Page 116 of The Sebastian Guarantee
“Catch!” The girl raised her arm and threw a small metal ball to her brother.
Sebastian snapped it out of the air, but it wasn’t a ball.
She stared at the crinkled silver. “Is that a hot dog wrapper?”
“It’s the wrapper from the love-match hot dog I ate while you were in the changing room. You told Hank that the person who ate that hot dog would be your match.”
“I did.”
“You were right.” He dropped to a knee and peeled open the foil ball, revealing a sparkling diamond ring.
She gasped. “Is that what I think it is? Is this what I think it is?”
He held up the ring. It glinted in the afternoon light. “My dad proposed to my mum with this ring.”
“Sebastian,” she breathed as another wave of emotion threatened to overtake her.
Dressed as a giant hot dog with love and tears in his eyes, he exhaled a shaky breath. “This is the pitch I’ve been waiting a lifetime to make. Phoebe Gale,” he began, slipping into his British accent, “Princess of the Hot Dog Fairies, Bearer of Cookies, and Eater of Pizza, will you marry me?”
Holy hot dog proposal!She couldn’t have dreamed up something so perfect. Surrounded by love, she gazed at the man who held her heart in his hands. Smiling through her happy tears, she knew there was only one way to answer. “Sebastian Cress. Mr. Lickable Abs. I’m all in.”
Epilogue
SEBASTIAN
“Pheebs, six more organizations signed on to partner with Go Girl. We’re up to thirty-eight in four days. Four days!”
Sebastian waited to hear the love of his life shriek with joy but got nothing. He craned his neck. Peering out of her bedroom, he checked the living room but didn’t see her. And yeah, he was working in Phoebe’s bedroom. He’d moved in with her. They hadn’t even talked about it. It was a given. She was his fiancée. Jesus, he loved the sound of that. But they wouldn’t be living here for long. Go Girl was on the cusp of taking the tech world by storm, and the makeshift office in Phoebe’s living room wouldn’t cut it. And it didn’t have to. They were flush with cash and committed to spending every dollar on building their business prudently.
That’s right.Their business. When it came to Go Girl, he was all in.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
He couldn’t agree more with Eleanor Roosevelt. His passion and his purpose were clear. He would be by Phoebe’s side, creating a tech community like no other.
They’d hammered out contracts, secured office space across town, and signed a lease on a quaint bungalow not far from Go Girl’s new headquarters. To say the last handful of days had been one hell of a roller coaster would be a colossal understatement. Besides the business odds and ends and scoring a kick-ass job, he’d figured out what mattered most and got the girl. He could safely guarantee it couldn’t get any better than this.
Well . . . actually, it could.
Here’s the thing he’d never realized. The deep, soul-satisfying love he and Phoebe shared hadn’t happened overnight. It had happened minute by minute, day by day, and year after year. A layering of friendship, love, and laughter that revealed an undeniable truth. Phoebe knew him better than he knew himself, and their love was meant to be. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her, the match had been made, but the friendship that bloomed between them through the years was what made this moment so sweet.
He checked his watch. And speaking of making sweet things, they needed to hop to it. They were entertaining this afternoon.
While the world had watched him propose, he and Phoebe wanted to throw a barbecue to celebrate with their close friends and families—or it was Phoebe coming up with another reason to grill hot dogs and nosh on baked goods. No matter the reason, their guests were coming over this afternoon. Between calls, he’d been helping her set up in the complex’s courtyard for the last hurrah at her first apartment.
“Pheebs?” he tried again.
She was probably wearing her earbuds. He set his laptop on a stack of moving boxes, then sauntered out of the bedroom. Inhaling the scent of chocolate, he’d only taken a few steps before he found her in the kitchenette. His cock twitched at the sight of his fiancée. Shaking her ass with a spatula in her hand, Phoebe Gale jammed to the beat of her own drum—or whatever she was listening to. Probably one of Aria’s new songs.
He tiptoed toward her and surveyed the scene. She’d baked a few batches of chocolate chip cookies. They sat cooling on the counter. But she wasn’t working on another batch. He drank her in as she dipped the spatula into a bowl, then shimmied to the side, revealing another culinary confection. And now he was rock-hard.
While he’d been locking in Go Girl partner organizations, Phoebe had baked a cake and was in the process of icing it. It was like college, except now he wouldn’t have to spend the next month taking cold showers to get the image of the woman out of his head. Moving stealthily, he stalked his prey.
One step, two steps, three steps.
“Hey, Pheebs!” he called at the top of his lungs.
She gasped, spun around, and whacked the bloody hell out of the cake with the spatula. The block of chocolatey goodness teetered on the edge of the counter.
