Page 228 of Vows We Never Made
“Mom, we’re engaged again! For real this time,” she squeals and I smile. There’s raw amusement in her eyes as she looks at me. “He apologized and asked me to marry him and I said yes.”
Margot’s eyes light up. She gulps her coffee, probably to avoid spraying it out her nose.
“Holy crap. You made him grovel, right?” She wrinkles her nose. “Also, this coffee tastes burned.”
“Could’ve warned you,” I say.
“He was on his hands and knees. So unbelievably sweet,” Hattie gushes.
My face heats.
It might be mortifying, but if this is what it takes to have my woman back, I’d pay the price ten thousandfold.
I slide a possessive hand along her hip. “The only woman who could ever reduce me to begging.”
“That’s beautiful,” Margot says dryly, but she can’t stop the incoming smile. “It’s about time. Both of you. Especially you, Ethan.”
Julia sniffs, and it’s her turn for the tears to come in hot.
“Are you sure, though? It’s so sudden,” she asks Hattie.
And even though she’s already said yes, I still feel myself tensing as I watch Hattie’s face. But her smile could make the sun jealous.
“Mom, yes!” She strokes my hair, trailing her finger down along the stubble dusting my jaw. “I’m more sure about this than the first time I opened Harry Potter. And that’s reallyreallysure. Like so certain you could—”
I don’t let her finish.
I just kiss her again, in front of her mom and my sister and the entire universe.
I kiss her to show our minds are made up, and my days of self-inflicted catastrophes are over.
27
ALL JUST WHISPERS (HATTIE)
“You’re sure you want to do this?” I whisper into the darkness.
“Positive.
“Like this isn’t just the lack of sleep talking?” I stare at him in awe, still a little dazed from the best two days of makeup sex humanly possible.
“Hattie.” He growls my name, pinning me under him, giving me that blue-eyed stare that says he’s never been more sure.
I inhale sharply as he kisses me again.
“If we’re going to bury the past, then I’m sticking a damn fork in it. How could I ever leave myself open to another asshole like Daley coming in for the blackmail kill? How could I do that to us?”
I’m frowning, even though having him over me, sexy and sheltering, makes me the happiest woman alive.
“Does it have to be today? Can’t you take a few more days off to rest? Maybe regroup and talk to a lawyer first?”
“One nap. Then I’m getting my ass out of this bed and heading to the police station.”
Oh, boy.
My heart thuds in my chest, drumming with fear.
“There’s no crime there, I’m certain. Not in a legal sense.” He sighs. “Morally, I’m Jack the goddamned Ripper.”
