It’d been three days since I’d last seen Lauren. Seventy-two long hours since I’d walked out of her apartment to give us time and space to think about what we both wanted from our relationship. I wanted her, but I needed her to want me just as much. And if she didn’t … well, I wasn’t sure I saw the point in staying together. It would suck to break up, but until recently neither of us had seen our relationship going the distance, so I tried to tell myself I’d get over it.

Tried, and failed.

I didn’t think you simply got over a woman like Lauren Andrews.

On the bedside table, my phone pinged, alerting me to a new email. Because it was after midnight, I figured it was just spam or something, but I was an addict when it came to my phone, so I rolled over and grabbed it anyway. Launching the email application to my screen, I sucked in a quick breath when Lauren’s name appeared at the top of my inbox.

With a moment of brief, nervous hesitation, my thumb hovered over the bolded text, and then I swiped to open it.

My eyes rushed over her words, and when I reached the end, I started all over again, my jaw slack and my mind disbelieving.

Donal,

I spoke to Martha Kennedy, and with Harold back in the kitchen, we’re going to wrap up my contract with Dublin Rugby a week early. I didn’t want to tell you like this, but, you asked for space, so ...

I know I hurt you when I wasn’t able to say that I saw us growing old together. I never meant for that to happen, but you have to understand that nothing in my life has ever led me to believe that was a possibility for me. My mom and dad were more in love than any two people I’d ever seen, and he was ripped away from her. And I know you don’t like it when I say his name, but when Javier left me, that just reinforced every worry I’d ever had.

In my life, love—no matter how strong—doesn’t last.

It doesn’t go the distance.

I want it to, trust me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

And if I’m honest, I wanted it with you. I just couldn’t let myself hope for it, or believe it could. And now, maybe I’m glad I didn’t … because if we had continued down the road we were on and you walked out on me a couple of years from now like you did the other night, I don’t think I could handle it. You would have broken me.

Anyhow, my flight back to California is tomorrow. I wish we’d gotten to spend these last days together, and that you were coming with me. I wish for so many things. But mostly, I just wish that you’d stayed.

I wish you nothing but the best, and I hope that life brings you everything you’ve ever wanted. You’re a special man, Donal Casey. I’ll never forget you.

All my love,

Lauren

Mother fucker! Lauren was right; I had asked for space—just not a whole goddamn continent’s worth.

Shit, shit, shit.

I’d fucked up when I’d left her apartment and then not called her like I’d promised—I knew that—but this wasn’t how things were supposed to end for us. Hell, they weren’t supposed to end at all.

I wouldn’t let them.

Lauren had been partially right, but she was wrong too. Love could last. It could go the distance. If, after watching my dad blow through one woman after the next for my entire life, I could believe in the power of relationships, then surely I could make Lauren believe it too.

I clicked out of my email app and brought up my contact list. Clicking on my favorites tab, I tapped her name and brought the phone to my ear. As I listened to it ring, I scrubbed my other hand down my face. Fuck, I was exhausted, but not too tired to have this out tonight. Something this important couldn’t wait until morning.

Which was why when my call jumped to voicemail, I hung up and tried again.

When Lauren didn’t answer for the second time, I nearly threw my phone against the wall in frustration, but at the last second, dropped my arm back down. Then, I pulled up a browser to check tomorrow’s flights from Dublin to Los Angeles. Without stopping to think things through, I bought the last available seat on the last remaining direct flight to the west coast. With my size, I hated sitting in economy—especially on such a long flight—but if ever there was a time for sacrifice this was it.

As soon as the purchase went through, I heaved out a heavy sigh. And then, despite the late hour, I dialed my dad’s number.

“Hey dad,” I said when he answered. “I hate to ask, but I need a huge favor.”

* * *

The entire time I made my way through airport security, I kept my eyes peeled for Lauren, but by the time I made it to the assigned gate, I still hadn’t seen her. And that worried me. I hadn’t had a lot of time to formulate a coherent plan to win her back, but the one I had managed to cobble together rested entirely on us being on the same flight. Specifically, sitting next to her for the 11 hours it took to fly to Los Angeles. I’d stopped at the ATM and pulled out four crisp €50 bills to bribe whoever’d actually been assigned the seat next to her. That, and I’d picked up a bottle of limited edition Teeling Irish Whiskey. I was a desperate man willing to resort to desperate measures.

As the minutes ticked by, I became increasingly nervous. I didn’t know where Lauren lived—not entirely. All I knew was that she owned a house in Los Feliz that she’d been renting out as an AirBnB while she’d been in Ireland and that she could see the Griffith Observatory from her deck on a clear day. According to Google Earth, you could see the Observatory from the whole damn neighborhood, so I had no idea how I was going to narrow down her location.

I feared I’d have to ask my dad for another favor.

We’d spent an hour on the phone last night while I’d filled him in on my relationship with Lauren and why I was going to L.A. on such short notice. If it turned out she wasn’t on my flight—or worse, if she was but refused to forgive me—I was going to need a place to crash once we landed. He’d quickly offered up his beach house and the keys to his Range Rover. I’d had an important stop to make before I’d headed to the airport, but once in the taxi, I’d mapped the distance from Malibu to Los Feliz, and I really fucking hoped it wouldn’t come to that. With L.A.’s notorious traffic, the trip between my dad’s place and Lauren’s could take close to three hours.

When the gate agent called pre-boarding for business class passengers, I raked my eyes over my fellow travelers once again, my good leg bouncing frantically. Shit. She wasn’t going to be on this flight. Before I fell into a full blown panic, I scanned the crowd one last time. And then my eyes landed on her coming down the hall toward our gate.

I let out a massive sigh of relief. I hadn’t seen Lauren yet because she hadn’t been here.

I caught the eye of the man sitting directly across from me. “Can you watch my stuff?” I gestured to my duffel bag, the only luggage I’d bothered to bring. There hadn’t been time to pack properly. And besides, anything I hadn’t thought to bring or couldn’t live without I could pick up once we landed. It wasn’t like I was going to a third world country or anything. “I need to go find my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, sure,” he answered with a quick glance my way. Then he did a double take. “Are you—?”

“Yup,” I answered quickly, shaking his hand and stepping around my bag.

Given that I hadn’t been one of the team’s superstar players, I was always surprised when people recognized me. (People not dressed in sequins and wearing three layers of paint on their faces, that was. Those girls had radar like you wouldn’t believe and could pick a player out of a lineup a mile away). Had I been paying attention to him instead of tracking Lauren’s progress down the hall, I would have noticed the Dublin Rugby cap he wore on his head.

“Thanks!” I called over my shoulder and gave him a thumbs up. It wasn’t how I would normally have treated a fan, but I needed to get to my woman, not stand around chatting with him about my injury. If I’d still been on the team, I might have double-backed to chat, but I’d been officially retired for a couple of weeks now. My brushing him off wasn’t going to land me in hot water with the team’s management or PR group.

When I was within a few feet of Lauren, and I realized she hadn’t noticed me yet, I stopped and studied her; just let my eyes take their fill. God, I missed her, I thought, my heart pinching painfully in my chest.

And it looked as if she hadn’t been doing so well without me either. Her eyes were rimmed in red and she’d thrown her hair into a haphazard bun on top of her head, several wisps having broken loose of their hold. In the nearly two months I’d known her, she’d never once looked this haggard—not even when her kitchen had almost burned down.

She also looked distracted. No, not that. She looked distraught, I realized with a twisting of my gut, knowing I’d put that look on her face. Before I could make out anything else about her, Lauren dropped her gaze to the phone in her hand, pressed a button, and then brought it to her ear. She shifted away and my own phone started ringing in my pocket. Not wanting to tear my eyes from the woman I loved, I rooted around in my pocket and, without looking to see who was calling, brought it to my ear.

“Hello.”

“Donal?”

My breath caught and then released in a gust of relief. She’d been calling me.

“Baby,” I breathed, fighting the urge to step forward and pull her into my arms.

With her back to me, I watched as her shoulders rose and fell with a shuddering sob. “I’m so sorry,” she cried. “I didn’t meant to leave like that.”

“It’s okay,” I said, my voice breaking. I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath in an effort to calm my emotions. “I understand.”

“I understand too, why you left and needed some time. I didn’t want to, but I do.” She let go of the handle of her bag and wrapped her arm around her waist, as if to hold herself together.

“I shouldn’t have left you. I never want to leave you again.”

Silence fell between us and I stepped closer. If she turned around now, I could reach out and touch her.

“I love you so much, Donal.” She let go then, let the full weight of her unhappiness loose, as her body rocked with the force of her tears. “I’m such a fool.”

I took a deep breath and blinked as a tear of my own slipped from my eye and trailed down my face. Instead of reaching out to her, slowly, I got down on my knees behind her. With one hand clutched around my phone in a vice grip, I reached into the inner pocket of my fleece with the other. “Lauren?”

“Yeah,” she said, and then took a deep breath of her own and swiped the back of her hand over her cheeks.

“Turn around, baby.”

“What—?”

“Turn around, Lauren.”

Slowly, as if time had ceased to function properly, I watched Lauren turn to face me. She sucked in a startled gasp when she saw me on my knees in front of her.

“Will you marry me, baby?” I asked, holding up the diamond ring I’d purchased earlier that afternoon.

But instead of saying yes as I’d hoped, Lauren’s face went white and she dropped her phone. When it clanged to the ground, time seemed to hurtle forward into overdrive and the loud, harsh sounds of the airport assaulted my ears. Dimly, I became aware of the crowd we’d attracted, but I was most aware of the fact that Lauren had placed her hands over her mouth and that her whole body was shaking.

The longer she took to speak, the more worried I became.

She’d been damaged after Javier had abandoned her, and I understood that, but I also needed her to know I’d never leave her side like he had. This morning, as I’d showered, I’d known in my heart that the only way to prove to Lauren that I wasn’t like her ex-boyfriend was to ask her to be my wife—and then to actually meet her at the altar. To pledge myself to her, in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer, until death do us part. If she’d have me, I wanted to spend the rest of my life making her happy, and proving to her that love did last.

Now, as the seconds ticked by and the crowd began to titter amongst themselves about the horrible proposal they were witnessing, I wondered if maybe I’d overstepped my bounds, if once again I’d fallen back on bad habits and acted before thinking through the consequences of my actions.

But just as I was about to put away the ring and get to my feet, Lauren unleashed a flood of tears and dropped to her knees in front of me. Throwing her arms around me, she buried her face against the exposed skin of my throat and nodded her head up and down. And into the crook of my neck she whispered, “Yes. A thousand times yes.”