Page 99 of The Heartbreaker Next Door

Her jaw dropped.

Literally dropped.

For one terrifying second, I wondered if I’d miscalculated.

Which didn’t happen often.

I calculated things for a living. Numbers. Risks. Probabilities. Worst-case scenarios. I could look at six columns of financial data and tell you exactly where someone had screwed up, how badly they’d screwed up, and approximately how much it was going to cost to unscrew it.

But there was no spreadsheet for this.

No formula for determining whether the woman you loved would appreciate several thousand tiny white lights strung through the rafters, a ridiculous number of flowers, and a four-year-old jumping around like it was a giant bouncy house.

“What did you…” Her gaze swept over the lights, the flowers, the rugs, and finally Maverick, who was hopping up and down beside me like he’d consumed his body weight in Pixy Stix. “How did you…?”

The moment her eyes met mine, and I saw how overwhelmed she was, everything I wanted to say went out of my head.

Every word I’d practiced. Every sentence I’d carefully planned.

Gone.

“I had a speech,” I told her.

She sniffed softly, wiping beneath one eye. “What happened to it?”

“You smiled at me.”

“And?” More tears were falling down her face.

“I forgot English.”

Her head fell back, and she laughed. Not a polite little laugh. A Felicity laugh. Big and bright and completely uninhibited.

The sound hit me square in the chest.

God, I loved that laugh.

I loved that woman.

I reached for her hand and lowered myself onto one knee.

Her laughter stopped. Her expression changed. The teasing disappeared. And suddenly there was only her. The woman who’d blown into my carefully controlled life and rearranged every damn thing in it.

“Dean.”

I pulled the ring box from my pocket.

Long declarations weren’t my strength. She knew that. Hell, everyone knew that. So I gave her the only thing I had. The truth.

“We tried to have rules once, and that clearly didn’t work. So this has no rules, No conditions. No fine print. Just me making you promises. I’m not going to promise to rescue you, because you don’t need rescuing. And I can’t promise you a perfect life.”

Her fingers tightened around mine, and her lip quivered.

“But I can promise I’ll show up. Every morning. Every bad day. Every emergency.”

Another tear slipped down her cheek.

“For you and Maverick.”