Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 112(@200wpm)___ 90(@250wpm)___ 75(@300wpm)
“Blake…”
“Yes?” I reply, teasing her lovingly as we walk together slowly. Her jaw is already practically on the ground. I don’t know what she’s going to do when she sees what I’m going to do next.
We reach the gazebo, and I move in front of her and take a knee. She lets out another soft gasp, and somehow her eyes manage to go even wider. I take her hand and kiss it gently with my lips.
“I never believed in fate,” I say. “That is until I was driving by a restaurant one day, and I looked out my window and saw the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life sitting down with another man, and I knew. That is the girl I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”
Anna chokes a sound like a laugh and a cry and puts a hand over her mouth.
“Anna, you have changed my life in so many ways. You’ve awakened parts of me I thought were gone completely and made me want to be a better man altogether. I can’t even envision my life without you anymore, and that’s why…” I reach into my pocket and pull out the box with the ring in it. I open it, and when she sees the brilliant stone sitting there in the center of the felt, tears spill from her eyes.
“Anna Hodges, will you marry me?”
She nods instantly, and all my nerves vanish from my body. All the anxiety and trepidation is gone, replaced by a flood of joy unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
“Yes!” she cries out. “Of course I will!”
I lean forward and slide the ring onto her finger and smile. “It fits just right.”
Anna nods. “There is one thing I have to tell you, though,” she says. “Now that we’re getting married and it’s going to be all legal and official and all that.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“My last name isn’t really Hodges. I just go by that because it’s the last foster family I stayed with.”
“Oh, that’s not a big deal.” I shrug, still smiling as I stand and take her into my arms. “What is your real last name though? Just out of curiosity?”
“Monroe,” she replies. “My real name’s actually Annabelle too. Anna’s just short for Annabelle.”
She giggles and kisses me, but there’s an ice spear that’s just driven itself into my heart.
“So…your real name is Annabelle Monroe?” I ask.
She nods, still smiling. She looks down at her ring, entranced by its beauty. But I’m dying right now—like my insides have been torn apart by a blender.
How? This cannot be happening.
17
Anna
It’s gorgeous. That’s the only way to describe the ring on my finger. I don’t know how Blake managed to have such incredible taste, but he did. Or maybe he had someone help him pick it out, but either way, I don’t care.
And somehow, he managed to get it to fit too. I barely even wear rings, and I haven’t noticed any of mine missing, so if he had any of them sized, he did a great stealthy job of that.
And all the tulips in the garden? I don’t even know what to say. Right now, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. But when I look up at Blake, I see a very strange expression on his face.
“What?” I ask him. He looks frozen—as if someone just told him some very bad news. But what bad news could he possibly have just gotten? I just said yes to his proposal! “Is something wrong, baby?”
Blake shakes his head and smiles, “No, of course not.” But it’s very obvious that he’s lying. Something’s off, and he’s trying to cover it up for my benefit.
I step closer and take my hands in his. “Baby,” I say, lowering my tone. “What is it? Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
For the first time since we’ve been together, Blake pulls his hands away from mine. The sheer shock from him doing this is enough to nearly stun me from when he turns his back on me completely.
What is happening right now? Did he not just propose to me?
“Blake…?”
Even from this angle, I can practically see the wheels in his mind spinning. I want to run around in front of him and force him to look at me, but I stay where I am.
Moments pass. Seconds tick by like minutes. Then…
“Your father,” he says, his voice low. “Was his name Tristan?”
Blake’s question hits me like a shockwave. I thought I was already in shock, but that was nothing compared to what I’m feeling now.
We stand there in silence for what feels like forever—me staring at his back, him staring at the ground. After a while, I realize I can’t even answer him. Then after a time, Blake finally turns around.
I see a serious focus in his eyes as he looks at me. For the first time since we met, I’m actually afraid.