Chapter 30
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Pro.
Damion
There is actually nothing more anxiety-inducing…than the knowledge that Mirabelle asked to borrow my SUV this morning. Yesterday, she trotted off with my bleeding heart in order that she might review every thought I’ve ever had long enough to write it down, and this morning?
This morning, she says, Damion, can I have your keys? I need to go somewhere. Alone.
I didn’t even get a chance to show her the Christmas lights last night because she texted me, in full professional diction, saying that something came up and she would be busy through the evening and into tomorrow, wherein she would need to utilize one of her PTO days.
I was mildly hoping that she’d let me know I hadn’t written anything revolting and our relationship could proceed as normal while she continued to consider marriage as an end goal, but at this point, I’ll take anything reassuring from her.
Especially along the lines of I haven’t crashed your giant vehicle and died horribly.
It has been over an hour since she drove off. I am losing my mind with worry.
Sighing, I cut my fingers through my hair, glance at my tattoos, and sag over my work.
This is torture.
After far too many minutes of suffering, assuming the paparazzi got her, even considering that she collided with that idiot Jeffry, the sound of an engine finally encroaches.
I straighten, heart lightening. She’s okay.
She made it back. Whatever she needed to do, it’s done now.
And I can relax, focus on my work, ignore the sound of… wood? Against tile?
Blinking, I look up at my closed office door and tense when the dragging noise stops right outside it. The handle jiggles, but doesn’t open, and then the front door opens and shuts.
Several times.
I stand, cross the room, and discover that while my handle turns, I cannot get out.
The front door opens and shuts again.
“Mirabelle?” I call.
Beyond the thick wood, she squeaks. “Y-yes?”
“What’s going on out there?” I try the doorknob again. “Did you…trap me in my office?”
“Does that really sound like something I would do?” she asks, sounding exactly like the kind of person who would do that.
“Yes,” I state.
“What an odd thing to say,” she calls, voice fading.
The front door opens and shuts yet again.
I am trapped in my office.
Mirabelle trapped me in my office.
What is she doing?
Heading toward the window, I attempt to get a look at the driveway, but it seems she’s pulled up, out of the view of where she normally parks and out of my sight from this vantage.
Stomach tight, I cross my arms as the door opens, and shuts, opens, and shuts.
I could probably climb out the window.
It’s a decently sized window.
I’d fit. It might be uncomfortable, but I’d fit.
Before I can commit to opening the window, my doorknob jiggles again. Then, Mirabelle knocks.
My brow furrows as I cautiously move back toward the door, climb the few steps, lift my hand to the knob, and…open it. To…
Flowers.
Hundreds of them.
They fill my foyer, cover the floor, pour from Mirabelle’s arms, dapple the first few steps of the staircase leading to the second story. Color explodes before me, arrangement after arrangement overburdened with blooms. My lips part.
Mirabelle, face as red as the roses in her arms, offers me the bouquet.
I don’t take it. “What…is all this?”
“I’m grand gesturing,” she says.
“Grand gesturing?” I echo, struck by how pretty she looks in this field of petals. They match her lacy hair scarf and the designs on her apron. She’s as lovely and delicate as any one of these arrangements. Settled among them, she’s a picture of ravishing, heavenly beauty.
I have never wanted to kiss her more in my life.
She says, “In books, a lot of the time, a couple will get together, something will go wrong, they’ll break up, and then the guy will grand gesture to get the girl back.”
Tense, I say, “We haven’t broken up, have we?”
She shakes her head.
“Then…”
“I like you,” she blurts.
My heart thumps.
“I like you a lot. I might even—” She swallows, and her cheeks become deeper in shade than the roses she tries to hide behind. “I might even be at risk of loving you.”
My breath holds.
“I have never witnessed someone so full of determined care before. I have never dared to believe that anyone would put the kind of time and effort and sincerity that you have into me. I have dreamed of falling in love and getting married my entire life. I have wanted, desperately, to connect with someone on a level half so profound. I’ve tried, and failed, and given up, and regained hope many times.
I’ve fixed myself, or done my best to. I’ve curled up and cried myself to sleep more nights than I can count, wondering what’s wrong with me.
” Tears fill her eyes, settling on her lashes when they flutter.
