Page 119 of The Chosen
My breath instantly caught, every sound around me becoming muted.
The music.
The gallery.
The voices.
Gone.
All I could see was Henry.
And the box in his hand.
“Ariana,” he began, his voice rougher than I’d ever heard it. “The first time I saw you, I despised everything about you. I thought you represented everything ugly in this world. Everything selfish and cruel. But then I learned the truth. And for the second time, you proved me wrong.”
I choked out a laugh through the tightness in my throat.
“You destroyed every assumption I had about who you were. You were compassionate when you had every reason not to be. Brave when you were terrified. You saw pieces of me I’d spent years trying to bury, and somehow you learned to love me anyway. You learned to trust me anyway.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks, a sense of nostalgia filling me as I recalled those early days.
“I spent most of my life believing I was better off alone,” he continued. “That love wasn’t something I deserved after everything I’d done. Everyone I failed.” His eyes held me, steady and unwavering. “But you changed that. You gave me your trust. Your love. Made me hopeful for a future. And I’d love nothing more than to live that future with you as my wife.”
He opened the ring box, revealing a stunning round-cut diamond. It wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as the one Victor had given me. But he didn’t choose that ring out of love. Not like Henry did.
“I don’t care whether you take my last name or not. That isn’t what matters to me.” His voice thickened. “What matters is that you know I’m yours. Completely. For the rest of my life.”
I pressed a trembling hand over my mouth, staring at this man looking up at me as if I held his fate in my hands. It was so different from the intimidating, aloof man who’d found me in the woods. Who brought me in from the cold.
Who saved me from Victor.
Or, as Henry insisted… Who helped me save myself from Victor.
“I want the world to know I belong to you,” he whispered. “If you’ll have me.”
A watery laugh escaped. “You want to belong to me?”
“More than anything.”
My heart felt too large for my chest, like my body couldn’t contain everything I felt for him.
“And I want to belong to you,” I whispered back. “I’m yours, Henry.”
Hope flashed across his face so raw and beautiful it nearly destroyed me.
“Does that mean?—”
“Yes,” I exhaled. “I’ll marry you, Henry Fontaine.”
In a heartbeat, he jumped to his feet and crushed his mouth to mine, sliding the ring into place.
For the past ten years, I believed love was something dangerous. Something painful. Something to be used against me.
Then Henry Fontaine crashed into my world. And somehow, through all the darkness, violence, and grief, he taught me something I never thought possible.
Love wasn’t a weakness.
It was what finally set me free.
