Page 118 of The No Try Zone
“Um,” Sam says, looking at the closed box, then me, then back to the box.
I open it.
She gasps, tears immediately springing to her eyes once again. “My necklace?”
I nod. “I didn’t know I had it when I left. And by the time I realized I had it, I was already back in Atlanta. Then I saw you, and –”
I don’t get to finish before she’s tackled me, knocking me onto the carpet and sending the box and necklace tumbling out of my hand.
“You asshole,” she whispers, smiling as she leans to kiss me.
I take the kiss, trying desperately not to get hard as she wiggles against me. “Sam,” I grunt.
She leans up with a bashful laugh. “Sorry. But that necklace.”
“Means a lot to you, I know. I’m sorry I kept it so long. I was a coward and I had no right to keep it like I did.”
She rolls off me and grabs it, gazing at it with such longing that I almost feel like I should look away. Then she holds it out to me. “Put it on?”
I scramble to her across the floor, taking it and opening the clasp while she gathers her hair and holds it to the side. I pull it around her neck and close the clasp, then kiss the skin right below it, inhaling deeply.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I pull the other box out of my jacket pocket, the one she might have thought I was grabbing the first time, and open it.
The sound catches her attention, and she whirls around on her knees. “Colin,” she breathes.
“I bought this last week,” I tell her. “I swear, I was in some sort of trance. I’d watched you put these giant ruggers through their paces in the weight room, and all I could think was that you were my wife. Mywife.And that I’d messed up so badly. But I had to try. I had to believe that maybe, just maybe, I’d somehow convince you to stay married to me. This ring is proof of my idiocy, maybe, but also…” I swallow back the lump in my throat. “Hope. Hope that you’d forgive me. Hope that you’d let me spend the rest of my life putting you first. Out loud.”
Her only answer is to bite her lip as tears stream down her face.
“So,” I say as a feeling of absolute weightlessness takes over. “Samantha Abigail Nash, will you do me the honor of remaining my wife?”
She nods, smiling through the tears. “Yes.”
I smile, plucking the sapphire and diamond ring out and sliding it onto her finger, where it fits perfectly.
She looks up at me. “I love you, Colin.”
My smile broadens. “I love you, too, Sam.”
Then I pull her to me for a kiss.
Chapter42
Sam
WE GET ABOUT one minute past the proposal before the door opens and Neesha is striding purposefully back into the room, her combat boots ka-thumping on the cold floor. When her gaze lands on us, it morphs from confused to downright joyous.
“Well, that’s adorable,” she says, “but we need to go.”
Colin and I rise to standing and he checks his watch. “I should probably get back to the hotel and change.”
My core heats at the dirty thoughts that immediately go through my head. “Same,” I manage to say.
He gives me a heated look, and I’m willing to bet he’s got the same ideas as me.
“Sure. But I meant that the Vegas team is coming in, and Scott’s blowing up my phone to talk to you,” she says to Colin.
