Epilogue
Dex
One year later
Faina thinks I’m going to propose to her tonight. Actually, she’s thought that nearly every day this week. Today is Christmas, and this year, instead of being trapped in the snow, we’re on an island in the Bahamas. A private island. An island where the only way on or off is by boat or helicopter, so there’s no chance of the press or the outside world getting a piece of us.
“Are you doing it today?” Will asks, taking a sip of his margarita, one arm casually tossed behind his head as he stares out toward the edge of the water where Faina and Ava are standing and chatting.
“Not a chance. She’s expecting it.”
“Does she know yet?”
I tilt my head in his direction, reluctantly tearing my gaze away from my girl in her hot pink bikini. “Know what?”
“That you’ve got the ring on you at all times?”
I shrug and turn back to her. “Probably. She’s tenacious that way, but if she’s seen it, she hasn’t let on yet.”
“Do you remember when I proposed to Ava?” he asks, and I choke on my sip of margarita, because yes, I do remember that.
“You mean when you told her you weren’t going to be in Vegas and then showed up anyway, crashed her birthday dinner with her sister, and then she threw up all over the sidewalk after you got down on one knee in front of the fountain?”
He smiles. “Yeah. You’re forgetting the part where a homeless man ran over and stole the bottle of champagne I had, but it was perfect. She didn’t expect it.”
“I think I’m missing your point here, mate.”
“The element of surprise is a good thing. She thinks you’re doing it tonight at Christmas dinner. I overheard her telling Ava that you were either going to propose tonight or on New Year’s. So instead, you should go and do it now when she’s not expecting it.”
It’s a thought.
“Or perhaps I should wait and do it on the opening night of my concert in two weeks. Really throw her off.”
He raises his sunglasses and gives me a stink eye. “Do you know Faina at all? Somehow, I don’t think proposing to her in front of seventy thousand screaming fans is the fairy tale way she had in mind.”
“True. But it’s not very romantic to just walk up to her, shove Ava out of the way, and then drop down onto one knee.” Is it? I’m honestly not sure now because he does have a point about doing the unexpected.
This past year with Faina has been a dream. She moved to London with me, but I ended up selling my flat almost immediately. I didn’t want her moving into the place where Elsie and I had lived. I wanted a place that would be only ours, so after finding and purchasing a new place, we moved in together.
I buckled down and wrote and recorded an album in record time, and six months ago, it was released, hitting number one on the charts. Six of the fourteen songs on the album stayed in the top ten for months. It’s by far been my bestselling album of all time, and after the new year, I’m set to go on a three-month tour across the US and Europe.
Faina plans to join me here and there, but her agency has been growing like a weed. At first, it was just her with me—yes, I convinced her to take me on—as her first and only client. But that didn’t last long. Within months, she had more clients than she could manage on her own and now has five full-time employees managing all the people and companies her business represents.
It’ll be impossible not being with her all the time, which is why I want my ring on her finger so she knows my heart and body will never stray. Not that we have trust issues. Oddly enough, for two people who have been cheated on, neither of us seems to worry about that from the other. Maybe it’s because we were both cheated on, but the way we trust one another isn’t something I ever imagined I’d have with anyone.
“How’s this? How about I go and snatch Ava under the pretense of taking a sexy walk, and you do it then?”
“A sexy walk?” I parrot.
“Yeah. You know. A walk where I take her somewhere and we fuck.”
“Right.” I rub my hand across my smiling lips. This is why Will will forever be my best mate. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s do it.”
He shoots upright in surprise. “You’re serious? I was kidding.”
I turn on him. “What do you mean you were kidding? It was your idea to propose now so she doesn’t know it’s coming.”
“Fuck! Ava is going to kill me.”
“What the bloody hell are you going on about?”
He runs a hand through his hair and sets his glass down on the small table between our chaises. “I promised her we could watch when you finally proposed.”
I shake my head. “No way.”
“Yes, way.”
“I thought you were trying to get your wife pregnant. How do you intend to do that if you don’t take her on your sexy walk?”
