Page 118 of Don't Quit the Day Job

I laugh slightly.

"I love you, Lila. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want you to be my wife. I want to have kids with you, but I also want you to achieve your goals and dreams and I can wait."

"Are you not going to propose to me anymore?" I say, staring at him and then at the ring in his hand.

"I didn't want you to have to…"

"Are you not going to propose to me anymore, Max Spector? You went all the way to South Carolina to get a ring and now you're not going to propose to me?"

"I don't want to stop you from…"

"Proposing to me is not going to stop me from going for my dreams." I glare at him.

"So you're saying you would say yes?"

"Ask me and see."

He looks down at me with so much love in his eyes that I feel like my own heart is going to burst out of my chest. He drops down onto one knee and grabs my hand and looks up at me.

"Now, this is not what I had planned or the romantic proposal that I was going to create for you, but I suppose sometimes spontaneity in life means more. I love you Lila Haversham. I have loved you since the first moment I saw you. I think we are soulmates that have been searching for each other for our entire lives. I believe that if we were here before, we were together. I believe that our souls are tethered to each other. Our spirits know that they're home. I want to marry you and I want to make you my wife. I want you to be the mother of my children and I'm willing to wait however long it takes for those children to come. I will follow you around the world. Whatever you want. I just want to be by your side. Will you marry me?"

"I feel like I have no words," I whisper.

And as I stare down at him, I realize that he's everything I ever could have wanted and dreamed of. The tears spring to my eyes and I jump up and down.

"Yes, Max. Yes! I love you so much. I love you so much. I will marry you. I will follow you around the world as well. You are definitely the other part of me. Your heart is my heart."

He slips the ring onto my finger and hugs me close to him. I reach up and touch the side of his face and kiss him.

"You know something, Max Spector?"

"What?" he says.

"When I was on the train that day and I was trying to practice my lines, I couldn't cry because I wasn't connected to the emotions. I wasn't connected to the character because I'd never had my heart broken in such a way that it meant anything to me. I'd never been that distraught by a relationship, and now here I am crying with happiness and tears that will never stop because I love you so much and I realize that's something I never had before. That's why I hadn't yet made it as an actress, and I think that's why this audition went so well for me. Because I feel the words as I say them now. I'm not just acting a part. When I say you're my heart, you're my soul, you're my everything, I feel it in every fiber of my being because you, Max Spector, you are all those things and more to me. I love you so much and I know this has gone incredibly quickly, but when you know, you know."

"I love you Lila, and before you even offer, do not even think about giving up that job. We will make it work."

My jaw drops as I stare at him. "How did you know that I…"

"Because I know you. I know how selfless you are. I know how much you love me as well, and I know you'd give up that role just to be with me. Well, now it's time for me to give up something for you. If we have to go to Croatia, to Canada, to freaking Timbuktu, I will go. I want you to make it as an actress. I want you to become a star and I will do whatever I can to make it happen."

"You know what I realized, Max?" I say softly.

"No. What?"

"I realized that my dream isn't necessarily to be an A-list actress and star in movies. It's to create. I've always wanted to write and star in my own show and I love New York way more than I love L.A."

"Thank you for saying that," he says. "Even though I would've moved to L.A. with you, I prefer New York as well. And you know what, Lila?"

"What?" I say.

"If you are my fianceé, then I think you should be okay with letting me fund a play that you put on and?—"

"Max, I'm not going to have you?—"

"Hold on," he says. "I haven't finished."

"What?" I say.

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