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“I’d pay to be a fly on the wall at that wedding.”
“I came to your wedding.”
I smile at him and try to feign surprise. “Hmmm?”
He bites his lip and grins. “I was going to watch you get married so I could cure myself of you. But, I left before…I didn’t see you come back down the aisle.”
“I wondered if you were going to tell me,” I say with a nonchalant smile.
“You knew?” he looks offended and I bite my cheek to keep from laughing.
I nod and wrinkle my nose in apology at his deepening frown. “Dina saw you. She told me. I figured you had a good reason for not telling me. And I don’t exactly enjoy talking about it, either.”
He walks over to my draft table and just looks at me for a long moment, his expression, unreadable and my moment of delight at having shocked him fades.
“Say something,” I demand when he continues his wordless stare.
“I was listening to you earlier,” he says, his voice gruff with emotion.
“Huh?”
“You were talking to Phil about changing your name to Mortimer, I was listening, but I pretended not to hear you because I was hoping you’d drop it,” he says.
I frown, startled by the left turn at his admission. “Why?”
He lifts his iPad to show me what he was reading.
I peer at the screen. It’s the New York Health Department’s website. “Information on getting married in New York State.” My eyes fly back to his face.
H
e drops down on one knee and the words die on my tongue and my heart starts to beat hard and fast.
“I don’t have the ring. I had them bake the ring into the cake at the restaurant. I was going to ask you tonight, at dinner, with our family around us,” he says.
“Ask me?” I whisper, and the smile he graces me with, isn’t just the shape of one, but the physical manifestation of joy. I will never know what I did to deserve this beautiful man, but when he looks at me like that, I know that it’s a reward for something.
He straightens his spine and grasps my hand.
“You are the resounding, unequivocal answer to every single question I’ve ever asked, Beth. I’ve loved you from the minute I laid eyes on you and I will love you always. I would turn my back on heaven and walk through hell to have you. I want to give you my name and make a family with you. And when I take my last breath here on earth, I want to know that I’ve left every single ounce of my cum my body is capable of making inside of you.”
The sob I’d been holding back, dissolves as laughter, belly deep and soul satisfying pours out of me.
“You are so crazy, Carter. What kind of thing is that to say when you’re proposing?”
He chuckles, a satisfied smile on his face. “Your eyes were filling with tears. A girl with a heart as bold as yours and a wellspring of love that is the very essence of her soul, should never cry. I know that’s possible and life will give many reasons to shed a tear. But it is my life’s mission to never be one of those reasons.”
“Baby,” I gasp, so overwhelmed by the beauty of his heart.
“I want to be your home and I want you to be mine. Will you marry me, Beth?”
I nod.
He leans in and we seal our promise with a kiss.
Epilogue
Carter
