Page 38 of The Billionaire & the Virgin Chef
“Surething.”
“Wait, were you here for dinner earlier? I’d love to prepare something for youboth.”
“That’s not necessary.Actually…”
He pauses. My peripheral vision picks up the wait staff just standing there. Watching us. Then Blair emerges from his side office. And Patrick is leaning against his reception desk, looking ourway.
“Is everything okay?” Iask.
“More than okay. I just wanted tosay…”
Dylan takes a step back. A movement that includes going down on oneknee.
“Oh my gosh!” I hear myself cryout.
He reaches into his pocket but comes up empty. “Uh,Vanessa.”
“Oh yes! Right!” She pulls out a ring box from her purse. “Sorry about that. I was admiring it all the way overhere.”
Taking the ring box, he lifts it toward me and opens it to reveal a sparkling diamondring.
I’m barely able to breathe as he removes it from the box and takes my lefthand.
“We’re here in a place where you’re surrounded by family and friends you love and able to live your passion. I couldn’t think of a better place to tell you... Emily Fields, I love you. We haven’t been together for years and years, but the second I laid eyes on you, I knew we shared something special. Now, I can’t picture a life without you in it. Will you make me the happiest man on earth and marryme?”
My head bobs up and down, saying yes without words as my hands shake as much as my weak knees, and joyful tears I can’t control run down my face. “Oh my god, yes. I’ll marry you. I love you. I will. Oh my god,baby.”
Dylan slides the gold ring with its princess-cut solitaire diamond onto my finger. He gets to his feet and tugs me into his arms, smashing his lips tomine.
Vanessa rushes up to Dylan and me, wrapping her arms around us both. “Welcome to the family, Emily! I’m so excited for youboth!”
“Thank you,” I say through my raspyvoice.
“Oh, and Dylan, we’d better prepare her for Diane,” she muses lightly. “Once she gets word that you’re engaged, she’s liable to blindside you both about her God-awful prenupspeech.”
“Let me handle Diane,” Dylan says. “The last thing I’m going to do is start the rest of my life with Emily by even looking at a document that’s all about preparing for what we have toend.”
Blair gives me a thumbs-up from his spot in the corner, his eyes glassy from where I’m standing. My heart feels so full of love now. I wish Mom, Grams and Joy could be here to share this with me, but Dylan’s right that this place, these people, they really are my familytoo.
