Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Because she’s my Raven. There is no other. There could never be anyone like her. She was meant to be mine, and I was meant to be hers. I want her here. No, I need her here. If marrying her is what she wants, I’ll do it. Because what I want is her.
“Marry me.”
“What?” she exclaims, lifting up once again. Her green eyes are wide and wild, but there’s the tiniest glimmer of hope hiding deep there. I can see it, can feel her excitement even as she doesn’t fully risk believing me.
“Raven, I love you,” I start and then freeze. I chuckle at myself. “I’m not sure what I’m going to say since I didn’t plan this. That’s very unlike me, so I’m gonna speak from the heart.”
She nods, tears threatening to spill.
“I love you. I didn’t mean to fall for you. It was supposed to be business, nothing more, but it could never be just business with you. You intrigued me that first day, you impressed me at the fundraiser, you amaze me with how your mind works at the office, and you challenge me to see every day, not as a competition for who has the most money and power, but as a gift. You have healed scars on my heart and in my soul that I thought I would carry until the day I died as a lonely, old, bitter bastard. And you ask for nothing in return. You want to make your own way, stand on your own merits, of which there are many, and be seen as the beautiful, strong woman you have always been and will always be. I don’t want to get in the way of that. I want to stand by your side and witness you conquer the world, loving you every step of the way. I want you beside me. I want the world to know you’re mine. Marriage makes sense. So, Raven Hill, will you marry me?”
Tears started tracking down her face right about the time I repeated, ‘I love you’, and they’re flowing freely now.
“It’s too fast, and…”
My heart stutters to a stop as I consider that she might say no, or at least no for right now. She continues as panic runs through me, “And I don’t care what anyone thinks. I care about you, I care about us, and this” —she points at herself and then places her hand on my chest, where my heart has started beating again— “feels special. You are everything to me, Dylan, and I would do anything to protect you, to make you feel cherished, and to love you. So yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Thank fuck. The moment she says yes, I can breathe again.
She falls into me, kissing me hard in her excitement. I wrap my arms around her, holding her tightly. We simply exist in the magic of the moment, the two of us promising to become one.
“Oh, my God,” Raven says, pulling back. “We have to do this again.”
“What?” I laugh, not understanding the sudden horror on her face.
“I cannot tell my mom and dad… or Maggie… oh, my God, Maggie… that I got engaged while naked on a couch after screwing like that,” she explains, her smile only growing as she paints the picture of us as we currently still are.
I shrug. “Thought you didn’t care what anyone thinks,” I remind her.
She glares at me, or tries to, anyway, but the laughter’s winning. “I didn’t mean my mom!”
“Okay,” I say, shifting her so that she’s lying on top of me once again, “I’ll propose every day, buy you as many rings as you want, and marry you as many times as you need, as long as you, Raven Hill, marry me, Dylan Sharpe. And be my forever.”
EPILOGUE
RAVEN
“See you for lunch?” Dylan asks me as we pause at my office door. “I’m thinking… Thai?”
“Thai it is,” I reply, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Go kick some ass, Mr. Sharpe.”
“You too… Mrs. Sharpe,” he says in that ‘boss’ tone that he knows makes my panties damp even after months of being married. Just hearing that I’m Mrs. Raven Sharpe makes my heart speed up a little bit, and having my husband in the same office with me?
It’s all my dreams come true.
Going into my cubicle, I have to grin. When the news spread that Dylan and I were engaged, in other words about five minutes after I walked into the office with him the Monday after the governor’s event while wearing my new ring, people were wondering how long it was going to be before I was going to get moved into one of the senior executive offices.
Months later, here I am, in the same cubicle I’ve had the entire time. That’s the way I like it, though, because I’m still learning and I don’t want preferential treatment. I’ll earn my way. I know damn well that I will, and my husband will respect that. Dylan and I made it very clear to everyone, in a company-wide meeting done right in the middle of the floor, that while we were going to be a couple and the rumor mongers could fuck off, I’m going to earn my way up the ladder in the firm.