Now or never.
I stand and walk around the desk until I’m stopping in front of her. Close enough to smell the faint citrus of the hand soap from the range still clinging to her skin, the softer scent beneath it that is just her.
“Your dad scares me more than any enemy I’ve ever faced,” I admit.
She smiles. “Valid.”
I let out a breath that feels like stepping off a ledge. “I was going to ask him if I could marry you.”
Silence.
Her eyes widen.
“What?”
I hold her gaze. Don’t soften it. Don’t dodge. If I lose courage now, I’ll deserve whatever she says next.
“I love you,” I say simply. “I’ve loved you longer than I should’ve. Longer than I admitted. Longer than was wise.” My voice lowers, but it doesn’t shake. “And I’m done pretending I don’t want a life with you.”
She stands too.
Slowly. Carefully. Like she’s afraid she might shatter the moment if she moves too fast.
“You’re serious,” she whispers.
“Terrifyingly.”
She laughs. A startled, breathless sound full of disbelief and feeling and joy she isn’t even trying to hide.
Then she kisses me. Hard. Unrestrained.
Immediate.
Months of fear and restraint and almosts and what-ifs collapse into one perfect, reckless moment. Her hands fist in my shirt. Mine go to her waist on instinct, firm enough to hold, careful enough to ask even now. She presses up into me like the answer was always yes and all I really did was finally say the thing she’d been waiting to hear.
When we break apart, she’s breathless, lips swollen, eyes bright.
“Yes,” she says.
My brain takes half a second to catch up. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
Relief crashes through me so hard I have to lean my forehead against hers. I close my eyes and just breathe her in for a second because if I don’t, I might actually black out from the force of it.
“Good,” I murmur. “Because I already picked a ring.”
She gasps and leans back enough to stare at me. “You did not.”
“I did.”
“You’re insane.”
“Completely.”
She laughs again and kisses me once more, quicker this time but no less full of meaning. Her hands slide up into my hair, and that nearly undoes me all over again. My hands settle more firmly at her waist, thumbs brushing the line where her shirt meets skin, and I know I should probably behave like a man standing inside a military office during working hours.
I do not.
