It didn’t matter that the dreamy look was short-lived.
It had been there.
And that meant it was time.
Finally.
I’d never been considered a patient man. I was pretty sure Alvy was wondering if aliens had come down, taken the real me, and replaced me with a clone, knowing how long I had been willing to wait to ask her to marry me.
After dinner, I’d had the captain take the yacht for a tour around the ocean while Wasp crashed on the bed below deck with It Happened One Night playing on the TV, then when it was just starting to get dark, I’d had him bring us back to Cinque Terre, but only in the marina just outside of an cove.
Cinque Terre had this one lovely little marina where the houses raised up off the cliffs in bright, happy colors. Pinks, yellows, oranges, light blues. And as it got dark, the lanterns around the towns set the area in a romantic glow.
It was straight out of a movie.
As much as she would scratch and hiss if you so much as implied it, Wasp was a sucker for a romantic movie. But only of the classic variety.
She liked the grand romantic gestures.
This was the best I could do on such short notice.
“Oh, darling!” I called down the steps that led back into the master bedroom.
“I ate too much. I can’t move,” she called back.
“I need to show you something,” I told her, hearing a grumble as she rolled out of bed.
“It better be good, or I am throwing you off the yacht,” she called, making her way up the stairs, her blonde hair a charming mess.
“If I didn’t know you loved me, I would be concerned with the number of times you threaten my life on any given week,” I told her, smiling, as I pressed a hand into the small of her back, leading her around the boat, needing to get the placement right.
“Well, maybe if you stopped being so throw-off-a-yacht-able, I wouldn’t have to threaten you with that possibility,” she teased, giving me a warm smile. “Okay, what am I supposed to look a… oh,” she said, her air rushing out of her body as she looked at the image in front of her.
While she was distracted, I took out the ring, lowered down.
Behind me, I could hear one of the staff moving in, someone who I’d learned over the years was handy with a camera, someone who was going to make sure we had this image captured.
We had a lot of artwork on our walls.
Many of them led to mild bickering over their merit as art.
But I had a feeling Wasp was going to have no problems with this particular image hanging on our walls.
“You are uncharacteristically silent,” Wasp mused, still oblivious to the way things were about to change for her. For us. For the future. “Did you…” she started, turning, taking a second to realize I was down on my knee.
I’d gotten good at reading her over the past year, this woman who had trained her whole life to hide her real emotions to be able to effectively do her job. She wasn’t, I found, as good an actress as she thought.
It was all right there in her eyes.
It always was.
And right now?
There was shock and awe and caution and anticipation.
And most of all, hope.
For a future she never would have envisioned for herself. For the happily-ever-after she so long believed didn’t exist in real life.
“Fenway…”
“Marry me,” I said, cutting her off, knowing I needed to get this out before she started listing silly reasons this might be a bad idea. “I know it terrifies you. I know you are never going to be fully ready. But I’m asking you to take a chance. Say yes. Go on a new kind of adventure with me.”
There was a telltale glistening to her eyes then.
It didn’t chase away everything else still reflected there.
But this was Wasp. My Wasp. She had no fear. She was always ready for a new adventure.
Her shaky hand lifted, stretched out toward me, allowing me to slip the ring on her finger.
I could hear the camera shutter going off wildly behind us as I pressed a kiss to the ring, then looked up at her, finding a tear sliding down her cheek.
Standing, I pulled her close, kissed her until my lips went tingly.
She was the one to break away first, taking a deep breath.
“Okay, let’s have the ugly talk.”
“The ugly talk?” I repeated, brows furrowing.
“Yes, the ugly talk. The prenup talk. It will come eventually. Better to get it over with now.”
“There is nothing romantic about discussing prenups.”
“Yes, well, I think we have long established that you are the romantic one here. I’m the pragmatist. Which is a scary thought seeing as I am the one who is not allowed to have her nieces spend the night anymore.”