“Declan,” she whispers out one last time, turning to face me, her expression confused. “What’s going on? Why’re we here?”
Hands sweating, I fumble with my seatbelt, and then hers. “Let’s go for a walk.” She eyes me curiously but doesn’t push, following me out of the car and towards the gazebo. It’s not hard to find, the fairy lights lighting up the dark evening, and I reach out, snagging her hand in mine.
“Remember our first date?” I look at her just as she nods, eyes wide. “It was so easy that night, but then again, everything was always easier with you. There was no pressure or expectation. You just wanted me.”
“I still do,” she whispers.
I smile. “When we ended up here, it was the perfect end to a perfect night.” I look out over the lake. “It was one of the best nights of my life,” I confess in a whisper. “And then we came back here on another day, so you could tell me to go fuck myself.”
She huffs quietly and I look back at her, finding her eyes gleaming with sad amusement. “I did not tell you to go fuck yourself.”
My smile tells her it’s okay, even as I lift a shoulder casually. “It translated.”
She laughs softly, but it fades, her keen stare locking on my face. “Why’re we here, Dec?”
“Our first date, I knew. It might’ve been the way you slurped back spaghetti like an absolute queen, or the way the conversation just flowed between us. It might have just been your smile, and the way your eyes shone so brightly, I couldn’t see anything else. But I knew you were it for me.” I swallow thickly, my throat bobbing, sweat gathering at my hairline. “That night, I also knew I was making a mistake, letting Donald push me into a relationship out of some misguided sense of revenge.” My chuckle is weak and self-recriminating. “I was arrogant, believing I could beat him at his own game and never lose anything. But then, we came back here, and I losteverything.”
Her eyes glimmer wetly, and I moisten my lips, nervously. “I made so many mistakes with you, Lily, but you didn’t make any with me. I want you to know that.”
She sniffles, her mouth pressed into a bemused frown. “I don’tunderstand.”
I turn and face her fully, tugging her hands into mine and brushing my thumbs over her knuckles. “You pushed me into fixing what I’d broken, proving that my love for you surpassed Donald’s control of me and the world around me. You made me better, even without meaning to.” I bite back my emotions, even as my heart thumps hard in my chest. “The pain we went through…it wasn’t for nothing. I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you that, making sure you never regret letting me back in.”
I let go of one of her hands and pull the small box out of my pocket, sinking down to one knee. She watches me, eyes already gleaming with tears. When I don’t move fast enough, she waves her hand at me in aget on with itmotion, making me chuckle.
“Lily,” I start solemnly, “we’ve done it before. We got married with lies swirling between us, tainting what we were and our love. I hate that I did that to you, ruining a memory that we should have spent years cherishing.” I lower my lashes, my eyes burning. “I would take it back if I could, but looking at us now… Lily, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Not like we were before, but how we are now. No secrets, no pretenses, no lies. You’re the love of my life, my best friend?—”
“Can’t wait to tell Carter,” she mumbles, ignoring the chiding look I send her.
“But I also want to call you my wife.”
Her lashes flutter rapidly as she blinks, but a tear still escapes, anyway. “You do,” she says weakly. “You call me that all the time.”
I grin, because she’s not wrong. “But I want it to be real,” I whisper. “I want to call you my wife and know it’s real. I want to claim you in front of the world, knowing that you hold every thought in my head and every secret in my heart.”
I flick open the jewelry box and she looks down, gasping at the sight of the delicate silver band, sitting on a cushion of velvet. It has intricately woven vines dancing around the edges and in the center, a brilliant diamond gleams, surrounded by a cluster of soft sapphires.
“That’s not…” she breathes out. “That’s not my ring.” Her eyes flash up to my neck, and I press a hand against the rings, the metal warm against my chest.
“These are mine,” I tell her, the hurt of our past mingling with hopefor our future. “They’re a reminder of what we went through, our journey. They ground me, keeping me focused on making sure I never make the same mistakes. This—” I pull the ring out of the box, holding it up to her in offering. “This is our fresh start. A new promise of forever, full of love, honesty and laughter.” With a crooked smile, I ask softly, “Marry me? One more time should do it.”
Her chin starts quivering as she holds out her left hand, silently telling me to slide the ring onto her finger, the sapphires sparkling as bright as her eyes.
She swallows thickly, her chin down as she stares at the ring. But then she lunges across the console, wrapping her arms around my neck in a stranglehold.
“Yes!” she cries out, and my own eyes sting with emotion as I wrap my arms around her, our chests pressed together. “Yes, I’ll do it again with you, Dec. One last time.”
I hug her back, quick and tight, and then pull away, pressing both my hands to her cheeks and slanting my lips over hers in a fierce kiss, overwhelmed with every single feeling surging through my chest—relief, desire, love, hope. She clings back to me, her lips soft and responsive under mine, as the kiss slowly eases.
Finally, I whisper against her lips, “You’re my always.”
The words hang in the air between us, heavy with promise and hope, and she smiles, even as more tears stream down her cheeks. I wipe them away with my thumbs, searching her eyes, desperate to reassure myself that this is real, it’s happening, and she’s mine.
And then she whispers her promise, the words settling into my bones the way nothing else could. “And you’re my forever.”
Epilogue - Lily
9 MONTHS LATER
