Page 90 of Stone Promises

He smiles down at me, gently removing my helmet before he removes his own. “I know today was really hard for you. I can’t even imagine having to watch you do what I did. You are so strong and brave and I thank God every day that you came back into my life.” He shifts his weight nervously from foot to foot. “I wanted you to have a good memory,” he says. “Of these rocks. This place. I want to wipe everything you saw today from your thoughts. Because none of that is real.” He motions a finger between us. “This is real. You and me. This is all that matters.”

The sun starts to set and the sky behind Chad is a perfect mixture of orange and yellow. It takes my breath away. “It’s beautiful up here,” I say.

“It sure as hell is,” he says, not bothering to tear his eyes away from mine to look behind him. He reaches into the pocket of his pants and pulls out a small velvet box. My heart thunders harder than it ever has. My breath catches and I feel faint.Is this really happening?

As if he can read my thoughts, he nods at me. Then he drops to a knee and takes my hand in his. “I hope you won’t let the fact that I just had sex with another woman dissuade you from giving me the answer I desire.”

I laugh, tears rolling down my face in streams of pure happiness.

“Mallory, I love you. I’ve loved you since the first day I met you at the bus stop when you were only six years old. I loved you even when I moved away and we lost touch. I loved you the second I saw you at the club. And I’ll love you until I draw my last breath. My life can be crazy sometimes, you’ve seen a lot of that these past months. And I have to travel much of the time. But there’s nobody I want to come home to more than you. There is no one else I want to be holed up in hotel rooms with. There’s nobody else I want to eat pizza with and play HORSE with. There is no one else I’d rather go through life with. And I’m not giving any other guy the chance to keep me from the promise I made you at your aunt’s wedding. It was you and me then. And it’s you and me now. We were put on this earth to be together.”

He drops my hand to open the box. I squeeze my eyelids together to get rid of the tears clouding my vision. Inside the box is the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen. The diamond is tear-shaped. Big, but not too big. It’s surrounded by smaller diamonds lining a platinum band. He clears the frog in his throat. “Mallory Kate, will you marry me?”

My throat stings so badly I can’t speak. My heart gets so big my chest hurts. My eyes spill over and bleed my love for him. All I can do is nod and mumble, “Mmmhmm.”

He smiles, still on his knees. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t quite hear that. You’ll have to speak up for the cameras.”

It’s now I realize he’s having this filmed. By professional cameramen no less. He orchestrated and pre-planned this so one of the worst days of my life would become one of the best. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, yes, yes!”

He slips the ring on my finger and hugs me where he kneels. He wraps his arms around me and picks me up as I look down upon him. He gazes up at me as he twirls us in a circle. The sunset has turned into a brilliant mixture of red and orange hues. The claps and cheers from below echo off the rocks and canyon walls. There couldn’t be a more perfect moment than this if we searched a million moments in a million lifetimes. He lets my body slide down his until our mouths meet. Then he kisses me like it’s our first. Like it’s our last. Like this kiss matters more than any other because it’s sealing our fate. Solidifying our bond.

And I know right in this moment that this rock, this canyon, this place, will never be anything but a perfect memory. Chad knew that. He knew exactly what to do to make it this way.

He steps back, still holding my hand, admiring his ring on my finger. “No take backs,” he says, reminding me of the phrase he used often when we were kids.

I laugh and shake my head. “No take backs. Never. But what I want to know is, how are you going to top this? If I remember correctly, you have a few more movies coming up. What are you going to do the next time you have a love scene?”

His face falls. “Shit, Mal. I didn’t think of that. I’ve just set a big fucking precedent, haven’t I?”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chad

Mallory’s head is propped against my shoulder in the car as Cole drives us home from the airport. She’s been staring at her ring, looking at her hand from all different angles. She thinks the surprises are all done, but they’re only just beginning.

“I was going to wait until we got back in L.A., you know,” I confess to her. “I had the ring all picked out and I was going to ask you on your last night here, before you went back to New York.”

She looks up at me. “What changed your mind?”

“It was something Hayden said when we were out to dinner one night. He said you would never like Sedona because of what I was going to do there with another woman. I didn’t want you thinking of that place as somewhere I cheated on you or anything.”

“I would never,” she says.

“I know. But still. My hope is that whenever your schedule allows in the future, you will join me on location. But if you’d had a negative experience, you might not want to. So I had Kendra get the ring from my house and overnight it to me.”

She giggles. “Well, you certainly accomplished your goal, Mr. Stone. I’ll be happy to join you on set whenever I can.”

I kiss the top of her head. “Mission accomplished, future Mrs. Stone.” Then I frown thinking maybe I shouldn’t be so assuming. “Uh, are you going to take my name?”

Her face breaks into a shy smile and she wrinkles her nose in embarrassment. “Do you know how many times I’ve written my name as Mallory Stone? Thousands. I used to doodle it in my notebooks in school. I was always afraid you’d see it but you never did.”

Hearing that makes me want to pound my chest and high-five someone. “So you’ll take my name?”

She nods. “Of course I will.”

“Mallory Stone,” I say, testing out the sound of it. “I think I like it. I think Iloveit.”

“We have a lot to figure out, you know,” she says. “I’m not sure I’m ready to leave New York. My job is there, my family. Mel and Julian. What are we going to do?”

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