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“You were really watching a nigga get excited because he was finally about to make you his wife. Well, fiancée, then wife… same thing.”

I smiled faintly.

“But yeah, that was the real plan that night. I was gonna pick you up, take yo’ bossy ass to that party, let you have your fun, then bring you back here. And once I got you home, or before, I was gonna ask you to marry me. I had finally figured out how to shut down that little ‘I’m not moving in until I’m your wife’ argument.”

My vision blurred as I remembered all those conversations about the mansion, all the times he had tried to convince me to move in, and all the times I had refused because I wasn’t playing house without a ring.

“So this was part romance and part strategy?” I asked with a chuckle, a tear slipping down my cheek.

He brushed the tear away with the back of his hand. “Hell yeah. I loved you, but I was also tired of hearing that same excuse.”

“Did Henrietta know?”

“You know she did. You also know she can’t hold water when it comes to you, so keeping her mouth shut for as long as she did was probably the hardest part of the whole plan.”

I chuckled, already imagining her struggling not to tell me.

Caspian’s expression grew more serious. “But I never got the chance to do it.”

My smile faded.

He squeezed my hand before I could sink too deeply into the pain of that truth.

“I’m not telling you that to make tonight sad; I’m telling you because I need you to understand this ring wasn’t something I came up with after you moved back here. I didn’t decide tonight that I wanted you because I got another chance. I had already chosen you.”

My lips trembled.

“I had plans for us, baby. I had a ring in my pocket, a house I wanted you in, and a whole future in my head. Then I found out later that you were carrying my son.” His jaw flexed briefly before he continued. “I can’t get back what I missed with you or Kaidence, and I can’t make our life look normal after all this shit, but I can still give you what I meant to give you then.”

He lifted the ring from the box.

“I can still give you my last name, I can still be here to make sure that my family is straight, and I can still love yo’ ass every night I’m allowed to stand beside you.”

A sob slipped out of me.

Caspian smiled. “Lakelyn Monroe, will you finally stop playing with me and become Mrs. Caspian Black?”

“Really, Caspian?” I giggled.

“What?” He grinned. “You know I wasn’t about to give you no long-ass Hallmark speech.”

“You just gave me a whole speech!”

“Yeah, but it had cussing in it. That made it mine.”

I laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes again.

Then I nodded. “Yes.”

His smile widened. “Yeah?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Say that shit like you mean it.”

I dropped to my knees in front of him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Yes, I’ll marry you!”

His arms closed around me immediately.