“Me, too, now. But in a way you were right. I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t until I was without you that I realized how deep my feelings ran. In New York you said I was worthy of redemption, but I’d never felt so until that moment. You changed me. How could I not love you?”
“Then why didn’t you fight harder?” Tears did come now, quiet ones, and she dipped her head because they were in public. Maybe this would have been better inside. She’d thought being in the park would preclude this kind of emotion.
“Because I knew it was pointless if you couldn’t trust me. I was hurting, too. I felt like I’d laid my heart at your feet and you kicked it back at me.”
Shame slid into her heart, along with regret, knowing she’d caused him such pain. “You don’t have to defend yourself against what I said that day,” she whispered. “I never should have said it. Especially about you telling Maman about the email. I used it against you, but Jacob, you telling her demonstrates how much integrity you’ve got. I admire it, even if I was angry about it.”
“You were scared. You are scared. You don’t like what I do. I get that, because I went through a lot of sleepless nights as a kid when my dad was on duty.”
“It’s part of who you are. I get that.” The anxiety was real, but he’d helped her step into her own. How could she demand that he be less than he was?
“Maybe, but it’s not all I am. Charlie, any relationship takes compromise. I know that. So here’s what I’m thinking... I stop taking field assignments. If it makes you more secure, I can do that, no problem.”
She hadn’t expected that. She’d expected another version of “I could get hit by a bus” but instead he was ready to make a sacrifice. Was she?
She looked around at the wide green space, thought about how close they were to Chatsworth Manor, and knew she could also easily adjust her life. “You’d do that for me? For us?”
“In a heartbeat,” he said.
Hope started to spiral in her heart. She squeezed his hands and looked into his oh-so-handsome face. “I can base out of London. We could...” She swallowed and hoped that she wasn’t presuming too much. “We could live here. I can keep the flat in Paris for when I need to be there, and we’ll be close to the estate, too. I can do my job from here and videoconference when I need to.”
“You’d leave Paris?”
“Compromise,” she said, and a smile started to bloom on her lips. Was this really going to work?
He slid over closer to her and hesitantly rested his hand on her still-flat tummy. “I hadn’t considered fatherhood before. Now I can’t think of anything else. I want to be with this little one, watch them grow. Can we do that together, do you think?”
The hope that had been growing in her heart expanded into happiness. “I know we can.” She reached into her small purse and took out an envelope. “Look. I got you a printed copy.” He opened the envelope and took out the image of the twelve-week scan she’d just had done.
“This is our baby?”
She nodded, tears threatening again. “I didn’t ask to know the gender. I didn’t know if you’d want to. I kind of hoped that it was something we could find out together.”
“I can’t...this is...wow.” He sat back on the bench, his face full of wonder and awe. “You and I did this.”
She nodded.
“If we did this, we can do anything.”
She was feeling that, too. So she reached down into her bag and took out one more thing.
?
??Jacob? I know it’s a little unorthodox, but... Will you marry me?” She held out the little box that contained the ring he’d proposed with only weeks earlier.
He took the tiny box from her fingers and opened it. Nerves—the good kind—swirled around in her stomach. She’d been so afraid that she’d ruined everything that day in the Chatsworth gardens, but Jacob’s love for her had been bigger than her fear. Maybe that was all she really had to know.
He picked the ring out from the slot and held it in his fingers, then reached for her hand. “Yes, I’ll marry you. The sooner the better. I don’t intend to let you get away again.”
He slid the ring over her knuckle and she stared at it there, then blinked away tears. Her father would have loved Jacob. And her grandparents would have been so pleased. Their own love story had been one for the books—a whirlwind romance during the 1958 flu pandemic, when he’d been ill and she’d been a nurse. They’d married one week after his recovery.
She’d tell Jacob that story one day, but not today. Today was for them.
“I love you,” she whispered, rubbing her thumb over the bright diamonds.
“And I love you.” He leaned forward and kissed her, in the way she liked best: slow, soft, tender. And then he leaned back and opened his arm, welcoming her into his embrace as they breathed in the early summer air and watched the football game, with everything right in their world.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN