Chapter 19
Rosalie was in awe. This place was wonderful. The way the place was laid out made her feel like she was a mermaid in the ocean, seeing the fish everywhere around her. It was a dream come true. She wanted to tell Eric that, but she was afraid he might laugh at her. Granted, a lot of girls had wished they were mermaids when they were younger, but she still wished it was true at her current age. This was as close as she was going to get, so she just reveled in it and planned to enjoy every minute of it. The man with the violin was a fairy tale touch. No one actually had this kind of thing happen to them. She was pretty sure that if she told Vanessa this little detail, she would laugh and say that Rosalie was making it up. This sort of romance only existed in teenage girls’ dreams and romantic movies that all women swooned over. She was making sure that she inventoried every single second to convert to long term memory later, and to record it in her journal. If it was written down, then maybe it wouldn’t feel like just a dream to her anymore.
“Are you having a good time?” Eric’s voice jolted her out of her reverie. She snapped out of her dream world and back into reality. Her smile was blinding.
“Is that even a question? This is the most amazing place I’ve ever been to! It’s just so beautiful! I feel like I’m in the ocean.” She bit her lip. She’d almost mentioned the mermaid part. She prayed that he wouldn’t pick up on that. He smiled at her, and she didn’t know if she was imagining it or if it was really happening, but he was looking at her in that way that all the men in romance movies look at the women they love. Her heart started to flutter, and it brought a little flush to her cheeks, making her eyes sparkle and her skin glow. Eric was blown away by how beautiful she was. The way that she looked at him like he was the only man in the world. That was something he’d never had before. Yes, girls had looked at him like he was the paycheck that would get them anything they wanted. He was used to that. It wasn’t what he’d wanted, though, and that was part of the reason why he’d never gotten close to the girls that his mother had paraded in front of him.
“I wanted to do this for you. To make it right.” This was how the speech started, that much he knew, but he couldn’t remember the rest of it. Her beautiful eyes were looking at him in question now, and all the words he’d been rehearsing for the last week went right out of his head. He swallowed hard. His eyes met those of the waiter over Rosalie’s head. She was still looking at him askance. He gave a curt jerk of his head, that she would have never known was a signal, and the waiter disappeared.
“What do you mean? There’s nothing to make right.” That was another thing about her. She was such an amazing person. Even if someone slighted her, she’d never bring it up. She’d forgive them wholeheartedly, and without question. Even though she’d thought he had abandoned her, had broken up with her by just stopping all communication, here she was, looking at him with such love in her eyes. He wanted that for the rest of his life. He’d known it before, but now it got to the point where he refused to live without it. He’d known that he loved her, and he’d wanted someone to look at him that way, at first it didn’t matter who. Now he knew he wanted her to look at him that way for the rest of his life. The waiter came by with two glasses of champagne. His eyes darted up at the tray, and he saw the sparkle of the ring in her glass. When they got their glasses, the waiter bowed and left, smirking a little at Eric and giving him an encouraging pat on the back.
“I want you to know that I didn’t want to hurt you at all. I wasn’t breaking up with you, and I never want you to think that I would break up with you just by not speaking to you. I have enough honor in me that I would sit down with you face to face and talk about it.” Pain flashed across her face, and he realized that he was ripping open the wound that she was trying desperately to forget. He kicked himself mentally for doing that to her.
“I’m sorry I ever thought that about you. I just hadn’t had a real relationship before, and I thought that maybe I had thrown myself into it too much and pushed you away.” The smile was gone from her face, and tears threatened. This was not working out the way he’d wanted it to at all.
“Please don’t cry, Rosalie. There’s nothing that you’ve done wrong. Nothing at all.” She looked up at him, trying to force a smile.
“Well, I think I made a mistake when I said you should wait for six months to decide if you really want to be with me.” Her gaze fell on the floor and her cheeks heated up. She was hinting that she wished that he wasn’t going to wait, and he could pick up on that. He grinned at her, but she didn’t see it. Well, that was something that they could be on the same page about.
