Chapter Forty-Four
Indi
I opened one eye. I was still on the train back to Seattle. Opening the other eye as well, I yawned and sat up. “What’s the time?” I mumbled.
It was only then that I realized Blake wasn’t right next to me, like he had been when I fell asleep on the seat. I looked around. He wasn’t in the main part of the carriage, so I assumed he’d gone to the bathroom.
I was about to settle back into the seat and finish my nap when I realized how light my left hand felt, and my stomach lurched.
Oh, shit.
The wedding and engagement rings that Blake gave me all those weeks ago were missing. I must’ve let them slip off somewhere along the line, and I hadn’t even noticed till now. Shit, shit, shit!
I frantically checked everywhere around me—on the seat, under the seat, on my clothing to see they’d simply gotten caught on my cardigan somehow.
Nope.
Gone.
I thought back to the boat earlier this morning and tried to recall whether or not I had the rings on then. Surely they hadn’t slipped off before that?
Honestly, I couldn’t remember. I’d become so accustomed to wearing the gorgeous rings that I barely felt their weight most of the time. It was only now that they were gone that I finally noticed.
A sound made me look up, and I saw Blake entering the main part of our private carriage. “You’re awake,” he said. Affection was twinkling in his eyes, and my heart sank. I had to tell him that I’d lost the rings, and he might not be so affectionate then.
The white gold wedding band once belonged to his beloved late mother, and the diamond engagement ring was purchased by him for a large amount of money before we left Seattle a month ago. He told me weeks ago that it simply looked far more expensive than it was worth, but I now knew that was a lie—that was back when I didn’t know what he did for a living, and he was trying to keep it from me.
I didn’t blame him for that; men in his position had to try their hardest not to reveal their substantial wealth immediately, just in case of gold-diggers.
I wasn’t a gold-digger, but I was an idiot for losing the rings.
“Blake, I’m really sorry,” I began, a tremor in my voice.
He frowned. “Sorry? For what?”
I held up my left hand. “I lost the rings you gave me. I’m so sorry; I didn’t even notice them fall off. I don’t even know how they fell off! They were the perfect size for me. But obviously they did, because I can’t—”
Blake was smiling inexplicably, and he cut me off midsentence with a ‘shh’.
“Why are you shushing me?” I asked, my forehead crinkling with confusion.
“You didn’t lose the rings. I took them off your hand a few minutes ago,” he replied.
My shoulders sagged. “Oh,” I mumbled, looking down at my lap. That made sense. They belonged to him, after all, and we weren’t actually married. Still, that didn’t quell the disappointment in my heart right now.
“I took them off your hand,” he repeated. “Because we aren’t engaged or married. But I’d like that to change.”
My eyes snapped back up. “What?”
Blake grinned and dropped to one knee, and he held out the sparkling diamond engagement ring that had sat upon my left ring finger for the better part of the last month.
“I know this is fast, and I know it seems sudden. But Indi, in the last few weeks you and I have gone through far more than most couples will in their entire lifetimes, and we survived. We got each other through it, even when we were mad at each other, and we came out shining,” he said. He paused to let those words sink in, then went on. “I’m so in love with you, and I can’t imagine going home with you just as my girlfriend. I want more than that. I want you to be my fiancée, and then my wife. For real this time. So what do you say, Indi? Will you take back this ring and agree to marry me?”
My eyes were as wide as saucers. I was so shocked I wasn’t sure if I could speak, but somehow one word tumbled out of me anyway. “Yes!”
He slid the ring back onto my finger, then stood up and wrapped me in his arms. “I love you so much,” he said. His voice had dropped and was hoarse with emotion.
“I love you too,” I replied, my face nearly splitting open from how much smiling I was currently doing.
I would never get tired of hearing him tell me he loved me. He could say it a hundred times a day and I would still crave the sound of those words.
He was right about what he said. In the last month we’d gone through hell and back. We’d had the crap scared out of us on TV, dealt with a minor pregnancy scare, been threatened with a gigantic lawsuit if we tried to leave the show, and then we’d dealt with a psychotic murderer who very nearly stabbed me and threw me over a cliff.
Yeah, that was a lot.
But I’d learned so much from the awful experiences. Gained so much. I’d stopped keeping myself so closed off; stopped pushing people away when they tried to care for me. I’d allowed my guard down for once in my life, and I didn’t regret it.
I’d changed. We both had. And what we had as a result of that was love.
True love.
There was nothing better.