Chapter 21
TESSA
The apartment smelled like salmon, and it was perfect. She noticed it the moment she stepped through the door, still shaking water from her coat.
Gabriel’s culinary experiments usually ended with burnt edges and apologies, but tonight the scent wrapping through the space was clean, rich, and perfectly seasoned. He’d had help. Knox, surely. It had to be.
The living room was dark except for candles—actual candles, not the string lights Gabriel defaulted to—scattered across surfaces she knew he’d scrubbed, and the nervous energy radiating off him was already a current she could feel the moment he pulled her close.
“You’re here,” Gabriel said from the kitchen doorway, and there it was. That barely-contained current running through his voice, his shoulders, and the way his hand moved to his pocket, then back to his side.
“Where else would I be?” She set her bag down and moved toward him. He looked good—shirt the color of worn denim, sleeves rolled, his jaw working like he was running through a script in his head.
“I made dinner,” he said.
“I can smell it.” She reached for his face, and he kissed her like he’d been waiting all day to do this. He probably had. The kiss tasted like Gabriel, which was her favorite flavor.
When he pulled back, his hand went to his pocket again and then dropped back to his side. She had noticed him do the same thing when she walked in, and now she found herself counting. That made two.
“You okay?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. Something had shifted. The apartment didn’t feel like their usual Tuesday-night refuge—it felt like stage-managed territory, every detail deliberate, every moment accounted for.
“Yeah,” he said, and the lie was so transparent she almost laughed. “Just want tonight to be good.”
“It already is.”
But he wasn’t listening, already moving toward the kitchen, pulling her with him.
The table was set properly—napkins folded, water glasses, and candles scattered here too. The salmon rested on a bed of roasted vegetables, the color a perfect golden-pink. Risotto, creamy and pale as butter.
He’d done this.
He’d really done this.
She sat because he was pulling the chair out for her, because Gabriel in full gentleman-mode was something she’d learned to let happen. He served her carefully, watched her face as she took the first bite.
The salmon dissolved. It was perfectly cooked—tender, flaky, and seasoned with something that tasted like citrus and care. The risotto was exactly as rich as risotto should be.
This wasn’t the Gabriel who’d charred a duck to the surface of the sun.
This was a man who had asked for help, who had practiced until he got it right, and the significance of that—of Gabriel admitting he couldn’t do something and learning it anyway, of preparing this moment—landed somewhere beneath her ribs.
“This is incredible,” she said, and she meant it.
He nodded, but he wasn’t eating. He was pushing food around his plate, his hand moving to his pocket, then his water glass, then back to his pocket again.
“Are you going to eat any of that or are we just staring at it all night?” she asked.
“I’m eating.” He took a bite to prove it, barely chewed. His knee bounced beneath the table.
By the time they finished the main course, she’d counted seventeen pocket-touches. Seventeen. She’d stopped trying to hide her amusement, which only made him more nervous, which only made the pocket-touching worse.
It was a loop, and she let him spin in it for a moment longer because watching Gabriel—competent, controlled, always-certain Gabriel—vibrate with uncertainty was its own kind of foreplay.
He cleared the plates without asking, and she followed him to the kitchen.
“Okay,” she said, leaning against the counter. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing’s happening. I’m cleaning up.”
“You’re vibrating. Your hand has been in your pocket so many times I’m worried you have a hole there.” She stepped closer, caught his wrist gently. “What’s going on?”
He looked at his hand like he was surprised to find it there, then at her. His eyes were the dark green they turned when he was feeling something deep, the color she’d fallen in love with first, before she even knew his name.
“I love you,” he said.
Not an answer.
A statement.
A beginning.
“I know you do.”
“I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old, Tessa.
I’ve loved you through every stupid decision I made, every year I wasted, and every time I convinced myself it was better to stay away from you.
I love you now. I’m going to love you for the rest of my life, and I’m terrified of that because you could decide tomorrow that you’re done, but I’d rather have one more day with you than a lifetime with anyone else. ”
Her chest tightened. She didn’t say anything because she couldn’t, not yet, because he reached into his pocket and dropped to one knee on their kitchen tile.
The ring box was small, worn leather, a thing that had traveled.
Inside, the stone caught the light—an old piece, 1920s maybe, the setting art deco white gold, and the diamond cut to hold the stories of different hands, different eras, and different loves that led to this one.
