You look so good together!
Hope you’re having a good time!
I’m so drunk by the time we’re heading back to the room, I can barely walk. I’m holding the wall for balance, but the floor doesn’t seem to want to stay in one place.
Maybe I shouldn’t have come with him on this trip. Maybe I really am in over my head.
Then the world tilts as he scoops me up off my feet and carries me inside.
Chapter
50
When I pry my eyes open the next morning, I have an earth-shattering hangover. The sun is stabbing me through my skull.
And Mark Winterson is sitting in a curved hotel chair, fully suited, looking broody. Facing the bed, like maybe he was watching me sleep. He’s leaning forward, elbows on knees, turning a velvet box over and over in his hands. But then he notices I’m awake and slips it in his jacket pocket.
Part of me thinks distantly:Huh, that’s strange?But I’m in too much of a haze to really process it.
“Hey.” The soft brown eyes that make him seem so attentive catch the copious natural light in this hotel room.
“What time is it?” I mumble blearily.
He checks his watch. “Just past noon.”
“Do you have your big meeting soon?” I rub my tender eyes.
“Had it already.” He smiles, and that dimple pops again. “Went great.”
It dawns on me that I’m just wearing a T-shirt andunderwear—one of his T-shirts, I see, and I don’t remember how I got into it.
“What…did we do last night?”
“Nothing.” He laughs. “You were out like a light. It was a struggle to get you out of that dress and tuck you in. Here—”
He goes to a room service cart parked by the window, pours some coffee into a mug from a silver pot, and delivers it to me in bed.
I feel ten percent more human as soon as I’ve taken a few sips, even though it’s a bit weird that he’s just standing there watching me drink.
“So I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” Mark Winterson says. He takes the box out of his jacket pocket.
Everything seems to slow. Suddenly all the coffee in the world couldn’t be enough to brace me for this. It’s like I have pins and needles in my stomach, my chest, the inside of my brain.
He goes down on one knee and peers up at me earnestly, holding the box out and popping it open. Nestled inside is a ring glittering with more diamonds than I’ve ever seen in one place.
“Get the fuck out,” I squeak.
“I mean it. I haven’t felt like this about anyone in years. Or maybe ever.” He runs a nervous hand through his perfectly tousled hair. “And I know it probably seems sudden. But…we’re here in Vegas, and—Ruby Ocampo, will you marry me?”
My brain is a total fog. I can’t feel my fingers, and it’s hard to get enough air in my lungs.
“I—I didn’t think you’d be a shotgun wedding person,” I stammer. “Thought you’d want something fancy. Maybe at a vineyard. With all the chairs?”
His brows lift. “Not sure chairs figured into it for me. Doyouwant all the chairs?”
That makes me laugh despite my mounting panic.
“I mean, at least for me,” he says, putting a hand over his heart, “I’m not going to be more sure than this.”
