Page 113 of The Lie That Traps

His hand palms the back of my head as his lips move against mine, showing me how much he loves me, how real this really is. It’s the perfect combination of love and lust and happiness, and I wish we could just run away, disappear to a place where my family didn’t exist, where inheritances weren’t an issue, and where we could just be us and be happy.

But life isn’t all sunshine and roses, and we still have two hundred guests in the ballroom fifteen floors below us.

“Say yes. Marry me, Izabella Cordelia Rhodes,” he growls against my lips.

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

His lips find mine again, and he lifts me off the ground, spinning us around as we kiss, promising each other forever. A lifetime together, just us, and so very, very real.

“No matter what happens downstairs, no matter whatever your parents throw at us, it won’t break us. Because I see you, Little Ghost. I have since the very first time I watched you sneak out of the darkroom, and I’ll always see you,” he rasps.

“Promise?” I ask.

“Promise,” he says, kissing the huge diamond on my finger.

With our hands entwined, completely, ridiculously, obsessively in love, I let him lead me into the elevator and toward our engagement party. I have no idea what’s going to happen next with my parents, my sister, or the inheritance that’s destroyed our lives, but whatever it is, I won’t have to face it alone.

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