Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
She laughs and I pause what I’m doing to take it in. Watching her happy. With me. It never gets old.
“Shall I set the table?” she asks.
“Hmmm, I had a different idea.”
“The balcony?” she suggests. “The sun and the blue sky make it feel like June.”
“I think Paris is having its summer early. I swear I need to start putting on sun cream before my walks.”
“Watching the sunset from the balcony will be perfect,” she says.
“Let’s go upstairs to the roof terrace,” I say. We’ve never eaten up there. Up until today, there hasn’t been anywhere to sit. But I’ve fixed that. The sunset over the Parisian rooftops is just the right atmosphere I’m looking for.
“Sounds good,” she says. “I’ll bring the napkins, cutlery, and some water.”
I take the plates and follow her up the spiral staircase to the roof garden.
“What?” she says as she gets to the top of the stairs, her voice filled with shock and wonder. I have to bite back a grin. “When did you do this?”
I managed to find the same tartan that was on the sofa in the cottage in Rum—it’s taken me a while—but I got some blankets made and they’re on the floor, along with some oversized cushions and a low table.
We set our things down on the table and she puts her arms around my neck. “Is this the same as the sofa in Rum?” I nod, pleased she’s remembered. “Gosh, the view is so pretty up here.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say, looking right at her. Watching her in the setting sun over Paris, I can’t hold it in any longer. “Marry me, Ellie.”
Her eyes widen and her mouth slides into a smile. She shrugs one shoulder. “Of course.”
“Of course.”
“Of course I’ll marry you. But you know that.” She strokes my face and I sink into her touch, knowing I’ll have it forever. “We’ve both known we’re going to be together forever since…” She looks at me to fill in the missing word.
“The first night in Rum,” I add.
She nods and we both sink onto the cushions facing Paris below. “Yeah. Definitely that first night in Rum. Married or not—it doesn’t change anything. For me.”
“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do,” I say. I understand the history with Shane now and I don’t want her to agree to marry me if she doesn’t want it for herself. But if it were up to me to choose, I’d marry her. I’d tell the world this woman promised to be mine forever.
“I want to be with you forever,” she says. “I have no doubt about that. But I don’t care to get married. If you want to, I’m happy to.”
I start to protest, but she places a finger on my lips to silence me.
“Doing things because they’ll make you happy, makes me happy. Not because I don’t know anything but to sacrifice myself, but because we’re a team. You do things to make me happy. You moved to Paris, for goodness’ sake. We’re equals. We give and take. That’s what a partnership is. That’s what a marriage is—ring or no ring.”
It’s almost exactly how my father described his marriage to my mother, and we could do a lot worse than have a marriage like theirs.
“I love you,” I say.
“I love you,” she replies. “And I’ll stand up in front of our friends and family in a white dress and tell everyone that I plan to love you forever. It’s not such a sacrifice.” The smile she beams up at me warms me, like she’s the sun and I’m just along for the ride, soaking up her rays. “And I’ll wear your ring—as long as it’s pretty.”
I take the ring box from under the table and glance at her as she shoots me a look that says I’ve surprised her, and she’s not sad about it. I open it and she gasps. I hadn’t realized that was the reaction I was looking for until now.
“Yeah, I’ll wear that ring,” she says, and now it’s my time to chuckle.
I take the oval diamond perched on a platinum band and place it on her finger. It fits perfectly.
“I do,” she says. “Until the end of time.”
* * *
A week after that
Ellie
From the passenger seat, I hit loudspeaker and answer the second call from my mum within half an hour. We’re going to Norfolk first and then heading south to my parents in a couple of days. It’s the first time my parents will meet Zach, but we’ve done video calls. When I first told them that Zach and I were together, I could tell from the sighs and the punctured silences that they expected Zach to be a lot like Shane. But unbeknownst to me, he called them before he proposed, and things shifted. Since then, it’s like Zach’s the son they never had.