Page 51 of Love in Times of Contempt

He kissed her. "You're asking me to marry you."

"Yes. And I'd really love an answer. I won't walk away if you're not ready or if you still want to be the one proposing. Ely is on standby to help me lick my wounds or celebrate, depending on what you decide—"

"Ana."

"What I mean is that I'm not proposing as an ultimatum, of course not!"

"Ana."

"But like I said, because I want you to see just how much I want this with you. I don't want you to ever doubt we're on the same page on this."

"Ana."

"Yes?"

"I love you."

She gave him a smile, but he could see the question in her eyes. "You too. So much."

"I'm so damn lucky to have you. That you would propose to me…" He shook his head and kissed her again. "It's a gift. Slightly inconvenient, for reasons, but…"

"C'mon, Liam. Stop teasing me. Give me an answer."

"I haven't answered yet?"

"No!"

"Oh. Sorry about that."

"Liam."

He chuckled and kissed her again. "Of course I want to marry you. Yes, Ana. I'll marry you."

She melted on the seat next to him, relief on every inch of her he could see. She pulled back into herself, smiling big— such a gorgeous smile— and kissing him once, rough. She took the ring out of the box and held it between thumb and index fingers.

"This ring is for your pinky finger. You use a ring there sometimes, and I thought you could replace it with this one. You and I— and Ely and Alex— know what it means, and anyone else we want to tell… but no one else needs to know until we're ready for people to jump to conclusions."

Grinning, he took the ring he currently had on his left pinky off and, eyes glittering, she replaced it with this.

"We're engaged, now," he said.

They kissed again, and once more.

"We are," she said.

"I have a ring for you, of course. And a plan for how I wanted to propose."

"Oh. Oh!"

"Yes. You beat me by… actually, I'm not going to tell you. A few weeks or months, you won't know until it happens."

"Tell me!"

"No. I think I still want to propose."

"But we're still engaged now. And I'm still the first one to propose."

"You are. And one day we'll tell this story and it'll be sweet."

"I really, really wanted you to know how much I want our life together."

"I do, Ana. I do."

THEEND