Page 37 of Husband for the Holidays

She was right. There was something very flat and disappointing in this bloodless arrangement.

“But it’s happening really fast.” She had her arms wrapped around her torso, supremely defensive.

“We can wait.” They were the hardest words he’d ever spoken. Literally hard. He swallowed.

“Are you mad?”

“No.” He could use a beat to assimilate all of this, though. He didn’t have a fetish around being anyone’s first. A lack of experience with sex was no different than never having jumped out of a plane before. Or eating ice cream. It was something that hadn’t been tried before. That’s all.

Buthewould be the one to jump out of that plane with her. To show her how it was done. And he wanted her to love it.

“No, I appreciate your honesty.” He did. Even though it was making his head swim. “I need to make some calls.”

We can wait.

For how long? Eloise wanted to call the question to his back. How much longer?

She didn’t have the nerve to ask, unwilling to face yet another rejection.

She barely saw Konstantin until they were ready for her mother’s party the next evening. She went back to see Ghaliya about her gown, then they dined at the restaurant where they were interrupted by someone he was loosely acquainted with. Afterward, he went to the gym to workout. She had fallen asleep before he got back.

The next morning, she had a fitting, then spent an hour on video chat with her New York roommate who was using the windfall from Konstantin to move to California. Under Eloise’s direction, her roommate whittled Eloise’s few possessions down to a small box that their neighbor agreed to post when Eloise had a permanent address.

Then she’d been tied up with Ghaliya again, having her hair and makeup done while Konstantin disappeared to pick up her ring.

When she met him in the sitting room, she was nervously petting the rich velvet of her dark mulberry gown.

“Wow.” The flicker of his gaze from her eyebrows to the hem of her gown made her prickle all over.

“It’s too much, isn’t it? Between my size and the late notice, I didn’t have much to choose from.” She never would have picked something so sexy. The soft fabric hugged her arms and waist and hips before spilling wide around her legs. The low neckline cut over the top of one shoulder and fell off the other. It was outlined in delicate silver lace that added wintery sparkle.

“I think you look incredible. Will you come here, please?” He picked up the ring box from the table beside the sofa and opened it.

She didn’t know why his grave tone made her ankles wobble on the six-inch heels as she moved toward him.

He looked incredible, too. His tuxedo jacket was ivory with a black shawl collar and accentuated his wide shoulders and the taper to his waist and long legs.

When she was eye level with his bowtie, she realized, “It matches my dress.”

“I told Ghaliya to find me one that would.”

Eloise was absorbing what a cute gesture that was when Konstantin stole a cushion off the sofa and dropped it to the floor. He lowered to one knee upon it.

“What—?” Her voice failed her and she clutched at her closing throat. He couldn’t be doing what she thought he was doing.

He held out his hand in a request for hers. “I disappointed you yesterday. I want you to have a better story to tell, when people ask you how I proposed.”

She bit her lips together, so touched she couldn’t speak, only blink to keep the welling tears in her eyes.

“I’ve never wanted to marry anyone, Eloise. But I want to marry you. That is the truth. Will you marry me?”

He sounded so sincere, her vision blurred. “You’re going to make me ruin my makeup,” she said on a sniff.

“No,” he chided and stood to pluck a tissue from the box he must have placed on the end table for exactly this reason. “I really can’t bear tears,glikia mou. That is something you need to know about me.” He touched her chin to tilt her face up and dabbed the tissue into the corners of her eyes, his expression very somber. “I will try not to make you cry. I promise you that. It hurts too much.”

“Oh, you’re making it impossible tonot.” She stole the tissue and pressed it under her nose, then fanned her eyes, blinking and fighting the press of emotion. “This was really thoughtful.” She had to clear the thickness from her throat. “Thank you.” In so many ways, this was her dream come true. Could she really complain if it wasn’texactlyperfect? “I would be honored to marry you, Konstantin.”

“Good.” He slid the cool ring onto her finger.

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