“I love you,” he said again, because apparently this was how Gabriel did things.
Repetition, certainty, and the absolute conviction that she was worth every moment of this fear.
“I’ve loved you. I will love you. I need to lock you down.
Marry me. Please. Marry me and let me spend the rest of my life trying to deserve that. ”
She should say yes. Every version of herself that existed in that moment wanted to say yes immediately.
But he’d said something wrong, and she loved him too much not to fix it.
“You said ‘lock me down,’” she said.
He stared at her. “What?”
“Just now. You said you wanted to lock me down. That’s not the language you use. That’s not what this is.”
“Tessa—”
“And you didn’t ask a question. You told me what to do. ‘Marry me.’ That’s not the same as asking.”
She watched him process this, watched the moment he realized she was right.
Some men would be irritated.
Gabriel, though—Gabriel laughed, actually laughed, and shook his head.
“You’re really going to make me do this twice?”
“I’m really going to make you do it right.”
He took a breath, and the look on his face was so purely Gabriel that she committed it to memory—that mix of exasperation, fondness, and certainty that she was the most important thing he’d ever get to fight for.
“Tessa Thorne,” he said, “will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely yes.”
He slid the ring on, and it fit like he’d been planning this longer than she’d known him. Maybe he had. Maybe he’d been planning this since he was sixteen, and she was just now catching up.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, holding up her hand to catch the light. The diamond scattered light across the walls. “Where did you find this?”
“It’s beautiful.” He was still holding her hand, like he couldn’t quite let go. “I spent two weeks visiting jewelers, looking at options. Lucy helped me. When I saw this one, I knew. It felt right. Classic but not boring. Like you.”
She laughed through the tears streaming down her face.
“Of course Lucy threatened you.”
“She threatened to burn down my building if I hurt you.”
“Of course she did.”
She held up her hand again, watching the ring catch the light. The diamond threw fire across the candlelit room.
This was real.
He was real.
They were real.
“So,” she said, a laugh catching at her mouth. “Paris for the honeymoon?”
His laugh was surprised. “Is that a yes to everything?”
“It’s a yes to you, you idiot. All of it. The honeymoon is just logistics.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too.”
Later, after he’d called Knox and Ronan, after she’d called Lucy who screamed loud enough that she could have heard her three feet away, she curled against his chest on the couch and let herself breathe.
TWO WEEKS LATER
The engagement party was controlled chaos—the good kind, the kind that came from everyone who mattered crammed into an apartment with champagne and opinions about flower arrangements.
She was wearing emerald, the dress Gabriel loved, and when she caught him staring from across the room like she’d invented light, he raised his glass.
She turned back to Devney.
Knox appeared with a drink in hand and a scowl that could cut glass.
“You’re disgustingly happy,” he said to Gabriel, and she watched her fiancé’s shoulders shift with laughter. “It’s unnerving.”
“Therapy and love,” Gabriel said. “I recommend both.”
“Hard pass.”
She caught Knox glaring at Lucy across the room, who was arranging the cake she’d made with the focus of someone defusing a bomb.
Lucy caught him looking and returned a look that could curdle milk.
Knox raised his glass in mock salute.
Lucy turned her back on him.
Devney appeared at her elbow with Ronan’s arm in hers.
“Speech time,” she said. “Everyone’s waiting.”
Gabriel stepped to the front of the room with her hand in his.
“Thank you all for coming. Most of you know the story. Some of you saw the video. A few of you still have screenshots saved for blackmail purposes.”
Laughter moved through the room.
Ronan raised his glass in acknowledgment.
“What the video didn’t show is what happened after. The conversation. The choice. The decision to build something new instead of running from what scared us.”
He looked at her, and she couldn’t stop the tightening in her throat.
“I spent years convincing myself that avoiding love was the right choice. That if I didn’t let anyone close, I couldn’t lose them. I destroyed The Oath because I don’t believe that anymore. I tore down the old rules without building new ones.”
He raised his glass.
“The best thing I ever did was stop running from it. To Tessa. For taking a chance on me. For calling me an idiot when I deserve it. For building a life with me that’s better than anything I could’ve imagined alone.”
“To Tessa,” the room echoed.
She kissed him. Brief and public and absolutely perfect.
“Your turn,” he said.
