Page 25 of Unexpected Sweetheart
“But I have everything I could ever wish for right here.”
“Then let’s wish to always be this happy,” he says, placing the quarter in my palm. Except, when I look at it, it isn’t a quarter at all. It’s an engagement ring.
“Oh, my lord! Ryan Oakley, what is this? And what would you have done if I’d thrown it in the fountain without looking?” I stare at it with wide eyes.
“I would have dived in there and fished it out,” he says, grinning as he plucks it from my hand and takes a knee. “It was my mother’s ring. And I really want it to stay in our family.”
“Ryan.” I place my hand on my chest and release a happy gasp.
“Lorelei Jensen. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“Of course,” I say, bouncing on my toes as he slides the ring onto my left hand. “I love you, Ryan. I love you so much. So, yes, I want to be your wife. I want to be the mother of your children and your partner for the rest of time. You’ve made me happier than I ever thought possible.”
He rises to his feet and wraps me in his arms. “And you’ve given me the kind of happiness I didn’t think existed but always hoped to find. I know I fought against this hard in the beginning, but you have to know, I will fight a thousand times harder to keep you, Lorelei. I’m never letting you go.”
“I never want you to, Ryan. You’re it for me.”
“And you’re it for me,” he murmurs, sealing our engagement with a deep and soulful kiss before whisking me back to the ranch and consummating it, over, and over, and over again.
Ryan
Exactly three weeks after it arrived and delivered to me the love of my life, that black limousine returns.
I kind of hoped this wouldn’t happen, but in my experience, men like Lorelei’s father don’t just sit back and accept the word ‘no’ without a fight. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous as fuck.What if she hands that ring back and agrees to go?
We’re barely a few days into our engagement. Barely two weeks into our relationship. Can that stand up to a lifetime of being her father’s daughter?
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“I had a feeling he’d do this,” Lorelei says with a sigh as she looks out the window of our kitchen. I say ‘our’ because that’s how I see everything now. The moment I took her to my bed, she became a part of me. Everything that’s mine is hers. Our futures are entwined, and I don’t think I can live without her.
But I’m also not a man who would force her to do something she doesn’t want to do.
I’m an asshole, sure. But not that much of one.
“He’s come to take you home,” I state, already steeling myself in case this doesn’t go my way.Please don’t leave me.
I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my entire life.
“I alreadyamhome, Ryan,” she says, meeting my eyes before she hooks her fingers in mine. “I agreed to be your wife, and there’s nothing he can do to change that.”
She lifts up on her toes and presses her lips to mine, making a hell of a lot of that tension slip away with that perfect mouth of hers. I’ve never been a man to be so reliant onanythingfrom another person. So this feeling, this codependence, is new for me. It’s this odd feeling of weakness and strength all wrapped up in a scary as fuck package that you really, really want.
“Good. I didn’t want to have to drag your ass back in here and chain you to the bed so you couldn’t leave.”
“I think if you go upstairs, you’ll find all of my suitcases in boxes since I’m selling them online.”
“You’re what?” This is news to me.
“There’s a lot of money in those suitcases. And not just the cost of the luggage, but the clothes inside them too. I went through and separated out anything that doesn’t suit life on the ranch—as well as all those dresses you blew your stack over.”
“I did not blow my stack.”
“You forbade me to wear them out of the house.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t wear them for me.”
Her eyes light up, and she runs a finger down the seam of my shirt. “You want that?”
