Page 118 of Faking It

“I think it’s ready,” a voice calls out from the other room.

When I open my eyes, it takes a second for what I’m seeing to appear on the screen in front of me.

“What are you . . . ”

And then it registers.

Zane is standing behind me dressed in a tuxedo. A full blown tuxedo. His smile is tinged with nerves and his eyes are locked on mine.

“Zane?” I turn to face him as he walks toward me.

“This video may not be for public consumption, but it’s something I want recorded.”

Every part of me shakes and trembles and I don’t know whether to sit or stand or walk to him or stay where I am. The only thing I do know, is that if he drops to his knee—or doesn’t—and asks me to marry him or doesn’t—no matter what he says to me, the answer is yes so long as it means I get to be with him.

That’s all that matters.

“Hey?” He looks at me, centers me, grounds me. “You okay?”

I nod frantically. “I’m not sure what to do right now.”

“Don’t do anything Cinder but stay just as you are.”

He crosses the distance to me—him in a tuxedo and me in a bikini—and I lean in and press my lips to his. I can’t resist.

“I have rehearsed what I want to say a million different ways. I have notes hidden all over this damn place of things I want to say—no, that I need to say—but there’s one that matters more than any of them. I love you, Harlow Nicks. You and your feisty temper and tell it like it is attitude. You and your soft heart and generous spirit. You and your slurping straws and mad Galaga playing skills. Sure, you played me at my own game to start this all . . . but it’s been me that’s been played ever since.”

He leans in and presses the most tender of kisses to my lips. “I love you and I’m going to keep loving you and telling you I love you until you’re sick of me. . . and then I’m going to tell you I love you some more.”

“Never.” I murmur and swoon that when he places his hand in mine, his is trembling.

I know it’s coming but I gasp when he lowers himself to one knee. “You once told me that you wanted the fairytale, Cinder. That you deserved the fairytale. And I couldn’t agree more. I want to give that to you. I want to be that for you. Will you marry me, Harlow?”

“Yes. Yes. Oh, and yes.”

Some may say it’s silly that I never even looked at the ring when he put it on my finger, but I didn’t. I was too busy looking at the man. My real diamond in the rough. The man I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with.

“So that’s a yes?” he asks.

And when I jump into his arms and topple him over onto his back on the ground and smother him with kisses, I think he has his answer.

Who knew love could ever feel this good?

“Hey, Cinder?”

“Mmm?”

“If your lips keep doing what they’re doing, we’re going to have to turn off that camera.”

THE END