Chapter 22 #4
Noah crosses to the central table with careful attention, his movements slightly more deliberate than normal, like he’s counting his steps.
When he reaches it, he turns to face me, and that’s when I notice it, the top that Milo is wearing, a tiny white shirt that reads “WILL YOU MARRY NOAH?” in Luca’s handwriting, the letters slightly uneven as if they were written in a hurry, Luca clearly ran out of time for anything more professional.
And Maisie, still balanced on my hip, has somehow been changed into wearing a matching one, making me wonder when she left my arms at all, along with how unobservant I truly am.
The words stretched across her small chest in the same slightly wobbly script.
I look down at Maisie’s shirt, then at Milo’s, then at Noah, who is standing in front of me looking more nervous than I have ever seen him, his hands not quite steady, jaw tight, the expression of a man who has rehearsed something and is now watching it dissolve in real time.
“Oh,” I say, the word coming out slightly uneven. “That’s… that’s what the shirts are for.”
Noah takes a deep breath, his chest rising and falling as though gathering himself for something important.
“I had a speech,” he says, his voice carrying the warmth that appears when he’s being completely honest. “I wrote it down. Practiced it in the mirror. Made Luca listen to it seven times. It was… it was good. Really good. About how I never expected any of this.”
He gestures at the room, at the twins, at me, at the particular constellation of people and places that have somehow become his life.
“Not the café. Not the chaos. Not the twins. Not you.” His voice catches slightly on the last word.
“I had this whole plan. This whole life. And then somewhere between a door I held open and a baby who stopped screaming because I pulled a face, I stopped being someone who was passing through and became someone who wanted to stay.”
Maisie, sensing the change in atmosphere, reaches one small hand toward Noah’s face, her palm coming to rest against his jaw with the gravity she brings to moments of great significance. He turns slightly into the touch, his eyes never leaving mine, and continues.
“I know you don’t owe me forever because someone else hurt you,” he says, the words coming out slightly faster now.
“I know that’s not how this works. I just…
” He pauses, swallows, and when he continues, his voice catches in a way that makes my chest ache.
“I just really hope I get to spend mine with you.”
On cue, exactly as if they’ve been given a specific assignment, Milo holds up the ring box he’s been sitting on.
It’s slightly damp, probably from cupcake icing, slightly dented at one corner, and being offered with the absolute conviction of a two-year-old who has no idea what’s in it but is fairly certain it’s important.
“For Mama,” he announces, with a seriousness that I don’t think I have heard from him before.
And Maisie, not to be outdone, begins clapping with the enthusiasm of a child who has been waiting for her moment, both hands coming together in a rhythm that has absolutely no relationship to time but enormous conviction. “Yes!” she says. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I’m already crying before Noah properly finishes, the kind of crying I can’t stop and don’t try to, tears running down my face without permission, my breath coming in small, uneven hitches.
I look at Noah, at the man who showed up without being asked, and feel my heart fill with a warmth so complete it’s almost painful.
“Yes,” I say, the word coming out steadier than expected. “Yes, of course. God, yes.”
The room erupts. Luca is sobbing with zero restraint and making no effort to hide it, tears running openly down his face, one hand pressed to his chest as if the emotion is physically too much to contain.
“I knew it,” he says, between what can only be described as dramatic inhales.
“I knew you’d say yes. I told him. I said, ‘she’s going to say yes because she loves you and also because I’m an excellent judge of character,’ and he said, ‘what if she doesn’t,’ and I said, ‘then we’ll have a very sad party with extra cupcakes,’ but I knew. I knew.”
Clara crosses to us immediately, pulling me into a fierce hug the moment Noah stands up, her usual composure nowhere to be seen. “I’m so happy for you,” she says, her with a slight hitch. “Both of you. This is… this is perfect.”
Liv is very pointedly not crying while also not looking at anyone directly, her attention fixed on her tablet with an intensity that suggests she’s discovered something of enormous importance. “The kerning is still wrong,” she says, her voice slightly thicker than normal.
Harper is filming on her phone with tears running down her face, the expression of someone who is genuinely happy but also aware of the historical significance of the moment.
“I’m documenting,” she says, when she notices me looking.
