Page 109 of Mistletoe and Mayday
Vegas is there, restored, somehow, the glitter swirling hypnotically when I lift it with trembling hands. Beside it rests the custom one he gave me of our cabin with its tiny figures and distant wolves. But there are others—Chicago, Seattle, New York. Every city we’ve visited together during our year of loving each other.
“You brought them all here,” I whisper, over the gentle crackling fire. “Even Vegas.”
I rotate the globe in my palm, watching the familiar glitter dance through the liquid. The one I hurled to save him from wolves. The one I thought was lost forever in Alaska’s wilderness.
I squint at the cabin one, realizing something’s not quite right. I inspect it, noticing discrepancies. The base seems heavier, more substantial than I remember. The glass appears clearer, the details of the miniature wolves more precise. This isn’t my original snow globe. It’s similar but...different.
“Wait.” I hold it toward the window light. “This isn’t thesame one.”
I give it a gentle shake, expecting the familiar swirl of fake snow and glitter, but something else catches the light—brilliant specks refracting sunlight into countless tiny rainbows across my face and hands. Not snow. Not glitter.
Diamonds. Tiny, perfect diamonds swirling around the cabin.
My hands freeze mid-motion, the precious stones continuing their mesmerizing dance within the glass dome.
“Sebastian?” My voice emerges as a breathless squeak, eyes fixed on the impossible sight in my palms.
I tilt the globe, watching as the diamonds slide across the glass, catching the firelight now. Each one throws off prisms of light that dance across the cabin walls. Are these real?
“Are these—” The question dies unfinished as realization dawns.
It’s not just the diamonds inside that are different. The cabin replica isn’t our disaster shelter, either. It’s this cabin—the restored one, recreated down to the most minute detail.
I turn around and nearly drop the priceless globe.
Sebastian kneels before me, bathed in golden firelight. His eyes—those blue eyes that once calculated everything, measured everything—hold mine with unwavering certainty. No trace remains of his former perfect mask. Just him—raw, real, looking at me like I’m the most valuable treasure in his entire collection.
“Bailey Monroe,” he says, his voice catching slightly. “When our plane went down in Alaska, I thought it was the worst day of my life. I was running from betrayal, from failure, from myself.” He takes a deep breath. “But now I know it was the best day of my life. The day the universe decided I needed to be stranded with the most infuriating, amazing woman I’ve ever met.”
Tears blur my vision as I clutch the diamond-filled snow globe against my heart like a talisman.
“You saved my life that day,” he continues. “Not just with your flying skills, though, let’s be honest, that landing was terrible.”
“It was not!” I protest, making him laugh.
“You saved me by being exactly who you are—unfiltered, unstoppable, unafraid to tell me when I was being an idiot.” He reaches for my free hand. “You taught me to laugh again when I thought I’d forgotten how. You showed me what it means to be real in a world of perfect facades.”
A tear escapes down my cheek. I don’t wipe it away.
“Being stranded with you was the greatest gift I’ve ever received, Bailey. You crash-landed into my meticulously ordered existence and shattered every boundary.” His thumb traces my knuckles with tender precision. “I never want to find my way back to that old life. I want to build a new one with you—messy, unpredictable, and real.”
He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a small box. Inside nests a ring that steals my breath away. The center diamond is enormous, set in platinum and surrounded by smaller diamonds that catch light from every angle. It’s extravagant, breathtaking, and completely overwhelming.
“Bailey Monroe, I promise to be your co-pilot through every storm, every clear sky, every adventure that awaits us. I promise to never ask you to be anything less than who you are—even when you’re driving me to the brink of insanity.” His voice deepens, grows even more serious. “I promise to always fight for us, to choose you every single day, and to collect snow globes with you in every city we visit for the rest of our lives.”
My heart threatens to burst through my ribcage. This can’tbe happening. But it is. Sebastian Lockhart—the man who once planned every minute of his existence—kneels before me, looking up as though I’m the answer to a question he’s been searching for his entire life.
“Will you marry me?”
I laugh through my tears, shaking my head at this impossible, perfect, ridiculous man.
“Well, duh, Mr. Perfect. Was there ever any doubt?”
I melt into his kiss, still clutching the snow globe in one hand while the other finds its way to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. His arms encircle me, lifting me off my feet as we kiss with the same desperate intensity of that first night in the cabin, warming each other against an impossible storm.
When we break apart, his eyes are dark, intense. No longer Mr. Perfect—just Sebastian, my Sebastian, looking at me with a heat that makes my knees weak.
“You know,” he says, his voice rough, “you’re not flying the plane right now.”
