Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Playing Scrabble will always remind me of that first time with Lukas, bravely putting naked down. I feel like a different woman from the one who did that. It was difficult even to look him in the eye back then. I never dreamed we’d be thinking about the future, about more than steaminess, more than pleasure. I never dreamed Kayla would know and approve.
As we play, I glance at Lukas. He seems a little… off. He’s tapping his foot and drumming his fingers against his leg. He’s probably still getting over what happened with Sebastian. I can’t blame him. I’ll be there every step of the way. I’ll always—
My breath catches when I see what he’s put down on the board. I hardly even register that Kayla touches Finn’s hand, and quietly, they leave the room. I’m just staring down at the letters. I can suddenly feel the world spinning and my heart pounding through my bones.
Kayla shuts the door, giving us privacy, as I stare at the words.
“Maci,” Lukas whispers, kneeling in front of me.
My world becomes blurry with tears. Happiness touches every part of me. It flows through me like water—like the heat of the pool flowed through us the first time we had sex and how the heat of our love flows through me every single second.
Marry me, the words read.
I turn to find Lukas with a ring box in his hand, his eyes glistening like he’s going to cry, too. He opens the box and shows me a large round blue diamond set within a white platinum band with small wave-like designs etched into it. It’s the most beautiful piece of jewelry I’ve ever seen. I want to sketch it right away from a thousand different angles.
“I love you, Maci. I love you so, so much.”
“I love you too.” I’m sobbing, my words tangled with emotion.
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I say, then repeat it because I’m scared he won’t understand me through the sobs. “Yes, yes, yes.”
He smiles like I’ve never seen before, his whole face bright, the whole world bright. It’s such a contrast to the past few weeks, constantly worrying everything will explode. Now, it has exploded into light, into the future, into love.
He slides the ring onto my finger, the metal kissing me like it belongs there. Then he stands and sweeps me to my feet, pulling me into his embrace. I wrap my arms around my man, my fiancé. When our lips meet, it’s hotter than ever before, the kiss scorching with a sense of belonging, with a profound sense of the future. We’re floating in a pool of pure love and never want to come up for air.
“Can we come in yet?” Kayla yells from the other side of the closed door.
Lukas and I laugh together. “Yes, come in!” I yell.
Kayla pushes the door open. It’s almost impossible to believe how happy she looks, overjoyed, her smile even bigger than mine. It’s like she’s just ecstatic that I’ve finally found somebody, that her dad has finally found somebody, and she doesn’t care if it’s weird.
“If I had any doubts before,” she says. “They just evaporated.”
She opens her arms, and a moment later, Lukas and I hug her at the same time. Emotion flares between us. Then Kayla turns and says to Finn, standing at the door, “Get over here, will you?”
Finn chuckles and joins us. All four of us hug. Maybe it’s the most complicated group hug ever. Perhaps if somebody else watched us, they’d think, This will never work. Yet I know, deep in my heart, heck, in my bones and soul, it will more than work. I know this is just the start of our adventure together.
“Right,” Kayla says. “Are we playing or not?”
We all laugh.
EPILOGUE
LUKAS
One Month Later
“What do you think about this?” Kayla says while floating ahead of me, her fairy wings flapping. She waves a wand, and suddenly, the Barbados beach becomes a traditional church in the middle of winter, with light snow falling.
I grin, following after her on my hoverboard. The VR is back up and running with no more issues. In fact, the advertising department thinks the fallout with Sebastian might’ve done us some good. There’s no such thing as bad press and all that.
I’m standing in my office, wearing the headset. It’s been a perfect wedding planning tool.
“I really think we should wait for Maci,” I say.
Kayla spins on me, wings fluttering even faster like a hummingbird. “Didn’t she tell you? She’s designated me as her wedding planner extraordinaire.”
I chuckle. “Then I guess I better listen.”
“Wait a sec. What about this?”
She waves her wand again, taking us to what looks exactly like Maci’s and my new home. The day after she accepted my proposal, I bought a six-bedroom out in the suburbs, the perfect place to start a marriage and, hopefully, one day, start a family.