

‘One can always hope.’

‘Now, my turn.’ He scooped up the dice and held them close to his chest. ‘What to ask … what to ask …’

After thirty seconds of him deliberating, Olivia became too exasperated to care. She lay back on the sand and stared out to the ocean. It was always best to leave him to it when he was in one of his particularly annoying moods.

‘All right, I’ve got it!’

‘At last …’

He gave his hand one last shake, before opening his palm to reveal something very different from the beaten-up pair of dice.

Olivia sat bolt upright.

‘What’s that?’

‘Excuse me.’ He smiled slyly. ‘I thought it was my turn to ask the questions.’

‘Jacob, I’m serious – what is that?’

‘What does it look like?’

Olivia’s mouth went dry.

It was a ring.

A dazzling, square-cut diamond ring.

‘I don’t understand.’

Olivia’s palms were sweating. Her entire body was on fire, and her heart felt far too big for her chest.

‘Well, let me make it a little clearer.’ He awkwardly hiked himself up on to one knee. ‘Olivia Jackson, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘More than I’ve ever been in my whole, entire life.’

And in that moment – as she wrapped her arms around him, screaming her answer to the sky; as she agreed to marry the man who had become her best friend, the man that wasfighting every single day to be here with her, who had shown her in so many ways what it meant to live, and above all else, what it meant to love – in that precious, magical moment, a tiny part of Olivia Jackson couldn’t help but believe in fate.