Page 76 of Had To Be You

I smile. Then I try to calm my raging nerves by taking a deep breath. My smile remains plastered over my face. I couldn’t wipe it away if I tried.

I inch closer to the patio door and I feel the strong clasp of my father’s hand on my shoulder. I can see her sitting on the couch, the book in her lap, filling in the small boxes with her answers. My heart races in my chest.

Ellie continues to the next clue. “The gorgeous half of Liam’s just us.”

And that’s my cue. I shoot a wink at my mom and step through the patio doors towards Ellie. Anticipation zips through my body seeing the woman I want to spend forever with, wondering if she’s figured out the answer to the most monumental clue she’s ever been given.

“Ellie.” I say her name like it’s the only name that will ever really matter in my life. Her head whips around to face me. In four long strides, I’m standing in front of her. I drop to one knee on the stone patio beneath us, pulling a blue velvet box from my pocket and flipping it open. “The answer is Ellie.” Her hand covers her mouth, and her eyes go wide, her shocked expression telling me that I pulled this off. “Ellie-“

“Liam, are you serious?” she gasps, shifting forward in her seat, moving towards me, taking my face in her hands.

I nod, and her tears begin to escape her. Tear after tear, smile after smile. It all comes, she’s powerless to stop it. My face is inches from hers when I tell her. “You’re my reason to come home. My reason to smile. You’re my every reason. Every I love you. Every little thing. Marry me, Ells.”

“Yes! Liam, yes! So many times, yes,” she says, leaning in to kiss me. We kiss through smiles and laughter, while my heart beats like a drum in my chest. I slip the emerald cut diamond ring onto her finger then watch her jaw almost drop to the pavement. “My God, I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.”

She waggles her ring finger, unable to stop herself from staring at the shiny rock on her hand. It fits perfectly, just like the way she fits in my life. Seamlessly.

“I can’t wait to marry you, Liam.”

“Neither can I,” I tell her, kissing her like it’s the very first time. “I want it all with you. A future, a family. You are it for me. Forever and always.”

“Liam…” she murmurs, clutching her heart, her blue eyes shimmering with happiness. “I want it all too. With you. I can’t wait for our life together.”

I kiss her chastely because I know my parents are waiting for her answer, waiting to celebrate one of the biggest days of our lives with us.

“She said yes!” I holler, and my parents come running. Fifteen minutes later, the rest of my family are here: Parker, Olivia, Miles and Jules, lunching on the patio and toasting to our engagement.

“I can’t believe you were all in on this. It makes the proposal even more fantastic,” Ellie says to my family once we finish the lunch my mother prepared for us on the hunch that Ellie would say yes and we would have something to celebrate.

“That’s only because Liam couldn’t be trusted to pull this off by himself,” Miles shouts from the opposite end of the rectangular table we’re all gathered around, under a trellis of lavender morning glories and bougainvillea.

I roll my eyes, flipping him off, then press a kiss to Ellie’s cheek. Knowing Ellie has longed for siblings and a family she can see frequently, I thought she might like a proposal surrounded by the people who now consider her part of theirs.

“He deserves a gold star,” Olivia says. “The crossword puzzle proposal was brilliant.”

“He definitely does. It was perfect.” Ellie squeezes my thigh under the table. “I’ll never forget it.”

We finish dessert and say our goodbyes. In the car before pulling away, I lean over and kiss her neck. I am happy to finally have her all to myself.

“Hi,” I say into the column of her neck, my voice smoky, savoring her scent.

“Hi to you too, my fiancé,” she says, with a fevered smile. “Liam, remember back when we drove each other crazy? When I thought you were too cocky and serious, and you thought I was too wild and impulsive?”

“Of course I do. I never forget a thing when it comes to you. And for the record I’m absolutely in love with your wild, impulsive side. It’s one of the sexiest things about you.”

“I would like to also go on record, Liam Bennett. That broody, serious, cocky thing you do is insanely hot as fuck,” she says, mock fanning her face with her hand. “And look at us now. Hopelessly in love and getting married, about to spend the rest of our lives together. It feels like I have everything I’ve ever dreamed of and somehow more,” she says, holding up her hand, admiring her engagement ring as it glints and gleams.

I couldn’t agree more. I thought my life before Ellie was good. I thought I was happy. I thought I had everything I needed.

I know now that I was wrong.

It was missing Ellie.

“I think deep down, maybe I knew early on that you were the only one for me. I’ve wanted you since the first day I met you. I knew I had to have you,” I confess, setting my hand on her cheek. “That’s how I know it had to be you, Ellie.”

I must be doing something right, I figure, to have landed a catch like this gorgeous, witty brunette sitting in my passenger seat. They say you know when you know, and I couldn’t be more certain that Ellie is the one I want to spend forever with.

“Really, Liam? You always knew?”

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