Olivia nodded, and I cut off a bite, leaning across the table and letting her eat it straight off my fork. Her eyes sparkled heatedly as she stared at me. “Mm, that's good,” she said, her voice gone slightly husky.
I grinned, pleased with that little victory. With the mystery lingerie beneath that dress, it had been starting to feel like she had the upper hand. Not that I minded, but it felt good to level the playing field a little.
We both cleared our plates, and then I held out the dessert menu to her. “I'm too stuffed to eat a dessert on my own, but I could take a few bites of yours, if you'll let me,” I told her.
“How does chocolate fudge brownie sound?” Olivia asked.
“Positively sinful,” I said. “But then again, this whole night is about indulging you.”
Olivia smiled as I put in the order. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she said as the waiter retreated to the kitchen. “You make me feel special, you know.”
“Good,” I said warmly. “You deserve to feel special.”
Olivia got a soft, glowing smile on her face, and that alone made it worth bringing her here. I wish I had a camera, so that I could capture that look forever, or that I had some way of bottling it up and saving it for another time. But then again, I supposed I'd just have to spend the rest of my life trying to get her to smile like that again.
And I did mean the rest of my life. I tapped my left pants pocket, thinking of what I had in there. Soon, it would be time to show her just how much I wanted to make her feel special.
“So you know,” I said to her as I took a bite of the brownie. “I didn't bring you here solely to spoil you. I mean, it might look that way, but it’s not the truth. There’s more to the moment than what you’re thinking there is.”
“Oh really?” Olivia asked. She looked confused, and her fork hovered between the dessert plate and her mouth, forgotten. I could tell that she was nervous, and I wondered what she thought I was about to say. She couldn't possibly think that I had taken her out on a nice date like this just to dump her, could she?
“Well, it's mostly for that reason,” I told her. “But I just wanted you to know how important you are to me. How I don't need there to be an occasion for me to show you how much I love you and how much I want to show you off to this whole city.” I chewed thoughtfully. “Of course, getting to hear the baby's heartbeat today is something to celebrate, though.”
Olivia giggled. “You don't have to take me t
o places like this and show me off,” she said. “I would have been perfectly happy to stay in a grungy motel room watching bad sitcoms tonight if it meant that I got to spend time with you.”
“I know you would have been happy with that,” I said patiently. “But you deserve the world. And then some. I want to be the man who gives that to you. It’s all I want, baby. Don’t deny me.”
I reached into my pocket, taking a deep breath as I did so. Then, as I pulled out the small box that I had carefully put in there, I knelt down next to our table. “Olivia Sable, I hope you know how much you mean to me. And I only hope that I continue to prove myself worthy of your affection. There's no one else that I would rather spend the rest of my life with than you, and I hate the thought of ever being parted from you again. Nor do I ever want to do anything that would cause your trust in me to waiver. So I hope you'll do me the honor of being my wife and letting me love you for the rest of our lives.”
Olivia started to cry, her hands creeping up to cover her mouth. She looked shocked by my question, and I gave myself a mental pat on the back for orchestrating things so well. Picking up the ring had been my task for the afternoon when I'd sent her out shopping. I'd banked on the fact that she would be so caught up in her activity that she wouldn't think twice about what it was that I had done with my afternoon.
Sure enough, it seemed to have worked. Thank God. I was rather unsure for a few moments as I watched her. My eyes widened as my heart sped up. Surely she was going to say yes. She had to.
“Yes,” she finally managed to blurt out. “Yes, Eric. A thousand times, yes.”
I smiled at her and slid the ring onto her finger, noting how perfectly it fit, despite the fact that I'd had to guess at her size. The whole restaurant started to applaud as I got to my feet and swept Olivia up into my arms. We kissed passionately, my fingers skimming across her back as we did so.
“I love you,” I told her as we broke apart.
She laughed, hugging me tightly. “I love you too,” she said.
I felt happiness surge inside of me. I'd had many great moments in my life: the night Emily had agreed to be my wife, the night I'd graduated from medical school, the night that Emma was born. This night ranked right up there with all of those nights, one of the best nights of my life.
I already couldn't wait to start planning my future with Olivia, everything from Anne's birth to our wedding and honeymoon, all the way up to our eventual retirement.
I smiled down at her, and I could tell that she was thinking the same thing.
Epilogue
Olivia
As I leaned down into the car to arrange the car seats, my hat was knocked askew, the broad brim too much for the small space to take. I grinned and tossed it onto the front seat. I'd put it back on when we got to our destination. For now, I had some bigger issues on my hands, like getting the three car seats to fit together in the back seat of the car. You would think that with as many times as I arranged them back there, the practice would have made me an expert at it by now. But I still struggled every time. Finally, I managed to get them, though.
“All right, hop in,” I said to Emma. She did so, buckling her seat belt. They were hyped up on excitement simply from going somewhere.
Meanwhile, Eric came out of the house with little 6-month-old Davey and handed the boy over to me. “Just changed his diaper, so knock on wood, we should be okay for a while,” he said, smirking at me, because we both knew how reliable that was.