‘Nik—’
‘I love you.’ He paused and drew breath. ‘And unless my reading of this situation is completely wrong, I believe you love me back. Which is probably more than I deserve, but I’m selfish enough not to care about that. When it comes to you, I’ll take whatever I can get.’
‘Oh.’ She felt a constriction in her chest. Her eyes filled and she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I’m going to cry, and you hate that. I’m really sorry. You’d better run.’
‘I hate it when you cry, that’s true. I don’t ever want to see you cry. But I’m not running. Why would I run when the one thing in life that is special to me is right here?’
A lump wedged itself in her throat. She was so afraid of misinterpreting what he said, she was afraid to speak. ‘You love me. So y-you’re saying you’d like to see me again? Date?’
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying.’ Usually so articulate, this time he stumbled over the words. ‘I’m saying that you’re my favourite person, Lily. And I apologise for proposing to you in a cramped airless room with no air conditioning but, as you know, I’m very goal orientated and as my goal is to persuade you to marry me then the first step is to ask you.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box. ‘Skylar doesn’t make engagement rings but I hope you’ll like this.’
‘You want to marry me?’ Feeling as if she were running to catch up, she stared at the box. ‘I’m your favourite person?’
‘Yes. And when you find your favourite person it’s important to hold onto them and not let them go.’
‘You love me? You’re sure?’ She blinked as he opened the box and removed a diamond ring. ‘Nik, that’s huge.’
‘I thought it would slow you down and make it harder for you to escape from me.’ He slid it onto her finger and she stared at it, dazzled as the diamond caught the sun’s rays.
‘I’m starting to believe in fairy tales after all. I love you, too.’ It was her turn to stumble. ‘I knew I was in love with you, but I wasn’t going to tell you. It didn’t seem fair on you. You were clear about the rules right from the beginning and I broke them. That was my fault.’
With a groan, he pulled her against him. ‘I knew how you felt. I was going to force you to talk to me, but then I had to take that phone call and you vanished.’
‘I didn’t want to make it awkward for you by hanging around,’ she muttered and he said something in Greek and eased her away from him.
‘What about you?’ His expression was serious. ‘This isn’t a first for you. You’ve fallen in love before.’
‘That’s the weird thing—’ she lifted her hand to take another look at her ring, just to make sure she hadn’t imagined it ‘—I thought I had, but then I spent time with you and told you all those things and I realised that with you it was different. I think I was in love with the idea of love. I thought I knew exactly what qualities I wanted in a person. But you can’t use a checklist to fall in love. With you, I wasn’t trying and it happened anyway. I need to change. I need to find a new way to protect myself.’
‘I don’t want you to change. I want you to stay exactly the way you are. And I can be that layer of protection that you don’t seem to be able to cultivate for yourself.’
‘You’re volunteering to be my armour?’
‘If that means spending the rest of my life plastered against you that sounds good to me.’ His mouth was on hers, his hands in her hair and it occurred to her that this level of happiness was something she’d dreamed about.
‘I was going to spend August on Puffin Island with Brittany.’
‘Spend it with me. I have to go to New York next week, but we can fly Brittany to Maine first. I have friends in Bar Harbor. That’s close to Puffin Island. While I’m at my meeting in New York you could visit Skylar. Then we can fly to San Francisco and take some time to plan our life together. I can’t promise you a fairy tale, but I can promise the best version of reality I can give you.’
‘You want me to go with you to San Francisco? What job would I do there?’
‘Well, they have museums, but I was thinking about that.’ He brushed away salty tears from her cheeks. ‘How would you feel about spending more time on your ceramics?’
‘I can’t afford it.’
‘You can now, because what’s mine is yours.’
‘I couldn’t do that. I don’t ever want our relationship to be about money.’ She flushed awkwardly. ‘It’s important I keep custody of my rusty bike so I’m going to need you to sign one of those pre-nuptial agreement things so I’m protected in case you try and snatch everything I own.’
He was smiling. ‘Pre-nuptial agreements are for people whose relationships aren’t going to last and ours will last, theé mou.’ Those words and the sincerity in his voice finally convinced her that he meant it, but even that wasn’t enough to convince her this was really happening.
&
nbsp; ‘But seriously, what do I bring to this relationship?’
‘You bring optimism and a sunny outlook on life that no amount of money can buy. You’re an inspiration, Lily. You’re willing to trust, despite having been hurt. You have never known a stable family, and yet that hasn’t stopped you believing that such a thing is possible for you. You live the life you believe in and I want to live that life with you.’
‘So I bring a smile and you bring a private jet? I’m not sure that’s an equitable deal. Not that I know much about deals. That’s your area of expertise.’