Chapter 32 - Aurélie （Her Edition Ending） #2
I would have laughed, if he hadn’t completely melted my brain.
I slid off the counter, our bodies flush as I looked up at him through my lashes. His eyes were full of love and adoration, and I melted into him. If he looked at me like this every day for the rest of my life, I would need nothing else.
A quick glance around the small bathroom showed the mess we’d made. The counter was slick with my arousal and sweat. The mirror was definitely splintered and fogged, the toiletries scattered.
My pink lipstick? Smeared. Everywhere, all over my face. This man refused to let me look normal for one day.
“Whoops.” I giggled, reaching behind us to unlock the door.
“You’re evil.”
“You participated.”
“You started it.”
“That’s debatable.”
We both slipped out of the bathroom, and the cool, fresh air hit my hot, sweaty skin. I sighed, making my way back to our seats, feeling completely satiated… for now.
We landed just before dusk.
Callum guided me from the plane to a waiting car, and the moment the doors closed, his hand found my thigh. Like he was making sure I didn’t slip away.
The drive from the tiny island airstrip to our villa didn’t take long, maybe twenty minutes.
But it was enough time for the nerves to come back.
I wasn’t sure why. We were good. We were better than good.
So why was my heart fluttering like something big was coming?
Was it because he was quieter than usual? Less talkative, almost nervous.
When we pulled up to the villa, I understood the appeal. Why he’d always wanted to visit here.
The house was carved into the cliffside, all open-concept and whitewashed stone, with wide archways in place of doors and linen curtains pulled back to let the breeze move freely through the space.
Everything felt sun-bleached and slow and sacred, as if time didn’t pass here. Like it waited for you to be ready.
We walked through quietly, our footsteps echoing. Callum set our bags down beside the white leather couch before tipping his head toward the beach path.
On the far side of the terrace, a stone pathway led down through wildflowers to a stretch of private beach.
The cliffs behind us were washed gold by the sinking sun, and in front of us…
an entire ambiance. Right there on the sand.
Lanterns flickered along a path of scattered rose petals, leading from the edge of the villa down to the beach.
And at the end of that path, a low wooden table sat beneath a gauzy canopy, the fabric fluttering in the sea breeze.
Two glasses for champagne. A platter of olives and fruit. A chilled bottle sweating in an ice bucket. Candles glowed like tiny constellations on every surface. The entire Aegean stretched out in front of us in glittering blue under the fading sun.
Callum came to stand behind me, his hands on my bare shoulders.
“Welcome to Milos, my love.” His accent was thicker than usual, the way that made me weak in the knees.
I exhaled. “This is insane.”
“It’s just dinner.”
“Just dinner?” I turned to look at him, brow raised. “You flew us on your private jet, booked a cliffside villa, and coordinated an intimate dinner on the beach timed with the sun setting.”
His dimple made an appearance. “Like I said. Just dinner.” He looked so calm. So smug. So completely in love that I wanted to cry.
He offered his arm, and I took it, letting him lead me down to the beach.
My heart was pounding again. Not because of the setting. Not because of the ridiculous extravagance. Because something about the way he looked at me—like he was memorizing this moment—made me feel like he was about to change everything.
And I wasn’t scared of it this time, but I prayed that I wasn’t just hoping for something he wasn’t ready for.
Callum took shoes off at the edge of the villa, bending to slip them from my ankles. Now, each step left a little imprint behind me, grains clinging to my toes as the salt-sweet breeze swept through my hair.
The sand was warm beneath my feet. Waves crashed soft and slow against the shoreline, turning everything into a lullaby. A song just for us.
The air smelled like sea salt and jasmine, and I inhaled deeply, desperate to etch this into my memory.
When we reached the table, he didn’t let me sit. Instead, he turned me gently to face the horizon—one hand on my waist, the other slipping down my bare arm until our fingers laced.
There was a beat of stillness. One breath. Then another. And I thought, how the hell did we get here?
From strangers on a grid to this. To trust. To love. To a beach in Greece with the man who broke me and still became my home.
The sun was nearly gone now, the sky stained in streaks of lavender and pink. It was stupidly beautiful. Stupidly romantic. Stupidly us. The kind of thing you read about in books and see in movies and assumed nobody ever actually got.
I had the briefest, wildest thought that maybe I was dreaming. That a fantasy had formed in order to protect myself, and that it would dissolve like seafoam the moment I blinked.
But then he stepped in front of me and dropped to one knee.
I gasped. “Callum—”
He shook his head. “Let me say it first.”
The wind caught his hair. His eyes were so impossibly blue. And shining. And soft. And steady in the way he looked at me.
And all those feelings I’d been holding at bay—hope, longing, fear, joy—rushed to the surface like a wave. My heart flipped and butterflies erupted in my stomach.
