Page 99 of Sleepover

I laugh. “Oh, right. You distracted me before I could answer.”

“I’m looking forward to falling asleep with you in my arms.”

“Ah, me, too. Too bad it’s only four nights.”

“So that’s the thing, Elle.”

He’s fumbling with something in his pocket, and all of a sudden, my hands and feet go cold, and my heart starts pounding—in the best possible way.

The bartender sets the mimosas on the bar in front of us, but we both ignore them. I’m too busy looking into Sawyer’s dark, intense eyes, and he’s looking back, but this time I know what the expression is there, it’s love and trust and devotion, and he opens the little velvet box in his hand and holds it out to me.

“I know it’s fast. But I also know that life is short, and I know how I feel. I want us to be a family. I want the boys to be brothers. And I want to fall asleep with you in my arms, not just for the next four nights, but every night for the rest of our lives. Elle Dunning, will you marry me?”

I look at his beloved face, the eyes that still hold a hint of grief but also so much joy and lust for life, and I don’t have to think about it at all.

“Oh, Sawyer. Yes. Yes, yes, yes!”

He takes the ring from the box and slides it on my finger. Applause breaks out—the bartender is clapping and so are a lot of other people in the restaurant. I feel like clapping myself, but instead I examine the ring on my finger—it’s a solitaire, round diamond. Restrained and eloquent, like Sawyer, I think.

“Kiss me?” I whisper.

“You remember what happened last time?” he murmurs.

As it turns out, neither of us is that hungry. Shame about those mimosas going to waste, though…

Since it’s daylight, we do the rest of Maeve’s patrons, and ourselves, the favor of getting ourselves home before he kisses me.

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