Page 36 of Falling for Her Grumpy Boss

Oh my god.

My gaze searches his face frantically for some sign that this is impulsive stupidity brought on by adrenaline and whatever happened behind the garage with Jeremy. I look for regret. Instead, Dylan looks exactly the way he does in the office right before making a major decision that changes the trajectory of an entire project. Focused. Certain. Completely immovable once his mind is made up.

The yard around us stays eerily silent. Somewhere behind me, Clara sucks in a startled breath, but the sound barely reaches me through the roaring in my ears.

Shock crashes through me hard enough that my knees threaten to give. My free hand lifts instinctively toward my chest, fingers pressing against my collarbone as though I can physically steady the frantic pounding underneath.

Marriage?

We’ve known each other for weeks.

Actual weeks.

And yes, we’ve slept together. More than once. Somewhere between late nights at the office, stolen weekends, and dinners that somehow turned into mornings, something dangerously real started building between us almost from the beginning. But marriage still isn’t supposed to happen like this. Normal people do not get proposed to in the middle of a backyard barbecue by a man who apparently fist-fought his best friend less than ten minutes earlier.

My pulse jumps harder.

Oh god.

They really did fight.

“Dylan…” His name leaves me thin and breathless, barely recognizable as my own voice.

The second uncertainty touches my tone, his fingers tighten painfully around mine like the possibility of rejection physically hurts him.

“I’m serious.”

The quiet certainty in his voice sends another wave of heat through me. I stare at him kneeling there in the grass with his dark hair still slightly disordered from the fight, one side of his jaw faintly reddened, broad shoulders tense beneath his Henley like he’s bracing himself for impact while refusing to look away from me.

And suddenly I understand exactly why Jeremy punched him.

Because this is completely insane.

Absolutely, undeniably insane.

But beneath the panic twisting through me, relief unfurls slowly inside my chest anyway. Dylan Shaw doesn’t do anything halfway. And once he commits to something, he holds on with both hands. And apparently, terrifyingly, he’s decided I matter too.

The realization leaves me dizzy.

“You can’t just…” My voice catches awkwardly, forcing me to swallow before I try again. “You can’t propose to someone in the middle of a barbecue after getting into a fistfight.”

A startled laugh bursts somewhere behind him, but Dylan doesn’t even blink.

“Seems like I just did.”

Several people choke on laughter at once, but I barely register them because he still hasn’t let go of my hand. He’s still kneeling there in front of me while every person in this yard waits for my answer.

Most terrifying of all, I know he means every word coming out of his mouth.

Dylan watches me with the kind of unwavering focus that strips every possible escape route out from under me. There’s no arrogance in it now. No expectation that I’ll say yes because he wants me to. Just hope.

And god help me, that realization wrecks me.

Because somewhere along the way, Dylan stopped feeling temporary to me, too.

It should terrify me more than it does.

Instead, warmth spreads through my chest until my throat tightens painfully around it.