My hand flew to my mouth. And then—for just a second—he faltered. His throat bobbed like he was trying to swallow it all down, his jaw twitching with tension. His free hand trembled slightly before he clenched it into a fist.
The man who always knew what to say… couldn’t. Until he looked up at me, and the second our eyes locked, he exhaled, just once, and began.
“I’ve been in love with you since the moment you crashed into my world.”
A laugh escaped me, rattling and thick with tears. “I didn’t mean to,” I whispered.
“It’s what you were born to do.” He smiled, catching my left hand and brushing his thumb over my knuckles. “But from that first moment, I knew I’d never come back from you. You walked in wielding a smile like a weapon, and I was gone.”
I stopped breathing, my lungs locked like my body couldn’t catch up to my heart.
“You wrecked me, Aurélie, in every way that matters. You were the crash I never walked away from. You made everything I thought I wanted feel small. I tried to fight it. God, I fought it. But no matter how hard I drove, how fast I went, how far I ran, there you were. Always there. Always the finish line.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black box, holding it up like a prize to be earned.
“Aurélie Dubois,” he murmured, his voice steady, certain, his whole heart in his eyes. “I love you. More than I have ever loved anything in my entire life. More than racing, more than winning, more than I even knew was possible.”
My whole body was trembling now—shoulders, knees, hands.
“You changed me. You made me better. You gave me something to believe in that wasn’t just a victory. You gave me hope. Dreams beyond the grid I’d never dared to imagine before you. You made me fearless. Because if I had you… then I had nothing to be afraid of.”
He opened the jewelry box. Inside was a ring unlike anything I expected. No big solitaire or overdone diamond.
What sat inside wasn’t just beautiful. It was intentional. Built like a promise and engineered like a circuit. At the center, a long oval diamond stretched north to south. A shape with no beginning and no end. Like the way he loved me, without condition, without escape.
Surrounding it was an octagonal halo of tapered baguette diamonds.
Eight perfect edges, sharp and deliberate.
Like each one represented a phase. The years we didn’t spend together.
The impossible things we survived. The reasons we shouldn’t have fallen in love.
The reasons we did anyway. But follow those diamonds around, and they would always take us back where we started: to each other.
The platinum band tapered gently at the base, pavé-set diamonds wrapping only halfway around, like he wanted the rest to stay smooth against my skin. As if he’d thought about how it would feel when I clenched my fist. When I held the wheel. When I reached for him.
It was beautiful, yes. But it was also quietly built for me.
My fingers trembled.
“Every time you choose me,” he said, voice rough now, “I feel like I’ve won the whole fucking world. But I don’t want to be a prize. And I don’t want to put you on a podium like that’s the only place you belong. I just want to be your person. Your softness. Your home. Your shield.”
A choked sound escaped me. A laugh, a sob, a prayer. Probably all three.
He stood slowly, stepping closer, holding the ring between us like it was both a promise and plea.
From this new angle, I could see beneath the setting—hidden from the world—two tiny gemstones sat side by side: one rose pink, one blood red.
A barely-there checkerboard flag was etched between them in miniature black and white, so faint I almost missed it.
It was a secret detail; a private truth.
Pink for softness. For hope. For the way he saw me when I couldn’t see myself. Red for devotion. For fury. For the kind of love that ruins you beautifully. And the flag—for every time we crossed a line we couldn’t uncross, and kept going anyway.
“I know you’ve spent your whole life trying to prove you don’t need anyone. And you don’t. You are enough on your own. You always have been.” His voice broke. “But I would be the luckiest man alive if you let me love you anyway.”
This wasn’t just a ring. It was him laid bare. Every guarded thought. Every reckless truth.
But it was also elegant, strong, feminine. Fierce.
It was us in a ring. Our story. Our love.
Our life that may have only just started, but had always been written this way.
Not a finish line. Not a checkered flag. Just a beginning, with the only person I ever wanted beside me.
“Because I love you, Aurélie. All of you. Not just the best parts. Not just the hurricane that is you. Not just the woman who sees me for who I am and loves me more for it. But the girl who cries in the shower. The one who breaks down when no one’s watching.
The one who runs when she’s scared. The one who doesn’t always know what she wants—except when it’s this. Except when it’s me.”
My knees buckled a little, and I tipped forward into him, caught in the circle of his arms like gravity finally won. He was always going to be the end of me—for me.
My throat burned. My chest ached. My heart split wide open. It felt like surrender and salvation, devotion and reverence, and every kind of softness I’d fought so hard to earn.
“And I want this,” he whispered. “For the rest of our lives.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. The world spun around us, dusk-drenched and sea-salted and stupidly perfect. And through the tears, I smiled. I felt complete. I felt chosen.
I felt like I’d come home.
“Aurélie, my love, the champion of my heart—veux-tu m'épouser?”
Will you marry me?