supposed to sleep a lot. Maybe we’ll get a better sleeper in the next one.”
“The next one?” She scoffed. “I’ll send your next wife a baby gift.”
He smirked at Chris. “She’s a real jokester, this one. Don’t you think she’s hilarious?”
“Absolutely.” He grinned at my friend. “Cyrus wouldn’t get married again after you. He’d just be sour and miserable for the rest of his life.”
Cyrus nodded solemnly but winked at Chris and held his fist up to be bumped. “Precisely. I’m so glad April found you. I don’t know what I would’ve done without having you to back me up.”
Luna arched a brow at him that wasn’t quite as manicured as she used to keep them. “Ha ha. You’re hilarious.”
She smiled sweetly at Chris. “But I’m glad she found you too. Now, when are you going to pop the question? You know how much I love planning weddings, and Cy insists that I take a full four months for maternity leave. Planning your wedding wouldn’t count as work though.”
She beamed at us, but my cheeks turned beet red.
Chris just smirked at her. “Way to ruin the surprise. I was actually planning on asking her right now.”
“You were?” I blurted out way louder than I’d intended to.
He shot me a look, then sighed. “No, baby. I’m not going to ask you casually while we’re standing in a doorway shooting the breeze with our friends. When I ask you, there will be flowers and candles and a gorgeous fucking ring that people would be able to see from space.”
“It’s a real problem finding one that clearly screams ‘she’s mine, married, and fuck off,’ without it being too heavy or gaudy,” Cyrus said. “I’ve got a guy if you want his number.”
Chris flashed him a confident smile. “Thanks, but I think I’ve got it covered.”
“You’ve got it covered?” I asked, my eyes growing wide. Glancing at Adi, I realized she was taking all this completely in stride, seemingly not surprised by any of it. “Excuse us for a minute. Adi, will you stay with Luna and Cy please?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling as she moved over to Daisy’s stroller. “Can I hold her?”
“Let’s go find someplace to sit first,” Luna said when she saw the line of people forming behind her. “See you guys later.”
Hunter chose that moment to reappear, so I didn’t feel too bad for dragging Chris away in the middle of our grand opening. I started pulling him toward a corner, but he nodded at the stairs instead.
“Let’s go talk in the office. I need to grab something from there anyway.”
I followed him up, my heart thundering as I thought about what he’d said. Sure, we’d talked about marriage, and I wanted to marry him, but surely, he’d have given me some warning if he was already looking at rings.
If I had to wear one piece of jewelry for the rest of my life, I wanted some input into what it looked like. Cyrus’s description of what he’d looked for with a ring that clearly screamed “she’s mine, married, and fuck off,” wouldn’t work for me.
On the other hand, if it meant getting to spend the rest of my life with Chris, I’d wear a plastic ring from a cereal box or simply draw one onto my finger. It wasn’t so much the ring I was even worried about.
I was just freaking out and I really hadn’t been expecting that conversation to happen and—
I slammed to a stop when I realized we were in the office already. But the office didn’t look at all the way it usually did.
There were flowers everywhere. Candles were lit on every surface, and on the exact place on the couch where I’d sat when he’d told me he loved me for the first time, there was an open ring box. Inside it, glimmering in the soft orange glow from what had to be at least a hundred candles, was a simple golden band with a cluster of diamonds in the shape of a knot in the center.
My hands flew to my mouth as I tried to process what I was looking at. “What…”
“Told you I wouldn’t propose while standing in a doorway, surrounded by our friends,” he said. “Hunter thought I was crazy for wanting to propose to you here and tonight, but this practice signifies the beginning of a new life to me. It’s one I want to share with you.”
Slowly walking around the coffee table, he lowered himself down onto his knee, all the while keeping his eyes on mine. “April Adams, I can’t say I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. Or the second time or even the third time. I’d seen you hundreds of times before I fell for you, but I wouldn’t want that to change. I wouldn’t want to go back and ask you out that very first time I saw you.”
I couldn’t look away from him as he smiled at me and his own eyes became a bit watery. “The truth is that both of us needed that time. We needed it to become the people we were when we got together. Because those people? Those people are and always have been perfect for each other.”
He managed to keep his voice strong even as tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “I would relive every minute without you again and again as long as it leads us right back here. As long as you, me, and Adi are together at the end every time, I’d go through everything we went through all over again.”
He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “As long as, from this day forward, I never have to spend another day without you again. Will you marry me?”
Everything in my body stopped working for a second, but then I found my voice, and the next thing I knew, my feet were moving toward him. I sank down to my knees and crashed into him, repeating my answer over and over again.
“Yes. Of course, I will. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
The End.
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About the Author
Hey there. I'm Weston.
Have we met? No? Well, it’s time to end that tragedy.
I'm a former firefighter/EMS guy who's picked up the proverbial pen and started writing bad boy romance stories. I co-write with my sister, Ali Parker, but live in Texas with my wife, my two little boys, a dog, and a turtle.
Yep. A turtle. You read that right. Don’t be jealous.
You're going to find Billionaires, Bad Boys, Military Guys, and loads of sexiness. Something for everyone hopefully. I'd love to connect with you. Check out the links below and come find me.
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The Parker’s Wicked Playground
She’s Mine Now
Copyright © 2020 by Weston Parker
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and plot are all either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons – living or dead – is purely coincidental.
First Edition.
Editor: Eric Martinez
Cover Designer: Ryn Katryn Digital Art