“I knew, the moment the judge wouldn’t grant the divorce I was going to have my chance to convince you.” He opened the ring box again and held it between us. “There were a few hiccups, such as the first date and my parents’ house last week, but I thought the turn of events worked out perfectly for my plan.”
“Plan?” I interrupted him again.
Greg reached out to take my left hand again.
“Each day I was gone from work, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be with you, each time I left you in bed wasn’t because I didn’t want your warmth, each time I made you mad wasn’t because I wanted to see those lines between your eyes, it was because I love you.” Greg leaned forward to kiss between my eyes, smoothing out the wrinkles I didn’t know were there. “Each day was planned, each date was planned, each conversation, everything to get us to this day, because of two reasons.”
I waited this time for him to continue.
“First, I needed to know that you loved me just as much as I love you. And by the way you reacted to everything, I would say that we’ve loved each other the same amount of time. It’s a shame we wasted away five years but, hey, we’ve got forever now.” He laughed at himself and I couldn’t help but join him. Somehow his words were thawing out the cold heart I had tried to create overnight.
“Second, I wanted you to have the fairy tale you always wanted.” I tried to open my mouth to object, but he just stopped me with more words. “And don’t deny it. You’ve said it before, you want the rainbows and butterflies. You want the Prince Charming coming to your rescue, and I want to be the one to give that all to you, no one else.”
“Greg.” I finally managed to get a word out to him. “I’m so confused.”
“I promise by the end of tonight, you won’t be.” He stood there hopeful, my hand still in his and the ring still there. “Say you’ll marry me and you’ll find out the rest of what I’m talking about.”
I looked behind him to see where Alexa and Erica were standing to try to see what they thought, but everyone was gone. I turned my attention back to Greg.
“They aren’t here anymore. They’ll meet us at our final destination tonight.”
“What does that even mean, Greg?” I knew my voice sounded strained, almost pained, but I had no idea what was going on and I knew if I said yes to marrying Greg again, I wasn’t going to come back from this one alive.
“Just trust me.”
I looked down at the ring and where our hands met and it occurred to me that, even though he had broken my trust and hurt me in the worst way possible, I knew that if Greg ever asked for anything from me, I would give in to him. He owned me no matter what.
“Ok.” I looked him in the eyes, feeling a tear slip down my cheek. He leaned in to kiss the tear away.
“Say it, please.”
I took a deep breath. This was it. I was sealing my fate in heartbreak.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
When we finally made our way down the mountain and to Greg’s car, I had no idea where we were going, but there was a ring on my finger and I was blindly leading my heart to an unknown destination.
We drove silently and got on the highway leading us north. It wasn’t until Greg got off at the Helen exit that my interest peaked. Were we going to his parents’ house? Oh, how I wanted to give David a hug so bad.
When we pulled into town and wound around one of the back roads towards the church, my stomach dropped. We rolled up to see at least a dozen cars outside, but no one in sight.
“Greg?” I looked over to see him smiling out the window. He parked around the back entrance, where Alexa and Erica were waiting for us. I tried to pull at the door handle to get out to see them, hoping they would be able to tell me what was going on, but it was locked. “Let me out.”
“Before you leave this car, I need to tell you everything else, Lilly.” I felt the walls go up around me again, worried about what else he was going to say. “I told you I left you every time for a reason. This is that reason.”
I turned around to see him pointing to the church.
“I came up here with Max, Chase, or Jack any chance I could because we had so many orders coming in and I never wanted you to find them outside of my apartment. We ordered flowers, decorations, your wedding dress…” I gasped at his confession. “Everything that you would have ever wanted for your dream wedding. I made sure that it was here. I even had to rush order a few things, but, doll, it was worth it.”
Greg turned towards me, letting go of the steering wheel finally and taking my hands in his. I let him as he lifted them to his lips and kissed the ring that was on my finger.
“This right here took the longest, because I needed my parents to know before I got it, and they couldn’t know too soon.” He held my hand between us and played with the ring on my finger. “I asked my mother for her wedding ring.”
“What?” I asked him in confusion, sure that Margaret wouldn’t let him have her actual wedding ring.
“It’s not what you think. The ring she wears now is a newer model of this one here. You see, this ring is the original and the first time I saw it, when I was fifteen, I knew I wanted to have my wife wear it.” He held it up higher for me to see the loving wear that was surrounding the band, and one of the stones looked discolored. “This was the ring on which my dad spent every single penny he had so he could ask my mother to marry him. It’s only silver-plated and it’s cubic zirconia. But to be honest, I know you aren’t about all that kind of stuff, so I knew it didn’t matter. What mattered was the sentiment behind it.”
He leaned down to kiss my knuckles again, and I let the tears spill out that had been pooling in my eyes.
