“She is.”
“Congratulations!”
“Thanks. You know what a great baby shower gift would be? Taking a job at Saphyre as our head pastry chef.”
“In Atlanta?”
Gaige perked up at that, nodding his head as Owen went over the details of his offer. Between the chance to work with a chef I respected so much and having a job in the same city as Gaige lived, I was ready to leap at the chance. But before I could accept it, Owen sweetened the deal. “Sienna said that you mentioned how much you were hoping to leverage your role as a judge into a show of your own. I can talk to the producers from mine to see if they’d be interested in talking to you. I left them with a hole in their schedule when I decided I was done, one that they might be willing to fill with you.”
“Yes!” I shrieked.
“Consider it done,” he chuckled. “And if they say yes, we’ll figure it out. You can set up our new pastry menu and then split your time between Atlanta and LA like I used to do.”
“Thank you.” Gaige looked at me questioningly, and I remembered the point of the whole call. “Was Sienna the one who thought up the idea of sending me all my favorites? Chocolates, flowers, and dinner?”
“Yeah, it turns out that my fiancée is a genius when it comes to figuring out people’s motivations.”
“That she is,” I agreed, thinking about how much closer I was to achieving my dream. We wrapped up the call, and I twisted in Gaige’s lap to plant a kiss on his lips. “It was them. It was all completely innocent.”
“Thank fuck,” he murmured.
“You realize what this means, don’t you? My sister overreacted, and you’ve been protecting me from an offer for my dream job.”
His arms tightened around me. “I’ll owe your sister for the rest of my life because if she hadn’t asked Carissa for help, whoknows how much longer it would have been before we finally found each other again.”
“Me, too,” I agreed, my heart melting at how thankful he was and how certain he seemed to be that we still would have met. I liked to think that he was right. That we were meant to be.
EPILOGUE
GAIGE
We’d spent a couple more days on Santa Catalina Island before we’d headed to Atlanta. On our way to LAX, we’d stopped at that tea shop again. It’d been my suggestion, much to Arabella’s amusement. But she sure as shit hadn’t argued when I’d asked for extra brownies to bring with us on the plane. And she’d eaten more than her fair share of them by the time we made it to my house.
The next week flew by as she hammered out the details of her employment at Saphyre and signed a deal for her own television show. She’d been worried about splitting her time between Atlanta and LA, but only because she didn’t want to be away from me. When I told her Vaughn and I had already closed up shop after he’d cut his hours back because of Carissa and that I’d follow in his footsteps by taking fewer cases with Brecken, Arabella had cried. Her emotions were all over the place, so I’d suggested she take a pregnancy test. The results confirmed what I’d suspected—she was carrying my baby.
I got her in to see a doctor the same afternoon and when she cleared her for travel, we hopped on a plane for London the next morning. Arabella wanted to see her sister before it becametoo difficult to travel, between the pregnancy and her new professional obligations. I was looking forward to seeing Celina again so I could thank her for getting me exactly where I needed to be—at her sister’s side. But I also had another motive.
As we exited the plane and walked through the airport, I stopped when we were as close to the spot where she’d first bumped into me as I could remember. Arabella looked around in confusion until I dropped down to one knee, and her eyes filled with tears. Pulling the jewelry box from my pocket, I flicked it open to show her the ring.
“Arabella Green, I love you so damn much. Will you do me the honor of making me the happiest man in the world by becoming my wife? This week, here in London?”
“Yes!” she sobbed. “I love you, too. Of course my answer is yes.”
Hearing those three little words from her meant everything to me. I lifted the ring out of the box and slid it on her finger. “Did I do okay?”
“You could have proposed with a donut, and the answer would still have been yes.”
I rose to my feet, laughing as I kissed her. “Let me guess; you want a donut now.”
“Yes,” she whispered against my lips.
I didn’t even know if they had donuts in London. But if they did, I’d find them. And if they didn’t, I’d get her the ingredients so she could make some. My pregnant fiancée was going to get whatever she wanted, especially this week as our relationship came full circle.