“You have seen me. From the first moment. You have wanted me, just the way I am. The more of me you’ve seen, the more you’ve wanted.
The less agreeable I’ve become, the happier you’ve been.
You wrote, She hits now, a swear word and then, I love it.
I love how real she is when she’s upset.
I love that for the first time ever I don’t have to search for her.
She’s right here. Right in front me. Almost close enough to hold.
You put the books I read to shame, Damion.
You’ve redefined yearning for me. You’ve redefined effort.
You’ve redefined love. And so…” She offers me the bouquet again.
“I’m grand gesturing. When things get hard, when life is inevitably life, when something happens that scares me, when I shut down or try to run away, it’s too late.
The grand gesture meant to fix whatever goes wrong has happened.
You, Damion Anders, are stuck with me.” She smiles, as a tear caresses her cheek, and my heart seizes. “From now, until forever.”
Taking the flowers, I relocate them as quickly as possible in order that I might wrap her up in my arms. With the scent of a thousand blooms swirling around us, I bury her against me. Warm. Safe. Close. Mine. “I love you,” I whisper, voice raw, breaking. “I love you.”
Hands gripping against my back, Mirabelle laughs, and whispers, “As you should.”
As I should.
My heart bursts with joy, and a smile consumes me as I keep her as close as I possibly can, let the warmth of this moment fill me to bursting. She is everything I have ever dreamed of. Everything I could ever want. And, from now until forever, she is to be mine.
“Damion?” Her breath siphons through my shirt to hit my chest.
“Yes?”
“I have two things I’d like to mention,” she whispers. “No, wait. Three.”
Three things. “Yes, precious? Anything.”
“First, we need to decorate for Christmas inside today. I took a day off from work for the occasion.”
I snort, laughing.
“Second, June is going to come quick, so we really need to start planning our wedding.”
My heart convulses, and I scoop her up. “Really?”
Seated on my forearm, she flushes and refuses to meet my eyes. “Yes. Now. The third thing. The big one. Are you ready?”
“I am.”
She exhales, bracing herself against my shoulders as her lips purse. “You know how I’m….fun?”
“Fun?” I search her precious, perfect, avoidant expression. “Fun how?”
“Fun odd. Fun…inconvenient. Fun, fun?”
“No. I don’t think I know that at all. You have never been inconvenient a day in your life.”
“Ha ha ha,” she drones, the sound robotic. “Right. I forgot. You’re delusional. I’d assume infatuation, but…this has been an affliction of yours for four long years.”
Four, long, beautiful years.
She exhales again, shaking a little as she does. “My, um, parents just drove up.”
My brows shoot skyward, and I turn to find an unknown vehicle sitting in the visible part of my driveway, right near Mirabelle’s car. “Oh.” Well. Look at that. A man and a woman resembling my Mirabelle exit the car.
Fragile, she says, “They told me yesterday I had a week to introduce them. It has not been a week. I don’t even know how they made it past the gate or your security.”
I’m assuming that woman said, I’m Mirabelle’s mother, to my security, and my security looked into her very familiar blue eyes and said, Yes, you sure are, come right in.
“Why are they like this?” Mirabelle asks. “Why am I like this? Of course they’re going to go and do something stupid. It’s what I would do!”
“Precious, it’s fine.”
Her eyes finally slash to mine. “It is not fine. You’re about to meet my parents!”
“It’s very fine. I’m about to meet my parents. And have a very, very good distraction from how badly I want to kiss you senseless right now.” Lifting my hand, I touch her bottom lip. “Besides. It’s a big house. Four people decorating is a good thing.”
Her pretty little mouth falls open against my thumb. “You’re immediately recruiting my parents for labor?”
“Yep.” I scan my future wife’s pretty apron. “To be fair, though, all my very best relationships start with a work agreement.”
The doorbell rings.
Mirabelle whimpers.
It takes everything in me to control myself and navigate the field of flowers in my foyer, but by some miracle, I manage not to kiss Mirabelle, even when—once I reach the door—I have to slip the most beautiful woman in the world down every inch of my body to plant her feet on the floor.
Looking up at me with pleading in her eyes, she whimpers again.
“What?” I ask as I reach for the handle.
Face burning, she shakes her head and holds me. Arms around my waist, she stays tucked against my side as I open the door for her parents, and let our future begin.