Page 140 of Heartless Game

“What’s your emergency?” a kind woman said on the line.

“Someone’s just broken into my house,” I told her in a whisper. “My address is?—”

The door to the bedroom began to open.

Oh god, after all of this, Iwasgoing to die.

But it was Isaac framed in the doorway, chest heaving, covered in dirt and leaves. In the light, I could see his dark eyes, but unlike the last time I saw them, they were no longer filled with devastation.

Instead, they were filled with hope…

…and love.

“Never mind, false alarm,” I told the protesting 911 operator, and hung up.

“Why are you here?” I asked him.

“I’ve never not been here,” he told me. “I’ve been about a hundred yards away every second I could get. I can’t think, can’t see, can’t fuckingbreatheif I’m not near you, Tovah.”

Oh, god.

“Then why did you stay away?”

A dark look crossed his face. “I had to make sure you were safe. That we were safe. I had enemies, Tovah, and watching you get shot haunted me. All I could see while you slept in that hospital bed was blood pouring from your chest and not being able to get to you in time if you were with me…so I made sure you weren’t. I lied, and broke your heart in the process, and I’m so sorry for that—but not sorry that it was what I had to do to get back to you. I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere, ever again. I’m too selfish of a man to let you go.”

I blinked rapidly. This man always made me cry.

He saw, his throat working as he came toward me.

“Oh god, bashert, please don’t cry. Please, every time a tear falls from your eyes, it’s like I die a little inside.”

“Then fix it,” I told him. “Fix it.”

“That’s what I’m here to do.” There was a soft determination in his face, as he knelt down on one knee.

“Isaac, what the hell are you doing?” I wasn’t even sure how I was able to form words.

Was he about to?—?

“Tovah, I told you once that the only woman I would ever marry was you. It’s still true. After my mother died, I thought love couldn’t, wouldn’t, exist for me. I was sure I didn’t even have a heart. But the day I met you, even though I resisted, that heart came back to life, and it’s been beating for you and only for you ever since. You are the sole reason I was put on this earth, and I will exist entirely to love you until the day I die, and then I will love you forever after. That’s why I call you bashert, Tovah Lewis. You’re my soulmate. My destiny. You’re it for me.”

“Isaac,” I said softly, my eyes still filled with tears as my heart came back to life, too. “I love you so much.”

Utter devotion moved over his face as he pulled something out of his pocket.

It was a small black velvet ring box.

He flipped open the top.

A rose gold halo diamond ring sparkled in the light.

“Then marry me,” he said fiercely. “Be my wife, be mine forever, like I’ve always been yours.”

Of course he demanded I marry him. Of course he didn’t ask.

But would I want it any other way?

No.

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