He grunts. “Fine. You’re right. But you can’t tell her it was my idea that you proposed, and you can’t tell her I knew anything about it.”
“Deal.”
“Good.” We both stand, and he smacks my shoulder, giving me a lazy smile. “Good luck, man. I’m super fucking excited for you. Marrying a Spencer girl is not for the faint of heart. It takes balls and luck and learning the divine art of groveling.”
“Actually, mate, all I have to do is smile at my queen, and she’s putty in my hands.”
He scoffs. “I think you have that the other way around.”
No denying that.
We make our way across the soft, powdery white sand toward our women, who are laughing about something or another. “Ava, Will says it’s time to try and get you pregnant.”
“Dick.” Will smacks my shoulder. “You can’t say that?”
I turn, staring at him bewilderedly. “Why ever not?”
“Because it’s not sexy,” he tells me all huffy like a little girl. “It’s supposed to be a sexy walk.”
“I thought sexy was just your prissy way of saying sex.”
Ava and Faina are watching us, both with amusement dancing in their eyes.
“Christ.” Will’s hands meet his hips. “Faina, what on earth do you see in this guy?”
She shrugs, and I reach out and swat her ass, making her yelp. “Nice try, queen. You’re totally gone on me.”
“So, a sex walk or a sexy walk?” Ava asks, stepping into Will seductively. “Because we didn’t do it this morning, and any day now, I’m supposed to be ovulating.”
He grabs her hip, sliding his hand around to her ass. “I’ll take either if it means I get to knock you up.”
“So romantic,” I tease, and he flips me off. “Yeah, you’re welcome. Cheers, mate. Good luck.” But then they’re finally leaving us, and it’s just me and Faina and my nerves that have taken on a life of their own.
“Crazy to think that they could make an actual baby right now.”
“Yes. And sort of disturbing. I never want to picture your sister and Will having sex.”
She laughs, sliding up against me and wrapping her arms around my neck. “What about us having sex?”
I grin down at my little elf. “That I’m always up for.” I lean down and kiss her sweet, pillowy lips. “Admit it, this is far better than the freezing cold and feet of snow.”
“Definitely. Though I do miss that gondola ride.”
I shudder. “Never again, love. Never again.”
I take her hand and walk us a bit deeper into the blue-green water, marveling at how I can see clearly to the sand beneath. The sun is high in the bright, cloudless sky, and the most perfect breeze kicks up off the water, rustling our hair.
“This might be my new favorite vacation spot.”
“I never took a lot of vacations,” she admits. “I was always too busy saving.”
“Good. I like spoiling you. I like the idea that I can take you all over the world, and it will be your first time experiencing it all.”
She tucks her head against my arm and sighs. A happy fucking sigh, and I feel like this is my moment. My heart races in my chest, thrumming blood through my ear and making my hands tremble as I reach into my pocket to retrieve the diamond I’ve carried on me so she wouldn’t find it in my luggage.
“Fai,” I start, only to have to clear my throat as emotion rolls over me.
“Hmmm?” she murmurs absently as waves lap at our legs and seagulls squawk in the distance.
“Happy Christmas.”
She giggles lightly and peeks up at me, squinting through the sun since she’s not wearing her sunglasses. “Merry Christmas.”
I push my frames up onto my head and stare down at her. God, she’s so lovely. So perfect and gorgeous and mine. I’m so lucky. So bloody lucky, and I need to make her mine forever. Hell, I want to take her on sex walks and put a baby in her belly. I want everything with her. Always.
Starting now.
With that thought in my head, my hand clasps the ring in my pocket, and I turn toward her, smiling like a goddamn fool because I can’t stop myself.
“Do you know how much I love you?”
She places her hand on my chest over my thrashing heart. “Hopefully as much as I love you.”
“More,” I tell her. “I love you more. I’ll always love you more. I never knew… I never knew it could be like this with anyone, but it is with you.”
I slide my hand from my pocket and start to lower myself when something large slithers past my leg in the water making me jump, and the ring slips from my hand and into the water.
“Fuck!” I bellow, practically pushing Faina away so I can search the water for the ring.
