Leo caught her, letting out a wet, emotional laugh, spinning her around once before setting her back on her feet. She was crying and laughing at the exact same time, her hands gripping the lapels of his suit.
"I won!" Olivia gasped, looking up at him.
"I know," Leo said, his eyes shining.
"I actually won," she said again, shaking her head like she was desperately trying to believe it was real.
Then, the laughter faded from her face. She looked up at him, her brown eyes completely certain, and stripped of all the fear she had carried for so long.
"I love you, Leo," Olivia said.
She said it for the first time in the way that mattered most. Not as a friend. Not as a safety net. Not out of deep gratitude for everything he had done. She said it to the man who held her whole heart..
Leo froze for a single, suspended breath.
The words hit him like a freight train. It was everything he had waited for.
And because he was Leo, and because he had loved her for far too long to make the moment tidy and perfectly planned, his mouth opened before his brain could catch up.
"Marry me."
Olivia froze.
Her hands stopped moving on his jacket. Maria and Sam, who had walked up right behind them, went completely still.
Leo realized what he had just said only after the words were already out in the air. Panic flared briefly in his chest.
"I didn't mean—" Leo stammered, his eyes going wide. "No, wait, Ididmean it. I definitely meant it. I just didn't mean to ask you like that. I had a whole plan, Liv. There was supposed to be a nice dinner. Probably a lot of flowers. Maybe a speech that didn't make me sound completely insane."
Olivia stared at him.
Then, a slow, radiant smile broke across her face.
"Yes," she whispered.
Leo blinked, his heart hammering against his ribs. "What?"
"Yes," Olivia said louder, tears filling her eyes again. She reached up, framing his panicked, handsome face in her hands. "Yes, Leo. I will marry you."
Leo let out a rough sound. He pulled her flush against his chest and kissed her deeply.
The kiss felt like the truest ending they could have ever asked for. And the most beautiful beginning.
Epilogue
Olivia
The bright, late-afternoon sun warmed the back of Olivia’s neck as she stood near the edge of the sprawling city park.
For the past few years, the community tree-planting event had become a chaotic, beloved tradition. Olivia leaned against a wooden fence, smiling as she watched Leo surrounded by a dozen energetic four-year-olds. He was in his element, his large hands covered in dark soil. He patiently showed a little girl with pigtails how to hold the fragile roots of an oak sapling, demonstrating how to place it into the soft earth and pat the soil down without crushing the plant.
Olivia watched him with a deep, consuming affection that still had the power to steal her breath.
He was still the same steady, protective man who had been her safe harbor all those years ago. But now, he was her everything. He was her husband, her partner in every messy, beautiful detail of life, and he was the father of her children.
"Look at mine!" a loud, confident voice shouted over the chatter.
Olivia laughed. Their three-year-old son, Nicholas, was standing a few feet away from Leo, his small hands caked in mud. He pointed proudly at the tiny, fragile sapling he had just shoved slightly crookedly into the ground.
