CHAPTER 11 ALEXIS
I wasn’t lying when I said I love surprises from Danny.
I love everything about Danny. He makes me happy. He makes me giddy. He makes me want to lay on my bed and kick my feet in the air with joy.
I’ve never felt this before in my life.
And waiting for four-forty-five is downright painful. I don’t know what he has planned, but I know what I hope he has planned.
The last twenty-four hours have certainly been a whirlwind, but for the first time in my life, I’m making my own decisions.
And I’ve never been happier.
I stand in the kitchen with nothing to do other than stare at the clock. I glance out the window at the water. The sun is starting to lower down into it, and it’s that beautiful time of day that’s just peaceful and lovely.
I still worry we’ll be found. I still worry we’re taking too many risks.
But the risks are worth it, given where we’ve landed, and I’ve never felt safer than when I’m with Danny.
Gregory is amazing at making me feel safe, too, but this is something else entirely. Gregory watches out for my physical safety.
Danny covers physical, but he’s also careful with my emotional safety. And I know that with my heart in his hands, I’ll always be safe.
Eventually, the clock ticks to the time he said, and I head up to the rooftop.
When I get out there, it’s lit with strings of lights and a full curtain of lights on the back side of the rooftop facing away from the ocean. Candles are lit and placed everywhere on the rooftop, and in the middle, surrounded by a glow of flickering flames, is Danny Brewer in a suit.
Let me repeat that. The baseball player is in a suit.
Have I ever mentioned that suits just do it for me?
The bad boy of baseball is all dressed up and he is hot as hell.
And he’s down on one knee as he waits for me.
Tears heat behind my eyes as I walk slowly across the deck toward him. Once I’m standing in front of him, my pulse races as I reach down and take his hands in mine.
He looks at me confidently, and then he begins speaking from the heart.
“My best friend once asked me who my dream girl was, and even before I met you, it was you. Once I was lucky enough to meet you in person, that was only confirmed. You’re smart, and you’re talented, and you’re beautiful, but over the last nine months, I’ve gotten to know your heart, too.
You love bacon and donuts, and you love your music and your fans, and you love acting.
But somehow, amidst all that, you also love me, and that is something I never saw coming.
The things that are important to you are important to me, and that has become just being together.
I want to be with you forever, Caroline Alexis Bodega.
I want to wake up with you in my arms. I want to stroll through shops in disguises and laugh and hit up pizza joints together.
I want to travel on tour with you, and I want you in the stands cheering me on.
I want to support you in everything you want to accomplish in this life, and I want to hold your hand and cling to you while together we fight against the forces trying to push us apart.
I love you, Lex. I didn’t think love was in the cards for me, but all it took was meeting my dream girl.
So today, I ask you to please make the final piece of my wildest dream come true by saying yes. Will you marry me?”
My heart very nearly bursts, and my chest tightens at his words. I’ve never heard anything so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as the man on his knee in front of me saying these wonderful words to me, asking me to marry him. Asking me to be with him.
Asking me. Not telling me.
Asking me to make a choice for what I want out of this life.
And that is the key to all of this.
He respects me enough to ask. He loves me enough to ask.
“Oh, Danny,” I whisper. “I love you so, so much. Yes, I will marry you.”
He rises to a stand and pulls me into his arms. His lips collide with mine as we seal our new engagement into a promise.
I would marry him right this second if I could.
I want to.
I want to be married to him when we return home to Los Angeles.
I want to start building our life together.
I want to buy a home and make it ours. I want to move out of my dad’s house and start fresh.
I want to make my own choices and be my own person instead of being the brand that’s always been expected of me.
If I truly want younger girls to look up to me, then maybe this is the way. Choosing my own life. Making my own path. Being the authentic person I want to be rather than the woman I’ve been scripted to be.
And it all starts right here, right now.
He pulls back and reaches down into his pocket.
When he opens his hand, he has two rings in it.
One is a platinum man’s ring, and the other is a simple, gorgeous eternity band made of diamonds.
“I don’t have an engagement ring, but I bought bands downtown today.
I wanted to get you something you’d want, but I also wanted to—”
I shake my head as I cut him off. “I don’t need an engagement ring, Danny. All I need is your love. Your promise. Your commitment.”
“You have it all,” he says, and his lips press to mine warmly again. He pulls back and leans his forehead down to mine. “Forever.”
“You have it all from me, too. Forever.”
His lips tip up in a smile. “I think we just wrote our vows.”
“I think you’re right. And I think we need a photo to commemorate this moment.”
He slips his phone out of his pocket and pulls up the camera.
We both smile as he snaps the selfie, and he’s about to take another one when I say, “I want to marry you before Christmas Eve. Before I have to get back to my life and everything I left behind.”
He hits the button, and I can’t wait to look back at the shock on his face later, captured forever in a photo.
“Are you sure?” he asks as he lowers the phone. His voice is soft and vulnerable.
I nod. “Positive. And before you get any crazy ideas as to why…well, I realized something today.”
His brows draw together. “What?”
“That people spend their entire lives searching for what I found with you, and I don’t want to waste another second of this life not being your wife.”
His eyes heat a little at my words. “My wife,” he echoes.
He draws me into him, crushing me against him. “Then let’s get married.”
“Let’s get married,” I murmur.
A part of me feels like I should be worried about rushing this. How are we ever going to plan a wedding in the next week?
And that’s when I realize…simple.
I’ll call his mom, and we’ll drive down to San Diego, and we’ll do it with her help. It’ll just be the two of us, plus Tracy and Anna. Maybe Cooper or Rush, whoever he wants to invite. It’ll be quiet and intimate.
It’ll be everything my father never wanted for the wedding of The Alexis Bodega.
And it’ll be perfect for us.