Chapter 19 #2
The deck felt impossible beneath her feet.
The sunset light hit his face, turning his skin warm, his expression almost unbearably open.
A man on his knee on the deck of a boat in a harbor at sunset was supposed to be a fantasy.
A scene in a movie. Something you watched and thought, That would never happen to me.
And yet—here it was, happening.
“Lacey Rose Knight,” Roman said, her full name sounding downright poetic on his lips. “I love you. I’ve never met anyone like you and I never will. You’re solid, you’re real, you’re smart and funny and, yeah, you overthink everything, but you are going to be the best wife and mother.”
Wife and mother? She stared at him, tears threatening to spill.
He opened the box and she couldn’t help herself—she looked.
The ring caught the last bright edge of the sun and flashed—elegant, stunning, far more exquisite than anything she’d ever seen in person.
“I refuse to ask you to move to Jacksonville without this on your finger, officially my fiancée and then my wife. You’re worthy of that and so much more.”
Her mother’s words about worth danced in her head…but her pulse was pounding too hard for her to remember what Mom had said.
“I’m asking you to marry me,” he said, as if she hadn’t figured that out yet. “I want you to know that when I ask you to do something hard—like changing your life—I’m not doing it casually. I’m doing it because I love you, and I’m choosing you.”
Lacey couldn’t speak.
Her chest felt like it was caving in, not from sadness, but from the sheer weight of being loved that directly.
Roman’s eyes glistened, just slightly, and that tiny crack in his control undid her.
“I know people will say it’s fast,” he said. “They can say it. Let them. I don’t live my life based on what people say from the outside. I live it based on what’s true.” His thumb brushed her knuckles. “You’re true.”
A sob rose up her throat, and she swallowed it back hard. She loved him, so much it scared her.
Roman watched her face like he could see every thought rushing through her. He didn’t pressure. He didn’t plead. He simply stayed there, on one knee, offering her his life.
She tried to breathe. But what rose up first was panic—bright and sharp, a reflex she hated.
“Roman…” Her voice broke.
“Take your time,” he said immediately, gentle. “I’m right here.”
She shook her head, tears falling. “I don’t—I can’t think. I can’t—”
He stood then, smoothly, putting the ring box back in his palm as if he didn’t want to trap her in a tableau she couldn’t escape. He didn’t pocket it yet. He just held it, waiting.
Lacey pressed a hand to her chest, trying to steady her heartbeat.
“I love you,” she managed, and it came out like a plea. “Please hear that. This isn’t me rejecting you. This is me…being terrified of making the wrong decision. I guess I am overthinking again.”
Roman’s face softened. “Kind of.”
Tears blurred her vision. “We haven’t even known each other three months.”
“I know,” he said.
“That’s not enough time,” she whispered, even though some part of her hated the logic of it. “Not for something this big.”
Roman’s jaw tightened slightly, not in anger—more like pain. “What would enough time be?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and it sounded lame. Because it wasn’t the time stopping her—was it? It was fear.
Fear of making a mistake, of losing everything, of…ending up like her parents—divorced.
Because the truth was that no amount of time could guarantee safety. No amount of time could promise she wouldn’t lose herself. No amount of time could keep her from getting hurt.
On a sigh, Roman looked out at the water for a long moment, the sun now half-gone, the sky deepening into a richer, darker gold.
Then he looked back at her.
“Tell me what you can say,” he said quietly, “right now.”
Lacey squeezed her eyes shut. Her lungs burned.
“I can’t say yes tonight,” she whispered. “Not yet.”
Roman nodded once, slowly.
“Not yet,” he repeated. “Okay.”
She opened her eyes and a tear fell. “I need time. I need to go home and think without the sunset and the champagne and—” She gave a broken laugh. “—without you looking like the best man in the world on one knee.”
A faint smile touched his mouth, but his eyes stayed teary.
“I don’t want you to say yes because the moment is pretty,” he said. “I want you to say yes because you mean it.”
“I do mean it,” she insisted, desperate. “I mean…I mean the love part. I mean the us part. I just— Roman, I’m scared.”
He stepped closer and pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her in a firm, steady hold. Lacey clung to him instantly, burying her face against his shoulder, breathing him in—salt, clean cologne, warmth.
“I know,” he murmured into her hair. “I know you are.”
She shook, a silent sob, because being held like this felt like everything she wanted…and everything she feared losing.
