Page 123 of Reckless Devotion

“Well, Mr. Clay,” Sunny announces, clapping her hands together. “Lucky for you we’re used to grumpy old men around here.”

There is no mistaking the pointed look she throws Chase’s way.

“Speaking of, what’s the second important thing we have to do today?” I ask Chase, pulling my brows together.

“Hmm?” He drags his head around like he wasn’t quite paying attention, but somehow that falls hollow when he’s usually so sharply attuned to everything around him.

“You said earlier there were two important things to do today, seeing Sunny and…”

Chase clears his throat, offering me a closeted glance that could almost be nervous. I cap my hands on my hips, my spidey senses tingling. This man is up to something, and I’m damned if I know what.

“Sunny, get the Nebuchadnezzar out of the refrigerator, would you?” he calls out as he reaches into the inner pocket of his suit jacket that got hastily draped over a tall kitchen island chair when we got back, when we were too eager to be rid of clothes.

“What in the word-salad hell is that?” Sunny squints at him.

“The big bottle of champagne.”

“Why are we drinking champagne?” I ask slowly, turning to face him.

“Well, we might not be, but I’m hopeful.” He gracefully bends to one knee in front of me, and my heart stutters to a halt when I see the small box in his hands.

“What is that?”

He flips open the box, and a beautiful pink diamond sits on a slim band, hugged by a ring of smaller white diamonds. Sunny gasps somewhere behind me, and I’m pretty sure I do too.

“This—” Chase pulls it out of the white silk cushion it’s nestled into. “Is the ring I want you to wear forever.”

He looks up at me with big brown eyes, filled with warmth and something I now recognize as love. Burning, soldering, so intense that it takes my breath away.

“Everyone says to wait until you find your equal,” he murmurs softly, almost to himself. “But you’re so much more than that, Pepper. You’re far superior in every way, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to live up to that, if you’ll let me. Be my wife, Pepper.” Something molten crosses his face when he says those words, thickening his voice to a near growl.

For the thousandth time in the past week, the bridge of my nose stings, but I fight it back. There was a version of me long ago where I dreamt of a happy ever after like this, before that young girl became jaded and wronged by the world. Before she created a hard shell to protect herself. I allow myself to sink into that long-lost softness, because that’s what Chase allows me to do. Besoft. Be feminine and vulnerable, because I know that no matter what happens…he’s got me.

I suck back the wave of emotion threatening to pull me under and press back my shoulders. “On one condition.”

Sunny whoops loudly, and Mr. Clay chuckles.

“Anything,” Chase echoes my response from earlier today, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a restrained smile while he waits, hope dancing across sharp features.

“Tell me what you really had to do to get Jennifer Aniston to agree to let you use her voice for your assistant.”

The small smile toying on his lips becomes wide and mischievous. “I had to steal a moped and drive it around the Prince’s Palace of Monaco.” He tips his head a fraction. “Almost got arrested.”

“You let me believe that you had a fling!” I flap my hands up in frustration, a bigger part of me than I care to admit relieved. I mean, come on. I don’t care how much you back yourself, no one can compete with the enigma that is Janiston.

“I kinda liked the thought of you being jealous.” He grins, rolling one broad shoulder apologetically.

“You’re such an idiot.”

Chase chuckles. “And this idiot could be all yours for the price of one little word.”

I absorb every inch of him on bended knee, in sweats and a T-shirt but still looking like the biggest snack I’ve seen, and pretend to ponder.

“Lemon?”

“Nope.”

“Magpie?”