“Good. Just to be clear, that’s an engagement ring on your finger.”
“Thank you for that clarification,” she says, raising one delicate brow. “Since you haven’t properly proposed. Nor have you been very abject in your apology, now that I think about it.”
I can’t hide my smirk.
“What can I say? I don’t really do abject,” I say, shrugging.
“No, you do not,” she says sourly. “I can’t help feeling I’ve let you off very easily.”
“Sure you have,” I say, dead serious as I stare her in the face. “If you consider me not being able to breathe days on end easily.”
She leans down for a lingering kiss, looking mollified.
“But I can do the proposal. How’s that?”
“Oh, by all means,” she says eagerly, propping her head on her hand to watch me.
“Marry me, princess,” I say, the words coming easily. As though they were there all along. As though I was born with them dormant inside me, waiting for this exact moment to bloom. “Don’t make me try to live without you. We both know I can’t do it.”
Her smile is glorious enough to make everything inside me rejoice.
“I thought you’d never ask, my love.”
“My love,”I say, easing in for another kiss. “I like the sound of that. Make sure you keep using it.”
“I plan to.”
* * *