Oh no. Was he putting the spotlight on me?
“Jessa walked into my life this year, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since. She’s smart, funny, stubborn as hell, and she doesn’t take any of my crap.” Laughter scattered through the room. “She’s been patient with me while I figure out how to balance work and life, while I convince her to move to the city and give us a real chance.”
My hands trembled under the spotlight. Where was he going with this?
“Jessa, you’ve brought light into my life and Theo’s. You’ve completed our family.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small turquoise box.
Tiffany blue.
I couldn’t move, hardly dared to breathe, my pulse speeding away with me. He took the lid off and pulled out a black velvet box.
He dropped to one knee.
The room erupted in gasps and excited whispers, but all I could hear was the pounding of my heart beating faster than a racehorse’s hooves around a track.
“I know this might seem sudden to some of you,” Griffin continued, his eyes locked on mine. “To me as well, but when you know, you know. I want to spend my life with this woman. I want to wake up beside her every morning, and build a future with her, have her be my partner in every sense of the word.”
How did he find these words to say to me, so laced with meaning and heart? And to recite them with charm and precision, like he’d practiced all day.
He opened the box. Inside sat the most stunning ring I’d ever seen—a brilliant-cut diamond surrounded by smaller stones, set in platinum. It caught the light and threw rainbows across the room, the rock in the center the size of a dime.
My lips parted, ayestrembling there before I even thought it. For one wild second, I wanted it to be true—for him to love me, not because of a contract or a headline, but because he couldn’t help it.
But that wasn’t our story. Not yet.
“Jessa Cole,” he said, voice steady and sure, “will you marry me?”
The room held its breath as I stared at the ring and the man and the impossible choice in front of me.
Every word of his speech sounded so sincere. I wanted desperately to believe him, but I knew better. This was the performance we’d agreed to by contract. The role I’d signed up for. Only Griffin’s acting skills took me by storm.
The question was: how well could I act, too?
Because for one dizzy heartbeat, when he said my name, I almost believed it was real.
Chapter Fourteen
FIRST FIGHT
Griffin
The city slidpast in ribbons of color as the Ferrari purred us home. It wasn’t every night I proposed marriage; the occasion called for a little spectacle with my most prized vehicle.
Jessa sat beside me, her left hand raised to catch the streetlights. The platinum and diamond ring glittered, a small fortune wrapped around her finger.
“It’s huge.” She studied it from every angle.
A cocky grin tugged at my lips. “I wanted to be sure it stands out, catches people’s eyes. Draw attention to us.”
“I was not prepared for this tonight, not so soon,” she murmured. “I wish you had told me.”
My gaze stayed on the road. “Call me old-fashioned, but I wanted to surprise you with it. Despite the contract we signed. If you had known it was coming, your response might have been less authentic.”
“And what if I had said no?” Her teasing tone matched her sly smirk.
“You signed a contract. Pretty sure you were going to say yes.”
