23. Chapter Twenty-Three Fiona
Chapter Twenty-Three
Fiona
T he Carrs were having a party, and in their style, it was a grand one. They mostly attended parties other people threw. For some reason, I always assumed they didn’t like the hassle of cleaning up after their guests went home.
But what was throwing me off wasn’t the fact that they were having a party; it was the people they invited to the party.
Firstly, Mason was here with his family. I had met his wife, and we get along really well. His children are fantastic as well; I could see why he was depressed when he wasn’t with them. Now, he seemed to radiate with happiness.
Some top executives from work were there too. They mostly floated from one end of the room to another, talking with the elder Mr. Carr because the junior Mr. Carr, Christian, thought it was funny to invite me to the party and not show up himself.
He claimed to be in a meeting, one he couldn’t say no to attending, but he forgot that I was responsible for planning his day. There was no way I’d have missed him having a meeting. Which left me with two options:
One, he really had a meeting with someone who called him on the phone so they could talk, or two, something fishy was happening. Melissa’s niceness was tuned up all the notch to distract me from it.
It wasn’t that Melissa had reverted back to being mean to me. She seemed to believe now that I was worthy of her children. Both Allison and Christian. Allison seemed to believe that I put my foot down to her mother once and for all, even after I told her that if anything was down, it was my back.
I almost died. I didn’t think of it in that light, but everyone who heard the story thought I did, which made Melissa want to be even nicer to me. It pulled us together.
“You should have this,” Melissa said, handing me a yellow glass. “It helps calm the nerves.”
I shook my head at the offer. “You seem more nervous than me. Is something going on?”
“Where?” was all she said before turning on her heels and walking away with the yellow glass still in her hand.
If I wasn’t concerned, I was now. There was no way something wasn’t going on. Melissa was acting really weird, and I haven’t yet gotten a read on Mr. Carr to know if something was off. He was still chatting with the board members, smiling like he was fond of doing.
Mason was also having fun, clinging to Cherie like he was scared she’d walk off if he let her out of his sight. It’s a miracle he still managed to show up to work. He acted like he couldn’t function without her whenever she was present.
Another point of concern was this wasn’t a laid-back party. It was a very formal party. Everyone was dressed elegantly, but I didn’t know the occasion. A birthday? Anniversary? Was someone getting awarded tonight?
Nothing came to mind, and whenever I brought it up, everyone looked at me like I was going crazy. And who is to blame them? I, who was a part of the family, didn’t know what was going on.
And not to sound like a bragger, but I did look better than everyone else in the room in my pink gown and white stilettos. I was the life of the party, dress-wise.
Party-wise, the life of the party was the cousin who was currently bussing it down on the dance floor. I had been introduced to a whole lot of them, including cousins, aunts, and uncles. I didn’t remember the Carr family being this large.
I pulled out my phone to call Christian.
“You should dance with me,” Mason said, standing beside me.
I spared a look behind him to find Cherie talking to Melissa. When I looked their way, they pretended to be more engrossed in their conversation, subtly sneaking looks my way. Something was definitely going on, and no one was telling me anything. The only thing I was sure of was that it wasn’t bad.
There was no way that something terrible had happened, and no one was telling me about it. They looked like they were having the time of their life. An emotion I’d have shared if I wasn’t thinking about Christian and where he could possibly be.
Mason led me to the dance floor, and we swayed to the music because we realized that none of us were dancers. We were both consoled by the fact that we totally matched how many times we stepped on each other’s feet.
“Where’s Christian?” I asked Mason. “He should have been here by now.”
Someone cleared their throat behind me, and Christian stood there with a pleased look when I turned.
“May I cut in?” he asked, and Mason was all too eager to step away.
“Where the hell have you been? I called.”
“Sorry about that. I was a little preoccupied.”
I nodded, my hands settled on his shoulders while his hands were on my waist.
“Have I ever told you how much I love you?”
I tried to roll my eyes, and play it off as if it were nothing, but all I managed was a blush. Regardless of how much I’ve heard, his declaration of love still managed to throw me off guard.
“Only a few hundred times.”
Christian tutted. “I need to step up my game. Say it a billion times because I absolutely am in love with you.”
“I love you too,” I said to him, kissing his lips. We were on the dance floor, and the last thing I needed was for all these people to see how indecent I could be when the occasion called for it.
I could kiss him like a starved woman when we were in private. Right now, we were in public, and while we didn’t have the attention of the whole party, I knew that once we got into it, people would definitely be giving us their attention.
“I love you so much,” Christian continued because one time is never enough. He believed he had to say how he felt nearly a million times before I understood what was going on. I didn’t want to stop him from professing his love for me. It was comforting to know that my love was also being reciprocated.
Sometimes, it felt like he loved me more than I loved him. And that is all the reassurance I needed to know I was being treated right. Especially because he could possibly love me half as much as I loved him.
“I think about you all the time,” Christian went on. “When I go to bed, when I wake up in the morning. There are things that happen, and you’re the first person I want to call to tell you all about it.”
I laughed at this. “You do call me to tell me all about it. If I’m not with you.”
Christian smiled. “Thank you for listening to all my ramblings, and sticking with me even when difficult. Thank you for all of your affection and for making me feel loved. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“I also can’t imagine my life without you too.”
I indeed had a crush on him since we were kids, but this love I felt now, I didn’t know when my crush changed to it. But I wasn’t regretful. I loved that I loved this man. I loved the comfort he provided me, and the affection he sent my way. I liked the texts and pictures he sent me throughout the day whenever I was not with him.
It made me believe that he was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about him.
“And I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” Christian said and stopped swaying. “If you’ll have me.”
I realized then that the music had been reduced to a low beat. The fact that everyone was watching us with smiles on their faces. The attention I thought we were going to get if we kissed was on us even as we danced.
Now that we were no longer dancing, I could tell that something was really going on. I felt exposed to be the only couple on the dance floor.
“What I’m saying,” Christian said, pulling my attention back to him, “is I want to be with you forever.”
I smiled at him. “I also want to be with you forever.”
Christian pulled completely away from me, my hands leaving his shoulders to rest by my side. I was mildly confused until he dropped to one knee. He pulled out a ring box from his suit jacket and opened it. When light caught on the gem of the ring, it glistened.
I have imagined being proposed to more times than is considered normal to admit. I wouldn’t even admit it at gunpoint, but it was a lot of times. But nothing could have prepared me for being proposed to in a room full of people.
The tears sat comfortably in my eyes, blurring my vision. I used my hand to fan myself. The tears absolutely could not fall. I looked around the room to take my mind off the man in front of me and also to stop my tears from falling.
Bad idea because there in the crowd stood Allison. My eyes grew wide, but all she did was clap a little and give me a thumbs up. This was more than I expected.
“Fiona Reece,” Christian said, his voice going high to the hearing of every other person in the living room. I looked back at him. “You mean the world to me, and I love you more than words can explain. I want to go through life with you. Will you make me the happiest man in the world by marrying me?”
I nodded immediately. The room cheered loudly; I could barely hear anything. Christian slid the ring on my finger, and I pulled him up and hugged him. Damn the crowd, I thought as I kissed him on the mouth.
This was the best day of my life.