Page 279 of One More Kiss

“Absolutely not. You have no idea how to woo the pants off people. You should stick to cold hard cash.”

“You haven’t wooed Cora’s dad,” Damian pointed out.

“Thank you, Damian, for your overstatement of the obvious.” I kneeled on the couch so I could punch him in the shoulder, which he accepted with a muffled laugh. “That man barely likes his own family. I never had a chance. So it’s a moot point.”

“Great. So it’s settled. You’ll stop letting your emotion cloud your judgment,” Trace said, adding a smirk at the end that told me how much pleasure he derived from calling me out like this.

“I’ve had about enough from your smartass mouth,” I said, closing the gap between us so that I could deliver a blow to his shoulder as well. He just laughed, because he knew he was right. Hell, even I knew he was right.

If this weren’t about the one person I loved more than life itself, I’d have no problem waltzing into her father’s office and putting it all on the line.

Cora was the one thing in my life I couldn’t stand to lose. I couldn’t gamble with her. I would accept no negative response to the big question.

But I had to treat this like another of the chameleon social moments I’d gotten so good at over the years. If this were a business deal, Trace was right—I’d be posturing the fuck out of this.

I ground my teeth as I played with the idea. I could already see it, however much I didn’t want to—meeting Allan on his turf somewhere. Sharing my meticulously crafted business plans. Telling him how much Cora meant to me. Practically getting down on one knee to propose to him too.

My brothers were right. They knew it. And they knew that I knew it, too.

I finally slipped the ring box into the right pocket of my sweats.

“You’ll both be my best men, right?” I asked.

I got two cocky smiles in return.

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