Page 99 of This Baby Business
“Am I your girl?” Carly said.
He tipped her quivering chin up. “You don’t think you can back out now, do you?”
“Never.”
“Let’s get one thing clear. I don’t want anyone else. While you’re gone, I’m going to be some kind of monk. There’s no one else for me. I said I wouldn’t share you, and it goes both ways.”
She met his gaze, her hazel eyes piercing into his. “I don’t have to go if you want me to stay. Maybe I can find some other way to finish. An online pro—”
“No. You need to go back. I’m not going to be the one who keeps you from finishing what you started.”
“But I don’t want to abandon you. Or Grace.”
“You won’t. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Do you mean it?”
“But if that human piece of excrement is still there, you tell me, because I’ll need to pay him a visit.”
“You always have my back.”
“I always will.”
“I’m going to miss you like crazy. Will you promise to come see me?”
“As often as my hard-ass boss lets me.” He directed this comment, loudly, in the direction of the door.
“Well, excuse me for living,” Stone said from the other side.
“Speaking of living.” Levi grinned and traced the curve of her lips. “I have to go make one.”
She gave him a watery smile full of her heart. “I love you. Did I say that already?”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “You did. And I’m never going to get tired of hearing it.”
He kissed her, long, warm and deep. A kiss full of the love he’d kept wrapped up in his cold heart until he’d met the one woman in the world perfectly right for him.
EPILOGUE
December 31st
Carly
It was nearlymidnight and beautifully quiet on the evening of Emily and Stone’s wedding. The red barn on Emily’s ranch was lit by soft candlelight, the rows of seats decorated with white ribbon and baby’s breath.
Levi winked at me from the altar, where he stood next to Matt and Stone. In a black tux, Levi looked drop-dead gorgeous. And he also looked a little like my heart walking around outside my chest. I’d become more used to the feeling in the past two months, the sensation where I forgot to breathe when he walked in the room. I was so gobsmacked, so head-over-heels in love with my fiancé that it was a little humbling.
I twisted my engagement ring around my finger, not quite used to its presence there. My new lucky ring. I’d have to get my mother’s ring resized now. I hadn’t expected for it all to happen so fast, but the past two months in New York City meant we had spent more time alone together than we had since we’d first met. And it was still easy. Perfect. He’d sometimes bring Grace along, because I missed her desperately, but usually he would leave Grace with Cassie, Emily and Stone, or Matt and Sarah for the weekend. Rather than hang out with my roommates, he’d rent a hotel room in the city where we’d spend long, lazy mornings in bed. We’d walk in Central Park and eat hot dogs from the street vendors.
It was in Central Park where, last month, Levi had dropped to one knee.
“I’ve never been this sure about anything in my life. We fit together. Will you marry me?”
I stood, wrapped in my wool winter jacket and scarf, the cold winter air swirling all around us, utterly speechless. My heart had hammered out of my chest and I’d smiled until it felt like my face would freeze that way permanently.
“Yes or no?” Levi said with his easy smile. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
It was only then that I realized I hadn’t said my answer out loud. I’d said the words in my heart, where they always seemed to go first.
