Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
“Jule?”
“I, uh, I just don’t know what to say.”
“‘Yes’ would work for me.”
Juliana tugged her hands free from his and stood up. She looked around the huge room and struggled to comprehend the magnitude of his grand gesture. He’d made it all but impossible for her to say no to him. “When did you do all this?”
He turned to sit on the hearth. “I bought the house the weekend I was home when I couldn’t find you, and I closed on it yesterday. I was hoping I’d chosen the right one. We looked at quite a few that day, but I thought this was the one you liked best.”
“It was.” Chilled, she crossed her arms and went to look out the window.
There was just enough moonlight to make out the large backyard and the wooded area behind the property.
It now seemed so unimaginable that she had expected to just walk away from Jeremy after everything they’d been through together.
How could she have ever thought he would step aside when she told him she had outgrown their relationship?
Of course that hardly mattered since he had made sure she’d never get the chance to say any such thing.
“How can you afford all this? My mother’s mortgage? This house?”
“We’ll have to sell the place in the city—pretty quickly,” he said with a grin.
“But I told you, I made a bundle when I was in Florida, and I was working so much that I hardly spent a dime of it. Your mother’s mortgage wasn’t much really.
There was just a year or so left on it, but I knew it would give you peace of mind to have that taken care of. ”
Juliana turned away from the window to face him. “I just can’t get over you doing that.”
When he stood up and walked over to her she knew she couldn’t stall any longer.
“Are you going to marry me, Jule? Are we going to live here together and fill this big house with kids? Are we going to have what we were always meant to have, from the time we were seventeen?”
She bit her lip and ventured a glance up at him. “What if, in a year or two…”
“What?”
“What if you get itchy feet again?” she asked, using Mrs. R’s words.
He took a step back as if she had struck him. “I can’t believe you’d ask me that.”
“Why can’t you believe it? What if you do all this to win me back only to discover down the road that you still have wild oats to sow?
What if I’m pregnant with our first child, or even our second, and you begin taking me for granted again and start wishing for anything but the life you have with me? What will I do then?”
A muscle in his cheek twitching with tension, he fixed his eyes on the window behind her.
“That’s not going to happen. I’ve learned a big lesson in the last two months, and it’s one I’m never, ever going to forget.
” He shifted his eyes back to her. “All I can do is tell you I love you. I’ve always loved you, and I always will.
I’m asking you to marry me. If you want me to beg, I will.
I have absolutely no pride left when it comes to you.
” His eyes filled, and the helpless despair she saw on his face finally did her in.
She took a deep breath and blocked all thoughts of Michael. “Okay.”
Jeremy’s face went slack with shock. “Yes?”
It was inevitable. It always had been, and for her to deny that was to deny what he had meant to her for the most important years of her life—the years when no one else had loved her or cared about her or been there for her.
He was right. He was her family, and she was his. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Yes.”
He let out a whoop and swept her off her feet and into his arms. His tears of joy left damp spots on her face.
“You won’t be sorry, Jule. I’ll spend every day making you happy.
I promise I’ll never let you down.” He reached into his pocket for the ring and slipped it on her finger. “Oh, no,” he groaned. “It’s too big.”
Juliana tried not to think about how perfectly Michael’s ring fit her. If she allowed herself to think of him for even one second, she would never make it through this. “That’s okay. We can get it sized down. It’s a beautiful ring.” Smaller diamonds framed a large, square-cut diamond.
His face fell with disappointment. “I took that ruby in your jewelry box to get the size right.”
She smiled. “That was my grandmother’s. She had much bigger hands than I do.”
“Sorry.”
Taking it off, she handed it to him. “You’d better hold on to it until we get it sized. I don’t want to lose it.”
“I wanted it to be perfect.”
“It’s a beautiful ring, Jer,” she said, reaching up to kiss him.
He looked at her with his heart in his eyes. “Do you still love me, Jule? After everything that’s happened, do you still love me?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell me? I need to hear it.”
“I love you, Jeremy.”
“You’re really going to marry me?”
“Yes,” she whispered as his lips took fierce possession of hers in a hot kiss filled with the promise of things to come.
“Let’s go home, to our current home,” he said in a voice hoarse with desire and emotion. “I want to make love to my future wife.”
