Page 202 of Alphas Like Us
Before I open the box, I ask him, “How’d you get the ring without the mediaknowing?”
He pulls out his comms earpiece, as though remembering the radio connection. Even if it’s muted. And he answers, “Oscar andDonnelly.”
“Your best friends,” Idefine.
Farrow surprises me by just raising his brows in a teasing wave. Not denying how close those two guys are to him. And his gaze falls to myhands.
I open the box and pull out a sleek black tungsten band. “You should know, man. It took me a solid millisecond to pick thisout.”
He grins like I’m full of shit, and he’s about to say something—probably,sureorokay—but he notices the engraving on the inside of the band. His smile softens as he takes the ring from me. Just for a closerlook.
“Dum spiro, spero,” he reads the Cicero quote. His eyes well upagain.
On a day that rocked us both, he said he loved that quote. It was a quiet moment inside a storm. The memory is as tranquil as the quoteitself.
While I breathe, Ihope.
Farrow nods a few times, tears rising. “Here.” He places the black band in my palm, not wanting to slip a ring on my finger yet. “It’s perfect, wolf scout.” And with another growing smile, he adds, “Especially since you took forever to pick itout.”
I grimace. “You can’t knowthat one-hundred percent,” I contend and slip the black band on my ringfinger.
“I do know that one-hundred percent,” Farrow says. “Because I know you one-hundredpercent.”
* * *
Our last dayin Greece has snuck up on us, and Farrow and I have left the yacht to spend the night in Corfu. Alone, together, both of us soaking in the peaceful quiet before we return to a media frenzy inPhilly.
We’re not hiding ourengagement.
So when we’re back home, whatever paparazzi presence existed before may be infinitely larger, more aggressive, invasive—we don’t know. Because I’m the first to be engaged out of my siblings andcousins.
I’m paving theway.
But not even the media can deter my brain from replaying the proposal. It’s on loop. And I remember how my whole family and SFO joined us at the lagoon. Farrow asked them to hike the same trail about thirty minutes after us, and I had noclue.
Janie, my best friend, ma moitié—when she saw me, she had her hand to her heart like she could feel mineswelling.
Having all of them there waseverything.
Warm water rains down on me in a stone shower, made to look outdoors with a fogged skylight, but I’m inside our hotel bathroom. Private. As safe as it can be, and I’m notscared.
My muscles slacken with the warmth and gathering steam. I stand right beneath the downpour, my bare skin flush from the heat. I rub soap on my abs, picturing Farrow coming in behind me, my number onefantasy.
I go lower with the washcloth, hot breath ejecting from me. And hanging up the cloth on a hook, I rest my left hand on the stone slab wall. Whatever I planned to do suddenly flits away. Because the black ring on that hand is staring back atme.
I’m wearing hisring.
My eyesburn.
And then I hear the shower door swing open. In my peripheral, I see that it’s him. So I don’t turn back around. I wait, and his six-foot-three build pushes warmly up against me—God, this is real.His arm curves around my abs, chest melded firmly to myback.
I stare straight ahead. I feel Farrow, his left arm extending across the top of my arm. And he interlaces our fingers on the stone slab wall. His hand sheathing my hand, our rings on our fingers are in perfect sighttogether.
Farrow presses a burning kiss to my shoulder blade. And as his other hand descends to a place of need and want, his mouth travels to my ear. In my fantasy, I never hear what he whispers. He knows this is what I wouldn’t let myself dreamof.
And as he kisses the nape of my neck, the line of my jaw, I wait and wait, and softly, so damn softly and huskily, Farrow whispers, “I loveyou.”
Light bursts in me, and I spin on him, our hands instantly grip each other in starved yearning. We kiss like we haven’t kissed in eons. Heat blistered and raw, we wrestle in the shower for thelead.
