Page 81 of Forked (Frenched 2)
Chills swept down my body. Heads looked back and forth from him to me, and a few people giggled in the crowd.
“I’ve been madly in love with her since I was nineteen, but I made a mistake back then. I lost her, and I didn’t fight hard enough to get her back.” The giggles quieted, and my stomach flip-flopped wildly. Tears filled my eyes. “But there’s never been a day where I haven’t thought about her and wished she were still mine.” His voice cracked on the word “mine,” causing the first tear to slip down my cheek. “And she told me to stop proposing to her out of the blue, but some habits are hard to break.” He set the microphone down and walked toward me, and the silence of the crowd made my heartbeat deafening. I was frozen stiff in my seat. What the hell was he doing?
When he reached me, he got down on one knee, and gasps echoed through crowd.
Erin stood and backed away slightly, her hands over her open mouth.
When Nick pulled out a ring box, I put my hands over mine too.
“Coco,” he said quietly, his dark eyes serious. “I married you before because I loved you enough to promise forever. And even though things went wrong, I never doubted you were the one. So I want to do it right this time. Maybe you think I’m crazy, but I think we’ve wasted too many years apart already. I want you back. I want you forever. Marry me again?” He opened the ring box, and my heart stopped. Inside was a gorgeous diamond and platinum ring in an art deco setting, a large emerald cut center stone surrounded by delicate filigree work.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, my entire body shivering.
“It’s a replica of the ring my Papa Joe gave to Tiny.” Nick’s eyes were shining too. “I wish it were the real thing, but my Aunt Vinnie wouldn’t give it up.”
“Oh, Nick.” I wanted to do a dozen different things at once. Say yes. Kiss him. Hit him. Melt into a puddle. Jump up and down. Squeal. Tell him I loved replicas of vintage things. Hear him ask me to marry him again. But I couldn’t do anything, could barely even breathe.
“What do you think?” he whispered.
I smiled. “I want sixty-seven years, at least.”
“You’ll have them. You’ll have everything.”
“Did she say yes?” called a voice from the crowd.
“Yes,” I whispered to Nick. Then I let my head fall back. “Yes!” I shouted to the roof.
The crowd erupted in applause and Nick slid the ring on my finger. I blinked at it through tears before he pulled me to my feet and wrapped me in his arms. Whoops and whistles rang out as we kissed long and deep, Nick lifting me right off the ground.
When he finally set me down, Erin tackled me, alternating hugs with wide-eyed staring at my hand. Nick accepted handshakes from the crowd before giving Erin a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
She fanned her face, which, like mine, was dripping with tears. “Me! What did I do?”
“Gave me the flight information. How else would I have been able to book a ticket?”
I grabbed his arm. “You booked a ticket?”
“I had to. They don’t let people through security who don’t. Not even handsome devils like me with a ring in his pocket.”
I slapped his shoulder. “But are you really going? To France, I mean?”
“Of course I am. I can’t miss the wedding.” At my dumbfounded face, he grinned. “I got hold of Lucas and Mia yesterday to ask if they’d mind an extra wedding guest just in case you said yes. After I explained what I was doing, they made me swear up and down that we’d both be on that plane.”
“Mia knew before I did?” I stuck my hands on my hips. I slapped his arm one more time before throwing my arms around him again. “Oh my God, I can’t believe this.” Burying my face in his neck, I breathed him in and held him there.
This was right. I could feel it.
We arrived in Paris very early Sunday morning. Erin and I had planned to spend one night in the city, and we’d decided to splurge on a room at the Ritz since it was only the one night and we were splitting it. The rest of the week we’d be staying right at Lucas’s family villa. Since Erin was in cahoots with Nick, he’d arranged for a second room at the Ritz, and Erin ended up having our original room to herself. She happily disappeared into the elevator when we arrived at the hotel, bleary-eyed with jet lag. She said she was so tired, she didn’t think she’d even leave the room.
We didn’t leave ours either.
Perhaps we should have. Perhaps it was sacrilege to have all of Paris waiting outside our windows, and me a history major, but the most romantic city in the world was doing a fine job casting its spell within our four walls.
Well, more if you count the bathroom. We did it in there too.
But the bed…oh, that bed. King sized, covered with crisp white linens and mounded with pillows, utterly inviting. As soon as the door was shut behind us, Nick swept me off my feet and carried me to it, our mouths drawn together as if by force. I threw my arms around his neck and kicked off my flats, exhausted but unable to stop myself from wanting him, now that we were finally alone.
He set me gently on the bed and looked down at me, nudging his shoes off. “Mrs. Lupo.”
