“I know. I am too. So I don’t want to rock the boat. But the truth is I hate the idea of your moving far away. I hate it.” His expression was briefly almost fierce. “But I also want you to be free to move anywhere you want and take the best job you can possibly get. So I thought... I thought...”
He reached down and dug around in his pocket. He pulled his hand back out with a small jeweler’s pouch.
Vivian gasped audibly.
He pulled out a ring. A pretty princess-cut diamond on an elegantly simple gold band. “I’ve been wanting to give you this for a while. I love you more than anything, Vivian, and I don’t want to live another day of my life without you. But I don’t want you to think I’m trying to trap you here by asking you to marry me. You can still move anywhere you want. Take any job in the world. I want you to have everything you want and be everything you want to be. But I really want to come with you.”
She’d been frozen as he spoke, but now her shoulders started to shake. Her face scrunched up. "Rick! Really?”
“Of course, really.” His eyes were smiling and tender, but he gave his head a little shake. “I didn’t say that quite right. I want to marry you more than anything. And I also want to come with you when you move. It’s not that I want to marry you just so I can tag along.”
She was half-laughing and half-crying as she threw herself at him in a tight hug. He wrapped his arms around her, and they hugged for a long time.
Finally, she pulled away, wiping away a few tears. “But you’re not going to want to leave your mom, are you?”
“She’s doing fine now after her surgery. Now that she can walk and drive without problem, she’s completely independent. But I talked to her. And she said whenever she gets to the point where she needs more help, she’ll move to wherever we are. She really wants me to marry you too.”
“Oh my God, Rick, I love you both so much!” She hugged him again. Then pulled his face down so she could kiss him.
“Uh, baby?”
“Yes.” She was still pressing her mouth against his in little kisses.
“You never actually gave me an answer. So is this a yes? Will you marry me?”
“Yes, of course I will! I don’t want to live another day of my life without you either.”
They were still in the hallway outside her apartment, but they remedied that pretty quickly.
The weekend was over before they emerged from her apartment again.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I hope you enjoyed The Older Man Plan! The next two stories in the Coble Coffee series, Seduction Instruction and The Sunshine Strategy, will be coming soon.
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About Noelle Adams
NOELLE HANDWROTE HER first romance novel in a spiral-bound notebook when she was twelve, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. She has lived in eight different states and currently resides in Virginia, where she writes full time, reads any book she can get her hands on, and offers tribute to a very spoiled cocker spaniel.
She loves travel, art, history, and ice cream. After spending far too many years of her life in graduate school, she has decided to reorient her priorities and focus on writing contemporary romances. For more information, please check out her website: noelle-adams.com.