Page 144 of The Reason I Married Him
“You make it hard.”
“Do I?” I ask, teasing her. “So I make it hard?”
“Dear God, Wyatt,” Aubree says as I laugh out loud. “Can’t you be normal?”
“No,” I answer. “Sorry. Also, can we talk about your reaction to the proposal? Were you trying to shake my nipple? What was going on there?”
“Uh, I had hundreds of people watching me. I didn’t know what to do. You could have given me a heads-up. You know, let me know that you were planning on proposing.”
“In my mind, I was hoping for your real reaction to the proposal.”
“Well, you got that. Doesn’t get more real than what you experienced.”
I push my hand through my hair. “Yeah, didn’t think about the fact that you might be awkward and try to shake my nipple.”
She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to shake your nipple. God, you’re so dramatic. I was attempting to shake your hand.”
“Once again, that’s so romantic.”
“I was confused and caught off guard. You weren’t the one standing on the dance floor while flowers twinkled their toes all around you with Ethel singing directly to you.”
“Nope, I was the clueless asshole, floating in on a kiddie train looking like a fucking white knight on the wrong steed.”
She chuckles. “I really enjoyed when you fell out of it and landed flat on your face.”
I press my hand to my sore jaw. “Yeah, I know, you laughed way more than you should have given I face-planted.”
“It was nervous laughter.”
“Liar,” I say.
“You’re right, I’m lying, but I still enjoyed it. I also liked the panic on your face when you thought you’d lost the ring.”
“I actually felt my balls tickle my stomach in fear. Ethel would have made my life a living hell if she went through all of this trouble and I lost the ring. She would have been devastated.”
“Possibly would have ended the proposal in tears.”
“And not the kind of tears you should have shed when I got down on one knee.”
“Once again, a heads-up would have been nice.”
“I’ll remember that for next time.”
“You plan on doing this again?” she asks.
I shrug. “Possibly. It’s been a fun experience so far.”
“Only someone with some serious issues would call this arrangement fun,” she says as she stands from the chair and shivers before rubbing her arms.
“Are you cold?”
“Yeah. The wind off the ocean is starting to cut through the fire, and I don’t think I can take it much longer.”
“Not a problem. I’m ready to leave too. Just means we can move onto stage two of the proposal.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and asks, “Does stage two involve removing clothing?”
“You said it, not me,” I say.
