I hooked a glance at him but he was busy with something on his phone and didn’t notice. Still, I stared at him for a long moment, waiting for one of his half smiles or some light teasing about this curious little situation of ours.
“Could I get you anything to drink, Mrs. Ralston?”
I blinked back at the flight attendant. It took me a second but I asked, “What do you have back there?”
She tapped a manicured finger to her lips as she eyed me. “Hmm. How do you feel about lavender-scented neck wraps?”
As I reclined with a glass of sparkling water, a crystal bowl filled with tangerines, and a heated wrap draped over my shoulders, I knew I’d never travel this comfortably again.
I wasn’t even sure I wanted to travel if it wouldn’t be like this.
Ryan settled on the other side of the narrow aisle as we took off for Louisville. He plowed his way through a family-sized chicken Caesar salad while asking about my day, my kids, my friends’ classes. He asked about Jamie, Grace, and Audrey by name, and that made some small part of me bloom.
He listened to complicated stories about the things I liked about my curriculum but also wanted to completely change while I devoured the tangerines. He let me complain about standardized testing and how there wasn’t enough time for play and social development and other things neither of us could fix. He told me to stop taking the bad days so seriously—and so personally—when I said I doubted my longevity for the classroom if I kept having tough years like this one, and then he thumbed orange stains off my face like I was a precious child.
After the pilot announced we’d be landing in twenty minutes, Ryan slid off his seat to kneel in front of me. I started to join him because what the hell did I know? Maybe this was what you did on private planes.
But Ryan settled his hands above my knees and held me in place. A slight smile pulled at the corner of his lips as he said, “Stay there. Let me do this.”
“Do what?”
He laughed and blew out a breath. Then, “This probably isn’t what you had in mind for yourself and I am sorry for that but believe me when I say there is no one else in the world I’d rather marry. I just hope there’s some part of you that wants to marry me.”
He pulled a velvet box from his pocket and thumbed it open to reveal a diamond large enough to seat a family of four. “Ohmygod,” I gasped.
Ryan took my hand and slipped the ring onto my orange-sticky finger. The band was thin, almost dainty, with smaller stones glittering down the sides. “If you don’t like it?—”
“It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” I breathed.
“Okay.” He adjusted it on my finger. The weight of the stone had it lolling to the side. “But if you decide you want something different, it’s no problem.”
“It’senormous,” I said.
He lifted a shoulder. “Were you expecting something less?”
I stared at the stone as I turned his words over in my head. I guess it had to be the size of a jawbreaker to be believable. No one with his contract, his endorsement deals could get away with anything less than four carats. Not without raising eyebrows.
“As long as it’s convincing, that’s all that matters. Right?”
“What matters to me is that you like it,” he said. “I chose this. For you. I saw this one, kind of round but also square, and it made me think of you.”
“Because I am both round and square?” I teased as I motioned between my hips and breasts.
“Because you’re many things at once,” he said with a laugh.
I pointed at him. “Smooth.”
He shrugged as he leaned back on his heels. Straightening the ring once again, he said, “Is that a yes?”
“You have to ask?”
He dragged his lower lip between his teeth as he met my gaze. “I wanted to give you another chance to back out.”
I dropped down to the floor and pulled him into a hug. “Nah. I’m a sure thing.”
He shook his head against my shoulder. “Not even close.”
chapter fourteen