“Nonsense. I say we drink a toast to new beginnings.” He lifted his glass, and nudged hers closer to her. She picked it up without even looking in it. She raised the glass and took a sip, eyes going wide when the ring pressed up against her lips. He smiled as he watched her pull the glass away from her mouth. She looked at him, then at the ring, then back at him. Tears started to pour down her cheeks as he slid from his chair down onto a knee. He picked up her hand from where it lay in her lap.
“Oh my god. This is really happening, isn’t it?” He was sure that the question was rhetorical, so he decided to launch right into the proposal. He didn’t know what to say, so there was no way that he could have practiced this, but he knew that he’d be able to speak right from the heart when the time came.
“Rosalie. You’re different from any woman I’ve ever met. Even when I was playing the asshole and being as bad and horrible as I could be to you, you found good qualities in me that I never even knew were there. Or if I’d had an inkling, I’d buried it so no one else could see. Something about you drew out my secret, and when I blurted out the truth, I was sure that you would tell every person you knew. But you didn’t. You kept my secret, and if I’d asked you to, you would have taken it to your grave. That’s a kind of loyalty that I’ve never gotten from anyone in my life. You support me in anything I do, and again, that’s something I’ve never had. My own parents don’t even know my hopes and dreams like you do. I can’t talk to them the way I do with you. You’re there for me no matter what. You look at me like I’m the only man in the world, and I want to be that for you. You look at me like I can do anything. It makes me feel like I’m a better person than I really am, and I want to be what you deserve. I promise you that I will spend the rest of my life proving that to you, if only you’ll let me. So, Rosalie, what I’m saying is, I love you. Will you marry me?” The soft trickle of tears now gave way to a real flood. He had to scramble to get her a napkin to wipe her face with before she could answer him. She was nodding her head, however, and that gave him hope. He didn’t realize that he’d been holding his breath.
“Of course I will! I look at you like you’re the only man in the world because you’re the only man in my world.” That simple phrase warmed his heart, and he was pretty sure that he was going to start crying himself soon. He took the ring from the glass, which wasn’t easy since he was on one knee and fishing it out with a fork. He quickly rinsed it in a glass of water, using the hem of his jacket to dry it off before slipping it on her finger. He held her hand for a moment or two more, locking this into his memory before he got up, used her hand to pull her to her feet, then wrapped her in his arms, kissing her long and slow, hoping to steal her breath away. Her arms came up and wrapped around him, pulling him closer into her softness. His eyes closed, and for a moment, he could forget where they were. He could forget that there were other people around, because in that moment, they were the only two people in the world. He could have forgotten all that, if it had been up to him, but the rest of the patrons of the restaurant were hell bent on ruining that for him. They started to clap and whoop, and both of them turned bright red as they pulled apart. The waiter stood by them, smiling. He couldn’t clap because he had a tray in his hands, which he then set down at the table.
“This is our famous dessert dish, and it’s on the house. Congratulations!” He looked like he might have had a tear in his eye, too, and that made Eric think that maybe his proposal had been ok. His biggest fear was that he would botch it up somehow. He was glad that it was over, and that she’d said yes. As they sat down again, their dinner dishes cleared away, they shared the dessert, smiling at each other like newlyweds.
Rosalie couldn’t believe it. Of course it hadn’t been six months yet, and so she should have said no, but she couldn’t. If she’d said no this time, she had nothing to guarantee that he would ask again later. This was her chance, and she wasn’t going to let him slip out of her fingers. She loved him and she wasn’t going to do anything to risk not being with him. After they’d finished the food, he took her arm, escorting her out to the front door. The valet brought the car around, and he was the perfect gentleman.
“Wait, aren’t we taking the carriage back?” She was confused. They’d come in the carriage, and it had been so romantic. She’d hoped that they would be able to go back in it.
“No, the driver had an emergency and had to cancel.” That made sense. But how had the car gotten here? He saw the question in her eyes and smiled. “My sister and her friend brought it by. I told them that I’d need a ride for me and my new fiancé.” Rosalie smiled. At least his sister seemed to be on board with Eric’s plans for his life, but that still left his mother. And the father that she’d never met. Well, if she had Eric on her side, then she could do anything. She’d worry about all of that later, however, because right now she was with the man she loved, and he’d put a ring on her finger.