“Wow, Lily sure has grown since the last time I saw her. You’re just gorgeous aren’t you?” she addressed Lily before blowing her a raspberry, which had Lily in a fit of giggles. She turned her attention back to me. “I think he was called for a consult but he shouldn’t be long. He said you could wait in his office.”
“Thank you.”
I turned and headed in the direction of his office. When I opened the door, I came to a halt as I took in the breathtaking sight in front of me.
On the floor sat a blanket with scattered candles flickering in the semi-darkness of his office, but on further inspection I noticed that they were just battery operated candles. Through the flickering of the LED flame, something in the center of the blanket caught my eye and when I turned my focus on it, my eyes filled with overwhelmed tears.
“Okay, so I know battery operated candles aren’t traditionally romantic but work with me here,” he said with a nervous chuckle, and I was surprised to hear the hesitation in his laughter. He wasn’t the type of guy who got nervous, and to hear the vulnerability within his voice zoned straight for my heart.
I set the takeout bag of food on the floor. My eyes never once strayed from Ashton’s piercing gaze as I watched him step in front of me. He swiped a piece of hair away from Lily’s face and pressed a delicate kiss on the top of her head before he returned his gaze to me.
“The moment I set eyes on you within the walls of this hospital, I knew you were the one. I fell when I thought I was incapable of falling and even though we began our relationship by breaking the heart of someone else—something I’m not terribly proud of, but ultimately do not regret—just know that I would never break your heart, or yours,” he said to Lily, his eyes glistening and bursting with love before they returned to mine. “You and Lily are my life, and I can’t imagine it without you both. Baby, you’re my world, and everything else ceases to exist when I’m in your presence, and my future feels empty when I imagine you not in it. As I’ve said before, a world without you is a world not worth living in and I simply don’t want to live in a world where I can’t grow old and gray with you. That’s not an option. It never has been. The only option is to spend the rest of my life with you, as your husband.”
I had to blink at least three times before my blurry vision was clear again from the tears that seemed helpless against his incredible words. I clutched Lily tighter in my arms, and pressed a kiss against her tiny fingers that clawed at my lips as I watched Ashton step back onto the blanket. He picked up the box that held a simple yet elegant white gold diamond ring. A nervous sob-filled giggle escaped me when he got down on one knee.
“Ava, baby, will you marry me?”
My smile almost burst from my lips. It wasn’t even a question that needed a moment’s thought. I’ve always known the answer since the minute he declared his love to me in that hotel room in Miami all those months ago. I may have been there before, stood in front of a beautiful man on bended knee, but it wasn’t like this. Even though it was romantic as hell and I cried—a lot—it was wrong to say yes the first time around because it wasn’t enchanting; it didn’t take my breath away, my heart didn’t gallop in my chest, my skin didn’t erupt in tiny little goose bumps at the impact of his words … but now they were and I’d never known anything so right, not until that very moment.
I looked at Lily with amusement and asked her, “What do you think, baby girl? Should I say yes?”
She saw my smile and hers beamed even brighter as she nodded her head. I turned to Ashton and the smile I saw on his face, one that said he was in love with me, it made me fall even deeper in love with him than I ever thought possible.
“Yes, I’ll marry you!”
His nervous smile was gone and was replaced with a huge-ass grin—so huge you’d think he’d just won the lottery—and he was on his feet in an instant. I shifted Lily to my right side as Ashton took hold of my left hand before sliding the ring on my finger.
“I love you!” he exclaimed before slamming his lips onto mine. It was short-lived when Lily’s hands began to claw at our faces and we pulled away. He looked down at Lily and with a chuckle he said, “No need to get jealous. I love you, too.” He brushed his lips along her forehead.
“Now that you’re my fiancée, can we eat? I’m starving.”
“Trust my son to think about his stomach seconds after proposing!” pipes up Alana as she cracks up with laughter once I’ve finished telling them my proposal story.
Mia gives out a dreamy sigh. “That’s so romantic … and to include Lily too … damn I think my ovaries just exploded.”
A round of laughter roars around the table, and as I take a sip of my wine, my eyes fall on Riley and I notice just how forced her laugh seems, especially as her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. I keep thinking it’s my paranoia, but I get the distinct feeling that her feelings for Ashton—even after all these years—are still unresolved. It’s pretty sad to be hung up on someone who clearly doesn’t reciprocate those feelings. I would feel sorry for her if it weren’t for the ulterior motives of trying to get my man’s attention with her skimpy little outfits and the way she’s pawed over him all day.
Hell, I’m glad we’re only here for another two days because I sure as hell don’t want Ashton anywhere near her. I have no idea how far her efforts will go in a bid to gain Ashton’s attention, and that scares me.
I turn my focus from her to Mia, trying desperately to eliminate the nausea I feel in my stomach at the sheer jealousy of Riley ever succeeding with her efforts. She wouldn’t because Ashton loves me, but … the thought is still there, irrationally so. It’s like the seed of doubt has been planted and my mind just continues to run away with itself.
“So, how did Tyler propose?” I ask, intrigued.
She takes a sip of her water before placing it back on the table. Leaning back in her chair, with her bare leg hanging over the arm, she smiles. “Not as romantic as Ashton proposing in the place you first met, but it definitely has its merits.”
She begins to tell us how Tyler took her to her favorite restaurant for her birthday. “After dinner, the dessert was brought to our table. It was a chocolate fudge cake—my favorite. Once I began digging in, I noticed just how nervous he suddenly seemed.” She turns her attention to Alana for a moment. “He was doing his eyebrow twitchy thing, you know the … ” She demonstrates by raising her eyebrow up in a rapid motion causing us to laugh out loud at how ridiculous she looks while doing it.
“Oh Lord, my boy sure does twitch when he’s nervous,” Alana says once she’s stopped laughing.
“Seriously, I thought he was having some kind of epileptic fit, but when I asked him what was wrong he just shrugged and said he had something in his eye. I didn’t argue, I just continued to eat my cake. After another minute or so of even more twitching, I lost it and dropped my fork on the table to ask him what the hell was wrong with him, and … well that was the moment I saw the diamond ring embedded in the middle of the cake.
“Before I could take in what was happening, he was suddenly down on his knee in front of me, taking the ring out of my cake, wiping it down with his shirt before proposing to me in the middle of the restaurant. It was so sweet the way he did it but,” she looks down at her ring with a smile forming at her lips, “it took forever to get the melted fudge from out of my ring. I think it’s only just found its original sparkle.”