Page 82 of The Bombshell and the Bodyguard
But then, Ihadwithstood shots before and come out alive. You didn’t give up the war just because you lost a battle. When it came to Jessica, I’d fight until my last breath.
She was worth it. If it meant exposing my heart to the entire world, so be it.
When the song ended, I pushed past the black curtains that concealed me and walked toward her, momentarily blinded by the bright lights shining onto the stage.
“Jessica,” I called out just as a member of her new security team tackled me and threw me to the stage surface with bone-jarring force.
She whirled around, her eyes going wide at the sight of my face. “Wilder? Is that you?”
Lying on my back with a two-hundred-fifty-pound man on my chest, and a hand at my throat, I did my best to answer.
“I need to talk to you,” I croaked. “Please.”
She had all the power now. If she truly hated me, she could simply tell the guard she didn’t know me, and I’d be in cuffs and on a police boat within minutes.
“It’s okay,” she told the guard. “I know him. He’s a... friend. You can let him go.”
The guy looked up at her but didn’t release his grip. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m okay. I’ll be okay. He wouldn’t be here without a good reason.”
Her voice sounded certain, but her face was colored in confusion.
I got to my feet and approached her with a nervous smile. “Thanks.”
“What are you doing here, Wilder?” She glanced back over her shoulder at the crowd and those dreaded TV cameras. “I’m... kind of in the middle of something.”
“I had to tell you I’m sorry. And I love you.”
Drawing the Ziploc bag from my wet shirt, I opened it and retrieved the ring box. I dropped to one knee and offered it to her.
A roar of sound swelled throughout the harbor and from the piazza as one of the cameras zoomed in on the diamond and emerald ring, displaying it on the giant video screens, and the audience realized what was happening.
Jessica, on the other hand, didn’t utter a peep. She just stared at me as if she couldn’t believe what her eyes were telling her.
“I’m sorry it took me this long. I’ve been an idiot,” I confessed. “This past week without you has been miserable. I want to be with you. I’m never going to love living in the public eye, but I realized I’d rather spend every day on a reality TV show, trailed by cameras every minute, than have a peaceful, private life without you. I want you to be my wife. I want to go wherever you go and be with you every day. I want us to make a life together.”
She shook her head, swallowing hard and obviously fighting tears. “You’re saying all the right things, but words are cheap. They don’t make dreams come true—believe me, I know. I’ve been trying to write my dreams into reality since I was a kid. I’ve finally accepted youcan’thave it all.”
Oh no.She was going to turn me down. I didn’t even care that it was happening on live international TV in front of millions. The only part I cared about was losing Jessica.
Rising to my feet, I reached back into the plastic bag to fish out my leather notebook. “You’re wrong. You can have it all—at least you can havemyall. If you don’t believe those words, then believethese.”
I handed her the book containing my most private thoughts and feelings, giving her the ammunition to obliterate me if she chose to.
She’d only read a few pages of it on the island, but now she had it all—all the things I’d written about her over the years, the proof that she’d always been on my mind and in my heart.
Handing over the private words was the most vulnerable thing I’d ever done.
I only hoped it would be enough.
“It’s all about you,” I told her. “Every word—dating back to high school.”
While the fifteen-carat ring hadn’t even turned her head, Jessica cradled the beat-up notebook as if it were made of solid gold and encrusted with precious jewels.
Her gaze moved from the book in her palms up to my eyes.
“You’re giving it to me?”
