Page 108 of Bittersweet Revenge

She was looking down at the engagement ring, toying with it.

When I approached her bed, she extended it to me. “I can’t marry you this week,” she said gently.

I extended my hand and she dropped the ring in my palm.

My stomach squeezed at my need to heave. I was losing her, I was really losing her. Once again, I was not the first choice.

“Caleb?”

I looked up from the ring, feeling numb. “What?”

“Did you hear me?”

I nodded. She was making me say it – she was being cruel. “You don’t want to marry me,” I repeated, and I couldn't believe my voice sounded so calm, so dispassionate when I was in fact dying.

“No.”” She shook her head. “I said I can't, not that I wouldn't.”

I sat down heavily on the chair beside her bed. “So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I'm not the same girl that came to Stonewood last year, I grew, I learned, and I felt. No matter what you say Caleb, I know you love me deeply, probably just as much as I love you.” She extended her hand toward me; I knew I was supposed to take it, but I was just so overwhelmed by everything she was saying I couldn’t move.

“How could you even think I would consider another man? I would have literally died for you, Caleb, but I don’t want that ugly ring I picked out of spite, or that fancy wedding that neither of us really wanted.”

“So, you want to be with me?” I hate how insecure I sounded.

She chuckled, extending her hand again and this time I grabbed it like it was a lifeline. “More than anything. You’re it for me, Caleb, and I want a ring and a wedding but not now. Let me go to university with you, let's move in together, build a life and then get married.”

“Oh, thank fuck!” I stood up and peppered her face with dozens of kisses. “Yes, a million times yes! Let's be engaged forever if that’s what you want. I called you a pawn once, but Esmeralda, you’re not a pawn. You’ve never been a pawn.” I kissed her and sat beside her on the bed. “You are the queen of the chessboard of my life, Esmeralda Forbes. You have all the power because you own your king. You are protecting me and without my queen I’d lose the game. I’d be checkmated because there would be no reason for me to keep on trying, not without you.”

“And yet you were ready to let me go?” she asked, her gray eyes shining with tears.

“I love you enough to do that. Love is selfless, right? Or at least it’s supposed to be?”

She looked down at her ring finger. “Do you think you could get it back? The angel-wing ring?”

I smiled. “Are you sure it’s the one you want? We can go get another one, start fresh.”

“Sure.”” She rubbed her ring finger. “I just loved how I felt then with you. It was such a perfect ring.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can’t get it back because I never gave it away to start with.”

She looked up at me with incredulity. “You didn’t?”

I shook my head, reaching into my jacket and pulling out the ring box.

“You had it on you?” she asked with incredulity.

I shrugged. “I was planning to have this discussion after the party. I always wanted our relationship to become this.”

She looked down at the ring as I took it out and slid it onto her finger. “My fiancée.” I loved saying that now that it was true. “Are you sure you want to commit to me?”

“I could ask you the same,” she replied. “You’re a smoking-hot millionaire about to go to university. Are you sure you want to be tied down with poor old me?”

I laughed at that, just thinking about any other woman is ludicrous. “100%, you're it for me. You're tattooed on me, both figuratively and literally.”

“The tattoo?” she asked with incredulity, sliding her hand in my shirt to rub it softly, making me shiver. “You got it for me?”

I smiled. “Yes, the tattoo was for you. It was always for you. You rule my heart and my forever, Esmeralda. You are not just part of my life; you are my life.”

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