Time kept us apart.
I won’t make that mistake again.
“I met you more than two years ago in a business meeting. You weren’t Toilet Girl. I wasn’t Hot Guy.”
“You are so Hot Guy,” she protests.
“But not Hot Guy Hot Guy.”
My dad clears his throat. “Andrew is the only man who could get into an argument during a marriage proposal,” he says in sotto voce, though not sotto enough. I should never have invited anyone.
“Dad, shut up,” Terry says in a friendly voice. He’s the only one of us who can get away with that.
“Fine,” Dad mumbles.
“You brought an audience for your proposal?” Amanda asks, her voice shaking. “What else? Is Jessica Coffin behind the chef’s herb garden, on Instagram now?”
“Oh, God, she isn’t, is she?” Shannon asks with a gasp.
“But,” I say in an exaggeratedly loud voice, my eyes matched to Amanda’s, everyone else shoved away by the hand of love, “all I saw at that table was you.”
“More like her breasts,” Declan mutters.
“OUT!” I shout. “Consuela! Get them all a round of drinks or tiramisu or—”
“Check the tiramisu for engagement rings, though,” Dad whispers.
“This was a mistake,” I say to Amanda. “Not the proposal, but them.” Why the hell did I invite them in the first place?
“Nothing about any of this is a mistake, Andrew.” She reaches for my hand and pulls me away from the crowd to a small door next to Consuela’s herb garden. Amanda opens it, peers in, and yanks my arm, then closes the door.
“Ask me here.” The tiny space smells like soil and clay, metal shavings and aging wood. It’s the scent of work, of art, of nature.
The crowd outside laughs.
“Here? In a—” What she’s doing hits me.
“Closet.” I can’t even see her face, but she reaches for me, fingertips brushing against a bare spot on my neck, and all the emotion roars to the surface, as if my heart dances on my skin.
“You’re it. You’re everything. You keep asking me how I know, and Amanda, I can’t keep trying to find the right words. I give up. I surrender. I don’t know how to say it in a way that makes you understand how I know. You’re my bedrock. I live in a world where business is complex and twisty, sabotage and intrigue rife, and where thinking you know something can be the worst form of arrogance. But this I know: you’re my person. You’re my soul mate. I don’t want anyone else but you. And every minute I’m not married to you is like dying a slow, suffocating heart death.”
“Oh!” Her warm breath tickles my nose. I smell her hair, a coconut-lime scent from the shampoo at my apartment.
“You fit. You’re the puzzle piece that makes the whole picture of my life fall into place. We can spend years trying to justify what we already know, or we can just do it. Please.” She still hasn’t said yes.
“Andrew, I—”
I reach into the velvet box, going entirely on touch, and pull out the ring. “Please. Amanda—” I frown and blink hard. Shit. What’s her middle name? She’s told me this, right?
“It’s Hortense.”
“What?”
“My middle name.”
“Your middle name is Hortense?” I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.
“That’s a deal breaker, isn’t it? Sorry. Family name. Some great-great-grandmother from France.”
I can’t stop laughing. “Hortense?”
“You have a fabulous middle name. James is easy. I got stuck with Hortense.”
“Is that why I didn’t know your middle name?”
“If you were stuck with Hortense, would you run around sharing it?”
Can’t stop laughing.
“It sounds better when you say it in French!” she protests.
Enough. I take a deep breath and start over.
“As long as you don’t stick one of our kids with that name, I’m fine.”
“Trust me, Andrew. No problem.” She laughs, the sound fading into a breathy anticipation.
“Amanda Hortense Warrick, will you marry me? Will you let me finish what we started back in Vegas? Will you let me love you for the rest of my life? And give me a lifetime to make up for denying you the right to love me? Because I was—”
Her mouth is on mine and I almost lose my grasp on the ring, fumbling at the last second and feeling the cool metal in my palm, fingers folding over it into a fist. Damned if I’m losing another ring.
“Yes. Oh, God, Andrew, yes! Of course. I love you so much. And it took you long enough.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t believe you. Couldn’t. Not that I didn’t trust you, but I couldn’t believe you felt the same stone-cold certainty inside that I felt.”
I am stunned. “You felt it, too? All this time? Then what was with all the ‘ridiculous’ comments?”
“I was terrified. I figured you didn’t feel this. I had to cover up my own feelings.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“We really are a pair, aren’t we?” she says with a tiny sound of joy.
“We are now.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and turn on the flashlight app.
“What are you doing?”
I show her the ring. The inscription.
“‘There’s a pair of us,’” she reads slowly. I tuck the phone in my back pocket, find her left hand, and slowly slip the ring on her finger.