Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
“Also, I love you.” I growl the words. “And I was a braindead idiot for not telling you a month ago. A bigger fool to push you away when I needed you the most. Pages, if you’ll let me, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you how real that fake engagement was meant to be.”
“The rest of your life? You can’t be serious.” She’s shaking as it dawns on her.
There’s my cue to slide off the bench, kneeling at her feet, not caring that a small puddle seeps through my pants and soaks my knees.
I grab her hands, holding them, staring up at the judge, jury, and executioner of my future.
“Ethan, holy crap, you—you cannot be serious!”
“Never been more serious, woman. I wish like hell I had the ring, but you left it back at my place. It’s there, waiting, and it’s all up to you. Say yes, and you get it back. Say yes, and you get me. You get my promise I’ll always do my damnedest to put you before the sun and the stars. You get all of me, Hattie Sage. A whole lifetime proving I’m crazy in love with you.”
“Oh my God.” Her blonde hair waves as she shakes her head. “Ethan, how can you propose right now? Like this?”
“Because I’ve wasted too much time. After today, I know what I really want, and it has me by the throat. It also has nothing to do with the company or what Gramps wanted when he shuffled off his mortal coil.” I press her fingers to my lips. “It’s you, Pages. Just you. You forever. You always, before I even knew what it meant to love you.”
Her fingers tremble against my mouth as I kiss them.
Her breath catches.
“Holy crap. Holy crap, you can’t mean that.”
I smile, unsure whether I love or hate that she’s in this much denial.
“I’ve missed you every second you’ve been gone. That’s what I mean. I’ve been like a fish tossed on the shore, gasping and lost. And I’ve hated myself almost as much as I’ve missed you. You know how many times I’ve fucked up in my life—and none of them compete with throwing you out. Never again.”
I hold her gaze, making a sacred vow, here and now.
A bigger mistake than taking the night to think over Taylor’s pregnancy.
I don’t care if it sounds insane.
For over a decade, I’ve been holding on to one gruesome mistake, carrying it with me, blaming myself for Taylor and the baby.
We were just kids who fell in over our heads.
Yes, I was wrong, but as terrible as Taylor’s death was, I didn’t murder her.
If Hattie turns me down now—if I lose her—that’s my fault.
Undeniably.
And I’ll spend every last day hating myself for becoming too toxic, too repulsive for her to love.
“I want a wife like the boys in your books, Hattie,” I whisper. “A real marriage. One where we’ll laugh and love and bicker and make up again. One where we wake up next to each other every morning and you bring me coffee and you’ll cover every surface we own in books.”
“God, you…” She laughs roughly. “…you really want that?”
“Fuck yes.” My voice is gruff, but desperate to show her. She needs to see how I’m all in. “I want the full package. You. Even the bits that aren’t perfect. Because I love them, Hattie, every single piece of you.”
She’s crying now, and I can’t bear her tears.
So I reach up, brushing them away with my hands, my mouth.
Predictably, she only cries harder.
“No expiration date this time. No bullshit contract. Just you and me. Just us. I’ll buy you all the books you want and bring you to the greatest libraries on Earth. Anything you want if you’re with me, happily married.”
Then my mouth hovers over hers, aching from holding back.
I squeeze her hand so tight my fingers shake, all I can do to keep from kissing her now. Hell, from throwing her down on the ground and making a very public spectacle of reclaiming my fiancée.
“Say yes,” I whisper. “Say it so I can kiss you again, because I might die if I can’t.”
“Kiss me now,” she whispers. “I mean, if you want to. I’m kinda snotty and—”
No hesitation.
I take her lips with a noise that’s more animal than man.
Finally!
She tastes the way she always does, like sugar and cinnamon and that sweetness under it that’s all Pages.
Her arms wrap around my neck, and I don’t think I was exaggerating.
I might have died if she refused.
Heat rushes through me, from my head to my dick.
I stand up and sit beside her again, pulling her onto my lap.
She grinds against me, her mouth hot, wet heaven.
“You’re so perfect,” I whisper against her lips. “So impossibly good.”
“Um, before you say that, I kinda wanted you to drown in an acid bath until now.”