“Come on,” I say, tugging her in the opposite direction. I have no doubt that he’ll still be there when we get back.
The second we step outside, the warm late summer air hits us, and I take a deep breath as my stomach knots up.
“Did you have a plan in mind?” Bea asks as I lead her down a gravel track illuminated by solar lights.
“Kind of,” I confess. “The lake is at the end of this trail, and I thought it might be nice to take a moment under the stars.”
“Take a moment?” she echoes.
I kick myself for sounding like a douchebag.
“You know what I mean. Today has been a lot. I just want to sit with you and only you for a few minutes.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it, how you can miss someone when they’re standing right there?” Her words reassure me that she understands exactly how I’ve felt today.
As Linc’s best man and the bride’s brother, I’ve been needed in a million and one places for jobs and photos, and it’s only now I’m getting to spend some time with the beautiful girl who spent the whole ceremony sobbing, exactly as I thought she would.
I hated being so far away from her, even though they were happy tears. I wanted to be beside her for all of them.
“Yeah. But I’m right here for the rest of the night now. Parker is Linc’s responsibility from here on out.”
“Oh wow, that’s pretty,” Bea breathes as we find a corner that reveals the still lake beyond, the reflection of the full moon and the stars rippling on its surface.
I stop beside her, gazing down at her.
“Yeah, most beautiful view in the world.”
Bea’s breath catches before she rips her eyes away from the lake and looks up at me. “Rett,” she warns.
“It’s true. Everything in my life got a whole lot more beautiful when you walked into it, sweetheart. I didn’t realize I was livingin black and white, but you brought the color, baby. So much that it blinds me some days.
“I’ll forever wonder what I did to deserve to spend my days with you, planning a future with you, laughing with you.”
A wobbly smile spreads across her mouth as her eyes flood with tears.
“You were never just another puck bunny to me, Bea. The second I saw you, I knew you were more. You mesmerized me in a way no one else ever has, and you still do every single day.” My hands shift to her stomach. “Watching you grow our little human has been the greatest honor of my life, and I just know that watching you become a mother is going to blow all that out of the water.
“Leaving you in the coming weeks is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I know it’ll be worth it, because every time I go away, I’m going to get to come back and make you mine all over again.”
Swallowing my nerves and the giant lump in my throat that threatens to steal my words, I pull out the box that’s been hiding in my pocket all evening and sink to one knee.
“Oh my god,” Bea gasps.
“Bea, you have?—”
“No,” she cries, making me sit up a little straighter. She tugs at my arm as if she wants me to stand back up, but I don’t. “You don’t need to do this. It’s okay. I don’t care about the trust fund. Everything you’ve done. I don’t need it. We don’t need to fake this anymore.”
My brows pinch. “There’s nothing fake about this, Bea.”
“Oh,” she breathes, her hand coming to her lips as she stares down at me. “Y-you’re down there because you want to be?”
I can’t help but laugh at the confusion on her face.
“I’m down here because I love you, Bea. I’m down here because I can’t imagine my life without you. I’m down herebecause I want you to have our baby as my wife—or at least my fiancée—so that we can all have the same name. But mostly, I’m down here because I want to be yours, and I want the world to know that Beatrice Donnelly owns every single inch of me.”
Tears drip from her jaw, her entire body trembling.
“B-but it’s Parker’s day,” she argues, briefly looking back at the building we walked out of not so long ago.
