Page 155 of The Holiday Hate-Off
“You won’t taste it?” he asks, even as he pulls a marker out of his pocket.
My heart beating fast, I say, “Isn’t that my move?”
“It’s my turn.”
It is. We’ve taken to playing with our markers. Last week, I drew a blemish on his face with a red one after he made a dirty play in Strip Monopoly.
He takes my hand and writes onto the back of it:Will you marry me, Lucia?
Then he gets down on one knee and pulls out a little red box.
Tears press at my eyes as I open it and find an absurdly gorgeous diamond ring—a large central diamond surrounded by tiny red stones.
“Of course I’ll marry you,” I say, pulling him up, laughing even as the first tears fall. “You had to bring witnesses?”
He kisses the side of my face, my lips. “I thought you’d want to share this moment with our family.”
This man knows me down to my bones, and he loves me, just as I am—the same way I love him.
“Youarea smart man, and I don’t care if it blows your ego to the stratosphere for me to say so.”
“You agreeing to marry me has already done that,” he says with a grin.
“Good,” Nonna says with a stomp of her foot. “Now, we eat. Nico, where is the food? Giovanni, take more pictures. Someone has to take pictures for Aria.”
Chaos breaks out, and it’s good. Everything is exactly as it should be.
My gaze lifts and finds Eileen’s, and I see she’s watching Giovanni with a speculative glint in her eyes.
I laugh, and she gives a decisive nod.He’s next.
