"I'm appreciating."
"You're planning.Plotting.”He grins."I know that look.Saw it in the mirror before I proposed to Roz."
"It's too soon."
"Says who?"
"Logic.Reason.The fact that our relationship started with fraud."
"And Connor's started in Vegas," he points out."Alex literally got food poisoning from Mac.Callum's began with a social media disaster.None of us did it normally."
"We have a goat who eats wedding cakes."
"Exactly.You're already weird.Might as well make it official."
I watch Sage across the room, laughing with Karina's sisters, her hair coming loose from its pins, frosting on her dress from Buttercup's assault.
She catches me looking and winks, quick and flirty and just for me.
"I need a ring," I tell Grayson.
"Now we're talking."
"And a plan."
"Definitely."
"And probably a better goat containment system."
"Essential for any proposal."He claps my shoulder."Welcome to the club, Sterling.The last bachelor officially falls."
And as I watch Sage wrangle our disaster goat while coordinating Connor's perfect day, I realize I'm perfectly happy to fall.
As long as she's there to catch me.
Preferably without Buttercup's help.
But honestly, even with it.
29
EPILOGUE: MERRY CODEMAS
SAGE
Christmas Eve arrives on jets.
And not a moment too soon.
Because there’s nothing like sitting in my parents' living room on cold, December evening, watching Luke Sterling—billionaire tech genius and man who once trapped an ambassador in a bathroom—get absolutely destroyed at Pictionary by my mother.
"It's clearly a Christmas tree!"Mom shouts, studying Luke's drawing with the intensity of an art critic at the Louvre.
"It's a server rack," Luke says patiently."See?These are the?—"
"Pine needles!"
"Network cables."