“Um, about that, Jer…”
He pulled back to look at her. “What?”
“Two things. First, I don’t want a long engagement. I want us to go somewhere and get married. No big deal, okay?”
“I don’t want to just sneak off and get married like we’ve got something to hide. I want to do it up. I know the deal with your family, and we don’t have to make it a big production.”
“No production, Jer. I mean it. I don’t want it.”
He thought about that for a moment. “A guy I met in Florida told me he and his wife went to St. John with a couple of friends and got married over a weekend. How about something like that in the next few weeks? We could take Pam and David and my mom and Gary,” he said, referring to his stepfather. “Would that work?”
“That’d be great. I could tell my family after the fact that we eloped.”
“Okay, so that takes care of one of your two things. What’s the other?”
“I won’t sleep with you until we’re married.”
He snorted. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No.”
Realizing she was serious, he said, “Why? We’ve been having sex for ten years, Juliana. I don’t get it.”
“I feel like we let sex become too important in our relationship. I want us to stay focused on what really matters over the next few weeks. Please?”
He groaned. “I’ve been dreaming of making love with you for two months already.”
“Then a couple more weeks won’t kill you.”
“I really think it might.”
“You can do it.”
“You drive a tough bargain, babe, but okay. If it means that much to you, we can wait.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for saying yes.” He hugged her again. “You’ve made me the happiest guy in the world.”
As Juliana remembered Michael telling her that she made him happier than he had ever been in his life, the numbness wore off and she began to ache.
After Jeremy served Juliana breakfast in bed in the guestroom the next morning, they called his mother and stepfather to share the news of their engagement.
His mother whooped with joy and promised to be there for the big day.
They also called Pam and David, who were equally thrilled to be included and agreed to serve as their matron of honor and best man.
Jeremy got busy on the Internet, and an hour later he booked their wedding at a resort on St. John.
He came downstairs to find Juliana when he finished. “We got really lucky. They had a cancellation on New Year’s weekend just this morning.” Embracing her, he sighed with contentment. “Three weeks, babe. I can’t believe we’ll be married in three weeks.”
Drawn in by his contagious delight, she smiled up at him.
He slid his hand around her neck and kissed her. After he spent several minutes letting her know just how badly he wanted her, his breathing was heavy and labored. “You’re really sure about this no sex thing?”
“Think about how great the wedding night will be.”
He moaned. “I can’t. If I think about it, I’ll need another cold shower.” He had already told her all about the one he took the night before after their hot make-out session at the guest room door.
She laughed. “You’re pathetic.”
“Babe? Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“When we were apart, did you, you know…”
She struggled out of his embrace. “We’re not talking about that.”
“I need to know, Jule. It makes me crazy to think about you with someone else. Tell me I don’t need to be worried about that, and I’ll never mention it again.”
“I’m only going to say this once, and I really want you to listen, okay?”
He nodded.
“I’m never going to talk to you about the two months we spent apart. We said we wouldn’t do that. I’ve agreed to marry you. If you’re going to badger me about this then we’ve got a problem.”
He studied her for a long time before he answered. “Okay. I’ll let it go.”
“Good.”
Late on Sunday afternoon she told Jeremy she needed to do a few errands and left him unpacking the boxes and suitcases he brought home from Florida.
“Hurry back, babe,” he said, kissing her good-bye. “I miss you already.”
Juliana went to her mother’s house for the first time in three weeks.
“Well, look at what the cat dragged in,” Paullina said.
Stunned to see her mother up, dressed, and sitting at the table eating an early dinner, Juliana noticed that both her mother and the house were immaculate. There were even fresh flowers on the table.
“You must be Juliana.” A young blonde woman extended her hand. “I’m Allison, the home health aide.”
“No, you’re Allison, the miracle worker,” Juliana said with amazement.
“I told you she was a brat,” Paullina said to Allison but without the usual edge to her voice.
Juliana was startled to realize her mother was also sober. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her that way.
“I’m sorry it’s been so long since I was here, Ma. You look wonderful.”
“Well, Florence Nightingale over there is on my ass day and night,” she said, but Juliana noticed the affection in her mother’s eyes.