“My turn?”
“Speech. Go.”
She turned to the crowd and took a breath.
“I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Gabriel Sterling. He represented everything I had spent my life proving I didn’t need. Money, status, and an effortless privilege that made people like me feel smaller.”
Gabriel’s throat visibly tightened.
“But Gabriel isn’t effortless. He’s the opposite. He overthinks, over-plans, and over-organizes everything in his life. He color-codes his calendar. He once sent a woman a spreadsheet of optimal date options.”
“That was efficient,” Gabriel said.
“That was insane,” she said. “It was also honest. Because Gabriel Sterling, for all his control and planning, is the most genuinely authentic person I’ve ever met. He doesn’t know how to be anything other than exactly who he is.”
The room went quiet.
“When I found The Oath, that stupid piece of paper he kept in his drawer, I thought it proved he was still the scared boy who walked away from me. It didn’t.
It proved he was brave enough to admit he had been wrong, brave enough to tear it up in public, and brave enough to choose love even when it terrified him. ”
She turned to him.
“So here’s my speech. I love you. I trust you. And I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”
He pulled her close.
“Even though I can only cook salmon, eggs, and frozen pizza?”
“You learned the salmon to impress me. And don’t forget the pasta. That’s enough.”
She kissed him again.
The party gradually thinned. Gabriel was helping Lucy pack up the remains of the cake when Knox appeared in the kitchen, holding a bottle of whiskey like a trophy.
“Last man standing,” he announced.
Lucy looked at the bottle. “What a stupid thing to be proud of.”
“It got me this.” Knox raised the bottle of something rare and Scottish and expensive.
“You could buy that ten times over for yourself.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Winning.” He said it like it was obvious.
She stared at him.
“You’re genuinely the most insufferable person I’ve ever met.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Everything you say to me sounds like a compliment.”
Knox set the bottle on the counter.
“I can carry your equipment to your car, if you need help.”
She looked at him like he’d suggested setting the building on fire.
“You want to help.”
“Is that unusual?”
“You have never voluntarily helped me with anything. Ever.”
“Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.”
“Or maybe you’re planning sabotage and want access to my vehicle.”
“That’s paranoid.”
“That’s experienced.”
They glared at each other.
Gabriel quietly stepped out of the blast radius.
“Children,” Tessa said from the doorway. “It’s my engagement party. Could you maybe not have your moment here?”
“We’re not having a moment,” they said in unison.
Then they looked at each other before looking away.
She caught Gabriel’s eye. They were both barely suppressing laughter.
Knox opened his mouth, probably to say something that would escalate the situation.
Lucy did something that shocked everyone.
She grabbed his tie and yanked him forward.
“Shut up,” she said.
She kissed him.
In front of everyone.
The room went still.
She watched Knox freeze for half a second. Then his hands came up, steadying Lucy, and the kiss changed. Deepened. It wasn’t a kiss born from civility—it was a kiss born from months of tension and antagonism and something neither of them seemed to understand.
Lucy pulled back first, releasing his tie like it burned her.
“Don’t,” she said, breathing hard. “Don’t say a word.”
Knox stared at her like she’d rewritten the rules of his entire existence.
“Consider me shut up,” he said quietly.
He grabbed his whiskey bottle and walked out of the kitchen.
Lucy stood frozen for approximately three seconds.
“I need to leave,” she said, and fled the apartment.
The door slammed behind her.
There was silence.
Devney looked at Ronan.
Ronan looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel looked at her.
“Should we be worried?” she asked.
He nodded. “Terrified.”
Later, after everyone had gone, she curled against Gabriel in bed.
“Those two are a lit match and a gas leak,” she said.
“They’re going to burn the world to the ground.”
“Probably.” She yawned. “As long as they do it after our wedding.”
He pulled her closer.
“Speaking of which. You’re still holding me to Paris?”
“Obviously,” she said without hesitation. “That was never up for debate.”
He laughed under his breath. He’d known the answer before he asked.
“Then Paris it is.”
She pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
“Good night, my love.”
“Good night, sweetheart.”
She’d spent a lifetime looking for somewhere to belong. But here, in the dark with his heartbeat steady beneath her ear and his arms around her, she was certain.
He was home.
Her fiancé.
Her future husband.
Her forever.
Knox is coming next, in Tempting Mr. Knightly.