Page 95 of No More Heartbreakers

Hale left his chair and went down on one knee in front of me. I couldn’t breathe. A sumo wrestler sat on my chest.

No—no one on my chest—it was—no, no, no. Why was he down there on the floor?

Get up Hale.We’re breaking up, making it official, you can’t be proposing.

The scene had grabbed the attention of the restaurant’s other patrons, who were turning toward us like dominos falling, grins breaking out on their faces one by one.

“Hale—” I breathed, barely finishing the word, as my brain had been deprived of actual oxygen for too long at this point.

He lifted one of my ice-cold hands from my lap and gave me a tremulous smile.

“Heidi—I love you. This break has made it clear for me that I don’t want a life without you, and I’m hoping that you found at least one of those dessert options tempting. I hope you’ll find the real thing even sweeter.”

As I sat in stupefied silence, Hale drew a small box from his pocket, opened it, and held it up before me.

In my peripheral vision, I saw our waiter recording the moment on a cell phone camera, preserving it for our later enjoyment.

And for Instagram.

And Facebook.

And You Tube.

And all the hundreds of other available venues for online humiliation made possible by the wonders of modern technology.

Oh, sugar.There was no getting out of this gracefully, for me or for Hale.

He pressed the ring box into my hand. I looked down at it, occasion-appropriate tears filling my eyes.

No doubt he and everyone else would assume they were tears of happiness. But they were inspired more by a sense of guilt (over my obvious failure to adequately communicate our relationship status to Hale) and desperation (to escape this nightmare scenario.)

At least they gave me an excuse not to answer him out loud in front of all these witnesses.

“Well, put it on,” Hale encouraged with an eager grin.

It seemed like every eye in the room was on my left ring finger. No one seemed to have noticed I hadn’t actually uttered a word of either acceptance or refusal.

And why would she refuse, they were all thinking, with such a romantic proposal? Such a handsome, devoted man?

A man who would be publicly disgraced if I refused him here and now.

I slid the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly. How like Hale to figure out my ring size when I’d never told it to him.

As soon as the ring was over my second knuckle, he stood and pulled me up with him, planting an enthusiastic kiss on my lips.

The crowd around us cheered and clapped. A loud pop sounded near us, and I pulled away from Hale to see a waiter holding up a bottle of champagne.

Yay.

A woman seated at the nearest table snapped a picture of our embrace with her phone then said loudly, “Hey—you’re Heidi Haynes from the news.”

Before I could respond, Hale did. “Soon to be Heidi Haynes Gentry—isn’t that right, hon?”

He placed a fizzing champagne flute in my hand and clinked his own glass against it. “To the most beautiful girl in Georgia and my future wife.”

Another cheer from the onlookers. I smiled weakly back at him, glancing around at the celebratory crowd as I took an obligatory sip.

After a minute the other diners went back to their own tables, and I grabbed Hale’s hand.

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