“For… posterity. And also, because Luca made me promise. He said if I didn’t get it on video, he would personally redesign my next book cover to look like it was made in Microsoft Paint. ”
But there’s something in her expression that seems slightly off, a flicker of something private and unsteady behind the joy, there and gone before I can name it, swept away by Milo banging a cupcake tin against the floor like a one-man percussion section, the sound bright and chaotic.
Noah reaches for my left hand with careful attention, his fingers warm against mine, and slips the ring onto my finger with a touch so gentle it’s almost not there.
The ring is perfect, not too big, not too flashy, just a simple band with a small stone that catches the light when I move my hand, and I look at it for a long moment, taking in the way it sits against my skin like it’s always been there.
“I love you,” Noah says quietly, his free hand coming up to brush a tear from my cheek. “I love you, Els.”
And then he’s kissing me, one hand at the small of my back, the other still holding mine between us, and the room falls away entirely.
Not in the dramatic, movie-perfect way where the background actually blurs, but in the way that happens when the person you love is the only thing in the world that matters.
His mouth is warm against mine, slightly uncertain, then surer, and I kiss him back with everything I have, a year of loving him contained in a single moment.
When we break apart, the room has rearranged itself slightly.
Luca is now sitting on the floor with Milo balanced on one knee, explaining something about “Mummy’s special ring.
” Liv has abandoned her tablet entirely and is showing Maisie something on her phone, seemingly stolen again without my notice.
I have to work on that. Their heads are bent together.
Clara is opening a bottle of champagne. And Harper is still filming, but she’s backed toward the window, her phone held at a slightly different angle, her expression arranged in what can only be described as determined joy.
I catch her eye across the room and she smiles, a real one that reaches her eyes, and raises her glass in a small toast. But there’s something there, something behind the smile that I can’t quite name, a shadow just deep enough for me to catch.
I make a mental note to ask her about it later, when things have settled, when we’re back to being just us rather than the centre of everyone’s attention.
Noah’s hand finds mine, his fingers interlacing with my own with the ease of someone who has done this a thousand times before, and I squeeze once, hard enough to ground us both. He looks down at me, his eyes warm and steady and completely present.
I am standing inside Page & Grounds with Noah’s hand in mine, the twins laughing on the floor, the people who mean the world to me all there for the moment I agree to spend my life with a man who has helped me heal, who sees me and all my chaos as something remarkable to keep a hold of.
And I understand, with a clarity that comes when something has been true for longer than you’ve admitted, that the ending I thought had destroyed my life had actually rewritten it entirely.
It wasn’t destroyed like I may have thought all those months ago, but truly rewritten, with all its messy, complicated history intact, but with a new voice, a new perspective, a new understanding of what comes next.
And somehow, I think that it’s only the beginning.
Thank you!
To every reader who picked up Pretend You Love Me,
Thank you.
For spending time with Elsie, Noah, the twins, Luca, and the beautiful people of Page & Grounds. For loving these characters, hurting with them, laughing with them, and allowing this story a place in your life for a little while.
This book was written for anyone who has ever had to rebuild themselves after disappointment.
For the people who discovered that healing is rarely loud or cinematic, but instead happens quietly through friendship, coffee, late-night conversations, chosen family, and the slow realization that your life is not over simply because it changes.
I hope this story reminded you that endings are not always endings. Sometimes they are simply the beginning of something softer, safer, and more honest than what came before.
And if life ever hands you heartbreak, confusion, betrayal, or the overwhelming urge to commit minor crimes with your best friends…remember: you are powerful, you are resilient, and somewhere, Luca is already putting the kettle on.
Thank you for being here. With love, Rose
Continue with Harper’s Story?
Harper thought she had already survived the hardest part of her marriage back in university.
Back when they were nineteen and stupid and Ethan’s confession had ripped through their tiny apartment like a grenade neither of them knew how to survive.
They had survived it though.
Therapy. Tears. Rebuilding. Marriage. Leo.
Ten whole years of believing the worst thing had already happened.
Which was probably why staring at a pair of bright red panties that absolutely did not belong to her felt less like heartbreak…
…and more like standing in the ruins of a house she’d already rebuilt once before.