Say yes? The words had barely registered when Lucas dropped to one knee. He never took his eyes off hers as he reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small leather box.
“Paige Parker, you turned my life upside down.” He smiled her favorite crooked smile. “You brought light into my dark world, and love into my heart. For that I will forever be grateful, and if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you just how much I love you.” Tears pricked Paige’s eyes as she watched Lucas ease the box open. Inside sat an emerald-cut diamond on a simple platinum band. It was exquisite and simple and exactly what Paige would have selected. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
His wife? Paige had given up on the notion of marriage nearly four years ago, and yet there she stood in a dilapidated brownstone gazing down at the man who had not only shown her how to love again, but how to let herself be loved.
Still, she hesitated.
Lucas’s brows shot up. “Gotta admit, I was hoping for a more immediate response,” he teased.
Of course she had wanted to blurt out Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. But…
“There’s just one thing,” she said.
His expression was one of utter amusement. “Are you really going to turn my proposal into a negotiation?”
She laughed. “No, but my answer does have one condition.”
Lucas cocked his head to one side. “Which is?”
“Maddie’s blessing.”
A wide grin spread across his face. “Are you kidding? The first words out of her mouth were ‘flower girl.’ She’s been tossing petals up and down the hallway all week.”
“All week?” Paige’s eyes grew wide. “How did you get her to keep quiet that long?”
“It just so happens that five-and-a-half-year-olds are capable of keeping a secret. Or so I’ve been told. Repeatedly.” They shared a quiet laugh as he removed the ring from between the two rows of satin. “So, what do you say?” His playful tone switched to a heartfelt sincerity. “Will you marry me?”
She held out her hand. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”
He looked at her outstretched hand and smiled. “You’re not expecting to shake on it, are you?”
Paige rolled her eyes. The man kneeling before her had not only captured her heart, but he made her laugh every damn day, which was almost better than the orgasms he gave her nearly as often. Almost. “No,” she said, wiggling her ring finger. “I thought you’d like to do the honors.”
Lucas took her hand and slid the ring on her finger. When he was done, she pulled him to his feet and stepped into his arms.
“Did you buy this house?” He’d wanted to start looking at houses the moment he and Maddie had arrived in the city, but Paige had convinced him to take things slow, although the irony of that wasn’t lost on her even as she spoke the words. Nothing about her relationship with Lucas had been slow. But buying property just so you could be close to a woman you wanted to try dating seemed a bit extreme, even for them. In the end, she’d convinced him to rent a house in the school district he’d selected, but after six months he told her he was ready to lay down some roots.
“I did. Thought my fiancée would love it.”
Paige reared back to look at him. “Pretty confident, huh?” she teased. There was a time when her control-freak tendencies would have gone into hyperdrive over such a major decision. But when Paige was with Lucas, she not only didn’t sweat the small stuff, but even larger decisions were far less daunting. Nothing seemed to matter nearly as much now that her heart was so full of love.
“About the house or the fiancée?”
“Both.”
He shook his head. “Not confident. Hopeful.”
“It looks—”
“Like it needs a lot of work? I know, but wait until you see the ideas I have for fixing it up.” His almost childlike enthusiasm faded ever so slightly. “Of course, if you don’t like it, I can just flip it.”
Paige pressed her fingers to his lips. “I was going to say it looks perfect.” Lucas lowered his head and kissed her with all the emotion of a man who’d found exactly what he needed.
A tap at the bride’s room door pulled her from her sweet memories. She eased the door open. “Is the coast clear?”
Lucas nodded as he slipped into the room. The sight of him took her breath away. She loved her sexy innkeeper no matter what he was wearing, and particularly when he wore nothing at all. But Lucas Croft in a tuxedo was almost too much for her brain to handle.
From the look on his face, it was safe to say she was having the same effect on him. “Damn, Paige, you look…”
When she’d asked Lucas to come to the bride’s room, she hadn’t really considered the fact that his reaction to seeing her in her wedding dress for the first time would be private, and not down the length of a church aisle with two hundred sets of eyes watching them. But now that they were there, hidden away from the world, not to mention their wedding guests, Paige found herself grateful for this intimate moment. Not only because of the news she was about to share, but because of the opportunity it afforded them to bask in the emotions of the day before all the craziness began.
After several long beats, Lucas swallowed, then attempted to speak. But despite his efforts to clear his throat, his voice remained rough. “Would it be bad form for me to undress you right now?”
A rush of excitement raced across her skin, and for a moment she lost all sense of place and time. But then her gaze fell to the full-length mirror behind him, and all at once she remembered standing in front of it for what felt like an eternity as she was strapped into her dress like Scarlett O’Hara. “You wouldn’t be asking that if you had any idea how long it took Sammy to fasten all these buttons.”
Lucas drew closer and snaked his arms around her waist. “I look forward to unbuttoning them,” he said as his fingers strummed the length of her back. “Slowly.”
Buttons or not, the fire burning in his eyes was damn near enough to have her consummating the marriage right then and there. He lowered his head, but Paige pulled back just before his lips touched hers.
“Ah, ah, ah,” she chastised, then smiled at his wounded expression, knowing full well it was an act. “You might have seen me, but no way are you getting that kiss. Not before the priest says so.” Paige might not have been much of a traditionalist, but even she drew the line somewhere.
Lucas straightened. “Fine. But Father Murphy might not approve of the kiss I have in mind.”
Sweet Jesus, the man could turn her to a puddle with just the promise of a kiss. No wonder she was a knocked-up bride.