Jacob inclined his head toward the center of the rug.
“That’s us, angel,” he murmured.
Somehow, my feet carried me forward despite the surreal out-of-body-experience feeling the moment was giving me.
We stopped in the center of the room. I heard whispers ripple around us.
“That’s the groundskeeper, right?”
“Are they allowed to use staff for this?”
“He’s… oh my God, look at his face…”
My cheeks burned. Not from shame for him, but from fury on his behalf. I wanted to spin around and tell them all to shut the fuck up.
Jacob didn’t flinch.
He lowered himself to one knee in front of me like it wasn’t a humiliation. Like it was the easiest thing in the world to kneel there, in front of a room full of vipers, and look up at me like I was the only person who mattered.
My lungs forgot how to work.
He cradled the velvet box in his palm, thumb tapping once against its edge like he had to steady himself. Then he opened it, revealing the simple silver band and green stone to the entire room.
It looked smaller from that angle. Humble. Out of place among all the glitz, like someone had dropped a memory on a table full of price tags.
His gaze lifted, locking with mine.
“Eighteen,” he said. My number sounded different in his mouth… soft and reverent. “I don’t have much to offer you.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. He was a man with scars and calloused hands and a job that probably barely paid enough to live on.
Don’t fall in love with the wrong person, Chrissy.
“I don’t have money,” he continued, voice low. “I don’t have a fancy title or a famous name. I can’t promise you mansions or private jets or a life where you never have to think about your bank account again. I can’t give you the kind of life Mr. Stonewood promises to give his future bride.”
God, it hurt to hear that, because I wanted him despite everything that had happened since I arrived, but I couldn’t afford to fall in love with the wrong person. Part of me suspected it was too late and I was too far gone for that already, and the punishment I’d suffered last night to remain in the game was all for nothing because, whether he was a pauper or a billionaire like Mr. Stonewood, if he’d had all those things, or not a single penny to his name, the answer I wanted to give him would’ve still been the same, no matter what.
That was the problem.
He drew in a breath like it cost him something to keep going.
“What I can promise you is this. If you choose me, you’ll never have to carry your burdens alone again. I’ll stand between youand the worst of the world for as long as I’m breathing. I’ll fix what I can and sit with you in what I can’t. I’ll make sure you always have a place that feels like home, even on the worst days.”
His hand shook just slightly as he removed the ring from the box.
“I can’t offer you wealth,” he said, “but I can offer you myself. My hands. My heart. My protection. Not just during this Game, but for as long as you’ll have me. So, Eighteen…” His lips quirked the tiniest bit. “Will you marry me?”
Something in my chest cracked open.
This wasn’t the slick, careful speech of an actor trying to impress an audience. This wasn’t some rich boy playing at romance. He looked up at me like he meant every word down to the marrow.
The rule screamed in the back of my mind again.
Don’t fall in love with the wrong person.
I thought of Granny in her too-bright room that smelled like bleach and lemon cleaner. Of the invoices stacked on my kitchen table. Of the way my bank account balance made my stomach knot every time I checked it.
I thought of Jacob, standing in the road in the freezing dark last night, changing my tire with steady hands and soft eyes. Of how he’d remembered me from the hardware store four years ago when I’d patched up his bleeding hand and sarcastically told him I was a unicorn.
