Page 190 of The Wrong Play

I knew that look. It was the same one she got every time I did something completely unhinged, yet somehow, she still loved me for it.

Her lips parted, probably to tell me just how out of my mind I was, but I didn’t give her the chance. Instead, I reached into the nightstand, grabbed the tiny velvet box I’d stashed there weeks ago, and flicked it open with one hand.

Riley froze.

Every ounce of frustration, every lingering hint of her planned verbal assault, vanished in an instant. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again like she was trying to form words but had forgotten how.

I smirked. “You good there, Riley-girl?”

She blinked hard. “Jace,” she whispered, her voice uneven.

“Yeah, baby?”

Her gaze flicked between my face and the ring—the one I’d picked out for her without hesitation because the second I saw it, I knew. A delicate band, a stunning diamond in the center, and smaller stones woven into the sides like a crown. A queen’s ring for my queen.

“Is this…” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, trying again. “Are you…”

“Oh, this isn’t a proposal,” I said easily. “It’s aninevitability.”

Her breath hitched.

I stepped closer, my fingers skimming up her arm, feeling the way she trembled slightly under my touch. “You were always going to be mine, Riley. This just makes it official.”

She shook her head, but it wasn’t in denial. More like she was trying to catch up, trying to grasp the weight of what was happening. “You—you can’t just?—”

“I can,” I interrupted smoothly. “And I did.”

Her lips parted like she wanted to argue, but no words came. Just ragged, uneven breaths, the weight of it all pressing down on her. I watched her throat work as she swallowed hard, her fingers twitching at her sides like she was debating whether to hold on or let go.

Like she still thought she had to make a choice.

But, duh, I wasn’t letting her choose wrong.

I reached out, tracing my fingertips over her wrist, feeling her pulse thrumming wildly beneath my touch. “You think I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours?” My voice was low…steady. “You think I don’t know that you still wake up sometimes and wonder if this is real? If you really get to have this? If you really get to be loved like this?”

Her lashes fluttered, and I saw the war waging in her, felt it in the way she shook, in the way her breath hitched like I’d pulled something straight out of her chest and held it up to the light.

“I see you, Riley,” I murmured, stepping closer, tilting her chin up so she had no choice but to look at me. “I see the girl who fights so hard to believe she deserves happiness. Who spent too long being told she wasn’t allowed to want more, to dream of more. Who learned how to survive before she ever learned how to just be.” My thumb brushed against her jaw, soft and reverent. “But you don’t have to survive me. You just have to love me.”

Her eyes burned, wide and glassy, filled with too many emotions to name. She shook her head again, but this time, I saw it for what it was…one last desperate grasp at an excuse. At some invisible force trying to pull her back into the doubt she had lived in for too long.

I wasn’t letting it win.

“Tell me you don’t love me,” I whispered. “Tell me you don’t want this. That you don’t want forever.”

A sharp inhale. A tremor in her fingers. But still, no words.

I stepped even closer, my forehead pressing against hers, my voice barely a breath. “Tell me you don’t want my last name.”

She made a broken sound, something between a gasp and a sob, her hands fisting in my shirt like I was the only thing holding her up. I felt the way her body trembled against mine, the way she was already sinking into me, already surrendering.

I kissed her forehead, then her cheek, then her jaw. “Tell me, Riley.”

Silence.

Then, finally—soft, so soft I almost didn’t hear it?—

“I can’t.”

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