Matched to Her Rival

Epilogue

Elise’s first Super Bowl party was in full swing and surprisingly, she’d loved every minute of it. It had been her idea and Dax let her plan the whole thing. And he didn’t mind that she spent more time in the kitchen with Dannie and a host of female guests cooing over baby talk now that Dannie was in her second trimester.

“Hon,” Dax called from the living room. “I think you’d better come see this.”

Immediately, Elise set down her wine and moved to comply. The other women snickered but that didn’t slow her down.

“What?” she called over her shoulder. “If any of you had a gorgeous man like that in your bed every night, you’d jump when he said jump, too.”

She sailed out of the kitchen to join Dax on the couch in front of the sixty-five-inch LED TV that now dominated her—their—living room. It was the only thing Dax had requested they keep from his loft when he moved in with her at Christmas.

How could she say no? They hardly ever watched it anyway. Neither football nor science fiction movies held a candle to doing everything together—going to the grocery store, dinner and sometimes even to work with each other. It was heaven on earth and it could not possibly get any better.

“I like what I see so far,” she told him as her gaze lit on his beautiful face.

Dax grinned and took her hand, nodding at the TV. “You can look at me anytime. That’s what you should be focusing on.”

The game had cut to a commercial break. A Coca-Cola polar bear faded away as one commercial ended and another began. A familiar logo materialized on the screen. Her logo. EA International’s, to be precise.

“What did you do?” she sputtered around a startled laugh.

“I owed you the match fee. Watch,” Dax advised her and she did, fingers to her numb lips.

A montage of clips from her confessional at the Cowboys game flashed, interspersed with snippets of former clients espousing her praises in five-second sound bites. The whole commercial was cleverly edited to allow Elise’s speech about true love to play out in real time in the form of happy couples. Then the last scene snapped into focus and it was Dax.

“EA International specializes in soul mates,” the digital version of Dax said sincerely, his charisma so crisp and dazzling on the sixty-five-inch screen she nearly wept. “That’s where I found mine. Elise, I love you. Will you marry me?”

Her pulse stopped, but her brain kept going, echoing with the sound of Dax’s smooth voice.

The screen faded to a car commercial and the house full of people went dead silent as Dax dropped to his knees in front of her, his expression earnest. “I’m sorry, but I can’t call you Ms. Arundel any longer.”

And then he winked, setting her heart in motion again as she laughed through the tears that had sprung up after all. “You can call me Mrs. Wakefield. I insist.”

Applause broke out and Elise was gratified to feel absolutely no heat in her cheeks. Dax lived in the spotlight, and she’d deal with it gladly because she wanted to stand next to him for the rest of her life.

The crowd shifted their attention to other things, leaving Dax and Elise blessedly alone. Or at least as alone as they could be with thirty people in the house.

Without a lot of fanfare, Dax pulled a box out of his pocket and produced a beautiful, shiny diamond ring, eclipsed only by the wattage of his smile. “I’m assuming that’s a yes.”

She nodded, shaking loose a couple of the tears. “Though I’m intrigued to find out what you’d planned as a backup to that commercial if I said no.”

How could he come up with anything more effective than that? He’d declared his love for her, asked her to marry him and endorsed her business in the most inarguable way possible. He was brilliant and all hers.

It was better than a fairy tale. Better than Cinderella because he saw her, the real her, underneath. No makeover, no fancy dresses. If she gained a few pounds, he wouldn’t care.

“No backup,” he said smugly and slipped the ring on her finger, which fit precisely right, of course. Dax Wakefield never missed a trick. “I knew you’d say yes since I proposed during the Super Bowl. You know, because it’s less predictable than Valentine’s Day.”

Her heart caught on an erratic, crazy beat. He remembered what she’d said on that park bench a season ago. That alone made him her perfect match. The rest was icing on the cake.

“I thought being with you couldn’t get any better. How like you to prove me wrong,” she teased and then sobered, taking his jaw between both of hands. His ring winked back at her from its place on her third finger, perfect and right. “Don’t stop, even if I tell you to, okay?”