“What? What is it?” she cries frantically, trying to come back at me because clearly she thinks I’m hurt or something is terribly wrong, which it is.
“I dropped the ring.”
“The ring?” she snaps. “What ring?”
I give her an unimpressed look and then return to the water, searching everywhere for it. “Your engagement ring, Faina. Will suggested that I propose to you now when you’re not expecting it, and I agreed, and now I’ve gone and dropped the bloody ring in the sodding ocean.”
“You what?!” she shrieks, starting to search along with me. “Who brings a loose ring into the ocean to propose?”
“I don’t know. I was trying to be bloody romantic. Clearly, I didn’t think it through or expect a fucking blue whale to come out of nowhere and startle me half to death.”
“A blue whale?” She starts laughing.
I throw her a glare. “It’s not funny.” Only now my lips are twitching too, because yeah, it’s not funny at all, yet somehow, it strangely is. I groan and sigh. “It’s hopeless. We’ll never find it.”
“I’m sure it was beautiful,” she says, her lips still curled up at the edges.
“It was. I raided His Majesty’s jewels from the Tower of London. Stole the biggest one I could find.”
“Good thing we’re here then where they can’t catch you.”
I move in to kiss her when she suddenly plows past me, her elbow catching me in the side as she shoots through the air and splashes down into the ocean, immediately going under.
“What in the almighty fuck?” I yell, ignoring my smarting ribs as I dive for her, only for her to emerge a second later, her hand held victoriously in the air, a triumphant smile spread across her face.
“I got it!”
“You do?!” I shout, lifting her out of the water until she’s standing, her body and hair dripping water everywhere.
“That or I found someone else’s engagement ring.”
I belt out a laugh as I try to open her palm, but she just shakes her head and runs toward the beach, kicking water every which way as she goes.
“No way!” she tells me. “We’re not making that mistake twice.”
I follow after her, feeling nothing short of dejected. “This was the worst proposal in the history of the world,” I grumble, kicking sand. She continues all the way until she’s left the beach entirely and is on the stone hardscape of the pool.
“Well, it wasn’t technically a proposal since you didn’t ask anything,” she notes, going under the shaded area and taking a seat.
I fall into the seat across from her, running my hand across my face and back through my hair. I shrug. “You’re right. I didn’t get that part right either.”
But then she shocks me by getting down onto her knees in front of me, her closed fist resting on my thighs as she gazes up at me. “I love you,” she says softly. “I love you so much. This last year has been the greatest whirlwind of my life, and something tells me that every day with you always will be. But more than that, I always want to make you smile and not frown, happy and not sad. I want to see and experience the world through your eyes. I want you to serenade me when you’re in the shower, and I want to make you your grand English breakfast every Sunday. So what do you say? Will you marry me?”
She opens her hand and holds the diamond ring up at me, proposing to me.
“Will I marry you?”
She shrugs, but there is no hiding the love in her eyes or the joyful conviction in her smile. “I figured you might say yes since you bought the ring for me and all.”
I laugh. “Of course, I’ll marry you, queen.” I shake my head.
That’s not how this was supposed to go. Not at all.
I’m going to propose again to her. And this time, I’ll get it right. Until then, I lift her off the ground and drop her right on my lap, and I kiss the hell out of her, taking the ring and sliding it right onto her finger.
“Will you marry me?” I ask against her lips.
“Yes,” she breathes. “But remember, I asked you first.”
I bite her shoulder, making her squeal and shove at me. “One-upper.” I trickle kisses along her neck. “I love you,” I murmur into her sun-kissed skin. “So much.”
Her arms band around me, holding me close. “I love you.”
I pull back and meet her eyes. “I had a really good proposal ready. Lots of fluffy and flowery words.”
She nips at my bottom lip and then stares down at the four-carat diamond gleaming on her hand. “Yeah, but this is a really good story. One we’ll tell our grandchildren all about.”
“You mean how we turned a holiday fling into forever?”
“Does it get any better than that?”
The End.
Thank you for reading my fun and dirty holiday romance!