After a long moment, Roman eased back just enough to look at her.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” he said softly. “We’ll go back. I’ll get you to your car at my house. You go home. You take tonight. You take tomorrow morning. I leave tomorrow afternoon.”
Lacey’s chest tightened again. “Not yet might not mean by tomorrow,” she whispered.
“I know.” His gaze locked on hers. “I’m not going to drag you there. You get to choose this.”
She nodded, miserable. “Okay.”
“I love you,” he said again, simply. “And I trust you.”
The last statement echoed over the engine as he restarted it and played in her head as they motored back through the harbor with the sunset fading behind them.
When they reached the marina, Roman tied off with calm efficiency. He helped her step down to the dock, his hand steady at her elbow. For a second, she thought he might kiss her, might try to pull her back into the warmth.
But he didn’t.
He drove back to his house in a quiet that felt right, given the circumstances, and pulled in next to her car.
When they both got out, he walked her to the driver’s side and stopped. He looked at her like he was memorizing her face, as if he needed to carry it with him into the hard, lonely hours ahead.
“What time do you leave?” she asked on a whisper.
“I figured I’d take off before noon. But wait—I need to get something for you. Don’t leave.”
The fact that he thought she might take off made her realize how tenuous this all was. Of course, she waited and two minutes later, he jogged back holding a football. A signed football—with what looked like forty Sharpie autographs.
“It took a little longer to get it for Seamus’s fundraiser. But I managed to snag the whole team, which is worth a lot more than just me.”
The humility—and the gesture—touched her as she took it.
“And you need this.” He added a long white envelope. “It’s the certification that it’s real from the NFL. That adds value, too. Tell Seamus I hope the right little guy in his ministry gets to take this home.”
She swallowed hard, taking the ball, not sure what to say. “Thank you. Tessa will be overjoyed.”
“But not if I take you away to Jacksonville.” He brushed his thumb under her eye, wiping away a tear with a smile. “But that won’t stop me from trying.”
She leaned into him and he kissed her on top of the head.
With one last hug, Lacey slid into the driver’s seat before she fell apart in front of him.
She pulled out of the driveway slowly, hands shaking on the steering wheel. The road blurred, lights streaking, and by the time she reached the first stoplight, she was crying in earnest—ugly, shaking sobs that made her chest hurt.
Because somewhere deep inside her, beneath the fear and logic and panic, a quiet, steady voice whispered the question that would not leave her alone as she drove home in tears:
What if she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life?
The next morning, after a sleepless night, Lacey was at the dining room table at the Summer House, laptop open, coffee cooling untouched at her elbow. She hoped diving into work would clear the fog in her head and lift the pain in her heart.
The house was unusually quiet for a weekday morning. No baby crying or Meredith on the phone with a client. No music drifting from someone’s room. No Jonah in the kitchen, whipping up some unimaginably delicious breakfast.
She told herself that quiet was good. Quiet meant she could work.
She clicked through the file on her screen, forcing herself to focus on the Gilsons’ anniversary party.
Seventy-five people, three generations, a Gulf-front dinner, a sunset vow renewal, kids’ activities that would keep the youngest entertained without exhausting the grandparents.
It was the kind of project she loved and normally, she would have been energized by it.
This morning, she felt like she was pushing herself through mud.
She hadn’t told anyone about last night, not even her mother. The words Roman had said, the sight of him on one knee on the Good Time Girl, the weight of the ring between them—those felt too fragile to speak aloud.
Like if she talked about the proposal, it would become real in a way she wasn’t ready to manage. And they’d all have a conflicting opinion.
So she adjusted seating charts. She made notes about catering timelines. She drafted an email she didn’t send.
Her phone buzzed on the table and she grabbed it, convinced it would be Roman. It wasn’t. A florist she had a meeting with tomorrow—they could wait.
She was just getting into the rhythm of pretending she was fine when the front door popped open without a knock.
“Hey.”
Lacey looked up, hand flying to her chest. “Tessa?”
Tessa stood in the doorway, sunglasses pushed up on her head, hair pulled back in a low ponytail that looked hastily done. She was wearing linen pants and a loose white tank that had seen better days. She looked…off. Not her usual bright, capable self.
“What are you doing here?” Lacey asked automatically. “Did you—” She glanced past her into the entryway. “Did you bring Olive to work?”