Needing Happily Ever After - Elena Aitken Page 0,7
then wanting her to say it a bit louder for their impromptu audience, he raised his eyebrows and gently gestured with his head.
“Yes!” she yelled. “Of course I will.”
Damon grinned as he got to his feet and slid the ring on her finger. It was a perfect fit. Without missing a beat, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her hard, his lips grazing her cheek as he whispered into her ear. “I didn’t mean to spring that on you, but I wanted it to look real.”
He could feel her smile against his face. “You almost made me cry. That was really sweet.”
Damon pulled back so he could look in her eyes. “I meant every word.”
Chapter Three
Things were moving quickly. Just the way Damon liked them. After all, the sooner they took care of the purchase of the property, the sooner things could go back to normal, whatever normal was. As much as he liked to expedite things, even Damon was surprised when the news of his very public proposal to Katie reached his father in a day’s time.
Just like his son, Anthony Banks didn’t like to waste time, and the invitation for drinks came almost immediately after that.
Damon would have preferred it to be his idea. Or, if he were being honest, Katie’s idea, considering she’d actually come up with it first, but he wasn’t about to say no to his dad on the principle of the fact that they hadn’t initiated the meeting, and he’d agreed to bring Katie by the next afternoon.
He’d rented a room at the Big Rock Inn, because neither he nor Katie had given the details of their engagement much thought until he’d arrived in town. And he didn’t want to be too much of an imposition. Besides, word on the street was that Katie’s big brother, Logan, was pretty pissed about the whole thing, so it probably wasn’t a good idea to spend too much time in close proximity with her family. At least not yet.
The day before, after making things official with Katie, they’d spent the rest of the afternoon together catching up. It was always so easy to be with her and even though there was this huge, big thing between them, it didn’t feel that way. It only felt…good. No matter where Damon had traveled, and how many great people he’d met along the way, he’d never met anyone quite like Katie. Definitely no one who got him the way she did. She’d always had the craziest knack for being able to cut through his bullshit and get to the real him. Even when they were kids and he’d been the new kid in class. Sure, he was only seven, in first grade, but still, he’d stood out from the rest of his classmates because instead of moving into town like everyone else, his dad had insisted on building a massive estate up on the hill, and putting a gate on it to keep everyone out. In a small town like Glacier Falls, it had set them apart—and not in a good way.
At least not for Damon.
The other kids hadn’t accepted him right away, calling him Ritchie Rich, and leaving him out of the games at recess. Looking back, it was all minor stuff, but for a little boy, it certainly hadn’t felt minor at the time. Sure, he probably could have handled it in a million different ways. But he’d chosen to act out. His target? The cutest little girl in class with the long, dark braids that always waved in his face when she walked past him at the coat hook.
It had started innocently enough, with him tugging on her hair every chance he got. And then, of course, he found more and more opportunities to pull her braids because of the response he got from it. Katie would shriek and glare at him. Sometimes she’d tell him to stop or call him rotten. Her response changed, but what didn’t change was the reaction he got from the other boys every time he picked on Katie. They’d laugh and elbow one another in the ribs, and when Damon started throwing erasers at the back of Katie’s head, too, the boys slowly started to include him in their games at recess. For a little bit, he’d been included. And it felt good. It didn’t take long for him to escalate his behavior with her and steal her cookie at recess break.
It had been the wrong thing to do.
Or