Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 47615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Sensing something out of the ordinary but trusting me like nobody else, Jen agrees.
Taking her hand in mine, I wonder if it’s me that’s trembling, but it’s her.
“You okay?” I ask, helping her out of the limo. Our driver giving me a knowing nod and a smile.
“I’ll wait here, Sir,” he says in a deep voice, making me feel like I’m the richest guy in the world.
About to be anyway….
The light traffic seems to disappear, and I swear it’s not my doing when even the usual throngs of tourists and locals all seem to evaporate.
Making it feel and look like we’re almost the only ones here.
We don’t have to walk far, though, and with the instructions etched in my mind, I make sure we’re on the exact spot before I stop.
Taking both of Jen’s hands in mine.
“Kane?” her voice trembles, and I can already see her eyes misting up.
I guess I’m not as good at surprises as I thought.
But I pretend like I don’t know what she means.
Just standing, holding her hands for a moment before I look past her at one of the giant advertising screens, which has suddenly gone blank.
My cue.
With her hands in mine, I move us both so she’s facing the same direction as the billboard, which I see light up as I get on one knee.
The tiny blue velvet box feels tiny in my huge hand.
Jen covers her mouth again, gasping before she looks from me to the billboard and back to me again.
“I had a whole speech in my mind about how I only ever wanted the family I never had. But I can’t remember a damned word of it, Jen,” I stammer.
My voice is thick with emotion as a single tear rolls down her cheek. Her body shaking from head to toe.
“I just know I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you?” I ask her, popping the lid of the box.
“Jen. Will you be my wife?”
It’s the longest moment of my life so far, but I know she understands taking the time to read the same message in twenty-foot-high words beaming down on us from behind me.
Marry me, Jen is the only speech I really need. And it’s only a shame the writing couldn’t be twenty feet higher.
It could never be big or tall enough to match how much I love her.
So when she says yes, once I slip the ring over her trembling finger, I know she’s well and truly mine.
Forever.
“I love you, Kane Gray,” she sniffs, torn between admiring the ring, the sign, and keeping her eyes fixed on mine.
“And I’ll love you until the end of time,” I promise her.
Every night, the best sleepover ever from now on with my daughter’s best friend.
My new best friend
My wife-to-be.
All. Mine.
EPILOGUE
THREE MONTHS LATER
Jen
My mom’s attitude shifted as soon as we broke the news of our engagement.
I thought it might be the last straw for my mom after catching the sight of me in the tub with Kane.
But once she heard wedding bells, she kind of hijacked the whole thing, appointing herself my matron of honor and making all the arrangements.
With Kane’s say so, of course.
Something else I just found out is that a mysterious and anonymous businessman, a retired fellow, bought out the owner of the diner mom works at, offering her the full run of the place with a hefty pay raise.
And the option to buy the business back from him, paying it off in installments.
I asked Kane if he knew anything about it, but he only shrugged, saying, "I hope she likes the diner as much as you said she does.”
And that was the end of that.
But for today, which is our very special day, mom’s taking a day off from the diner she’s busy converting to a restaurant and a back seat from her usual business in all the wedding preparations.
Determined to have the day all about us.
And Abby, of course.
She’s my bridesmaid and still my best friend.
My best female friend, that is.
Turns out her sprained ankle wasn’t from getting out of the cab for her rehearsal, after all.
She found a little romance of her own in the Big Apple.
The lead dancer from the show, Carl, who just happens to be a few years older, may or may not have played a part in helping her sprain more than just her ankle as they “got to know each other” the first night she was alone in New York.
And once she was pulled from the show, he refused to perform without her. Hence, the “closed for two weeks” notice at the theater.
She’s back in town just long enough for the wedding, and although she doesn’t mean it in a bad way, I wished she’d stop commenting on how big I’m getting.
It wasn’t long after Kane proposed that I noticed something was different, and doing the math, we worked it out that our first night together saw me become pregnant by Kane and fall madly in love with him.