Page 181 of False God

This isn’t how I intended to ask her, right by a cemetery with the ring I bought her back at the house. Just like I hadn’t planned to tell Lili I loved her right outside an airport.

But maybe that’s how you know you found the right person. When it doesn’t really matter where you are, and the words just won’t stay inside any longer.

I was waiting to propose until I was finished with medical school, until our busy lives felt a little more settled.

I suddenly want—need—her to know I want to marry her, even if she doesn’t walk down the aisle toward me for another fifty years.

“You’re … serious?”

I nod. “So serious that I asked your dad.” A conversation I stressed over for weeks. I even called Ellis and had him pretend to be Crew so I could run through what I planned to say. “And there’s a ring hidden in the little bit of the closet I have left.”

She rolls her eyes. “Youtoldme to move all my clothes here.”

“I know.”

She didn’t move them allherethough. She still has her penthouse in New York, which I know for a fact has full closets. She’s also left plenty of clothes at the London flat, where I’ve lived for most of the past two years. Honestly, I couldn’t care less, but it’s fun to tease Lili about her clothing collection. Kit does the same thing.

I tighten my grip on her hips, looking straight into her eyes. More red rushes to her cheeks, the longer I stare, but she doesn’t break eye contact.

“This wasn’t where I was planning to ask you. But I’ve been planning to ask you—knowing I would ask you—for a long time.” I ghost my lips along hers, and Lili shivers. “Marry me, Elizabeth Josephine Kensington.”

Lili bites her bottom lip before she nods. “Yes,” she tells me. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

I can’t talk right away. This moment—this massive moment, where the person I want to spend the rest of my life with has agreed to spend the rest of her life with me—feels like it’s expanded around me, blocking any words from coming out. Nothing seems like enough.

For the third time, I witness Lili cry.

“I love you so much,” she sobs, burying her face in my chest.

I wrap my arms around her, holding her as tight as I can. Kiss the top of her head and murmur, “I love you,” into her hair.

For a few blissful minutes, it feels like we’re the only two people in the world, savoring the perfect bubble around us.

I only let go of her to walk over to my father’s grave. Crouch down and brush a stray leaf off the top of the thick stone.

I wish he had been there yesterday to see me graduate. I wore the stethoscope he never got to give me, and I’d like to think he knows that.

I wish he could be at my wedding.

But today would look very different if he were still alive. Maybe things happen for a reason, as bloody awful as they are to accept at the time.

“Happy birthday, Papa.”

I stand, then walk back toward Lili. She squeezes my hand before mounting Gilbert.

We ride back toward Newcastle Hall in sweet silence, stealing glances at each other like love-drunk teenagers.

Figures are visible out in the gardens as we ride nearer. Martha’s been cooking for days in preparation of today’s party.

After I graduated from Oxford with my undergraduate degree, Papa, Blythe, Granny, and I all went to Le Cinq, one of London’s fanciest restaurants.

If you’d asked me then, I’d have said that my future graduation from medical school would look the same. The four of us and a four-course meal.

Six years later, I’ve lost a lot.

My father.

Large chunks of the legacy I thought I’d inherit.

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