Page 102 of Trusting Mr. Sterling
By the time they finished the main course, she’d counted seventeen pocket-touches. Seventeen. She’d stopped trying to hide her amusement, which only made him more nervous, which only made the pocket-touching worse.
It was a loop, and she let him spin in it for a moment longer because watching Gabriel—competent, controlled, always-certain Gabriel—vibrate with uncertainty was its own kind of foreplay.
He cleared the plates without asking, and she followed him to the kitchen.
“Okay,” she said, leaning against the counter. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing’s happening. I’m cleaning up.”
“You’re vibrating. Your hand has been in your pocket so many times I’m worried you have a hole there.” She stepped closer, caught his wrist gently. “What’s going on?”
He looked at his hand like he was surprised to find it there, then at her. His eyes were the dark green they turned when he was feeling something deep, the color she’d fallen in love with first, before she even knew his name.
“I love you,” he said.
Not an answer.
A statement.
A beginning.
“I know you do.”
“I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old, Tessa. I’ve loved you through every stupid decision I made, every year I wasted, and every time I convinced myself it was better to stay away from you. I love you now. I’m going to love you for the rest of my life, and I’m terrified of that because you could decide tomorrow that you’re done, but I’d rather have one more day with you than a lifetime with anyone else.”
Her chest tightened. She didn’t say anything because she couldn’t, not yet, because he reached into his pocket and dropped to one knee on their kitchen tile.
The ring box was small, worn leather, a thing that had traveled.
Inside, the stone caught the light—an old piece, 1920s maybe, the setting art deco white gold, and the diamond cut to hold the stories of different hands, different eras, and different loves that led to this one.
“I love you,” he said again, because apparently this was how Gabriel did things. Repetition, certainty, and the absolute conviction that she was worth every moment of this fear. “I’ve loved you. I will love you. I need to lock you down. Marry me. Please. Marry me and let me spend the rest of my life trying to deserve that.”
She should say yes. Every version of herself that existed in that moment wanted to say yes immediately.
But he’d said something wrong, and she loved him too much not to fix it.
“You said ‘lock me down,’” she said.
He stared at her. “What?”
“Just now. You said you wanted to lock me down. That’s not the language you use. That’s not what this is.”
“Tessa—”
“And you didn’t ask a question. You told me what to do. ‘Marry me.’ That’s not the same as asking.”
She watched him process this, watched the moment he realized she was right.
Some men would be irritated.
Gabriel, though—Gabriel laughed, actually laughed, and shook his head.
“You’re really going to make me do this twice?”
“I’m really going to make you do it right.”
He took a breath, and the look on his face was so purely Gabriel that she committed it to memory—that mix of exasperation, fondness, and certainty that she was the most important thing he’d ever get to fight for.
