I placed the plates smeared with cream and the bright red juice of summer berries beside the dishes of leftover roast potatoes and boiled vegetables on the kitchen island in Andrew’s childhood home. The house was big and grand, although apparently it had been shabby and rundown when he’d been a kid, in desperate need of the TLC he’d happily paid for once his business had taken off. So now it had the luxurious, indulgent look, feel, and smell of an upmarket country hotel, which suited Andrew’s mother down to the ground.
‘She entertains a lot,’ Dox had knowingly interjected when I’d asked Andrew if she lived here alone. He’d nodded both in answer to my question and in agreement with Dox. It was ludicrous, really, for one person to live in such an enormous house. Didn’t she get lonely or scared? I certainly would.
I wiped my hands, then headed back to the dining room, but before I could step over the threshold, Andrew appeared, smiling like the cat who’d got the cream as he urged me out of sight and pressed me back against the wall. The wall behind which sat his entire family, laughing and chatting, high on life and wine and sugary strawberry pavlova.
And then Andrew’s lips were on mine, demanding and hungry, tasting of brie and port and so all consuming, I momentarily forgot about his mother, his two sisters, and their other halves not six feet away.
It had taken a few months, but Beth had finally forced the family dinner she’d been angling for, and although I hadn’t extracted a single embarrassing story about Andrew, there had been many eyebrow-raising comments from Andrew’s mother, and we’d probably consumed a little too much wine, it had been surprisingly fun.
‘I’ve wanted to do this all night,’ Andrew growled into my ear, his hips pinning me to the wall.
I exhaled breathily as he nibbled by neck, my nipples pulling tight, and then he kissed me so deeply, it was as though he was trying to eat me whole, to consume every part of me down to my bones.
‘We’re going upstairs,’ he breathed, his chest rising and falling heavily. ‘I don’t want to share you any longer.’
It was oh so tempting but, ‘We can’t, Andrew! They’ll never invite me back if we bail before coffee, and it will only be another hour or two.’ I whispered the words, given the people he was trying to evade were mere feet away.
He gave me a look that said he was questioning my sanity. ‘There’s no way I’m staying down here for another hour or two. We should go now; they won’t even miss us.’
‘Andrew!’ I hissed in reprimand. ‘Of course they’ll—ooh.’ He swiped his thumb across my nipple, and my head tipped back. He did it again, then again, and I was almost ready to agree to anything he wanted when I opened my eyelids, finding him looking down at me with a hooded, determined gaze.
‘Well?’ he asked, seeming to sense my resolve was on the brink of buckling.
But before I could answer, the general chatter in the dining room quietened and Beth’s voice floated through the open door. ‘She’s so nice, isn’t she?’
I smiled as a general murmur of agreement followed, but then the clipped, cutting tone of Andrew’s mother sliced across our ears. ‘Well? Which is she?’ she demanded. ‘A wimp or a wigwam?’
Silence filled the air for a beat, then I snort-laughed loud enough to give us away. ‘Is she talking about me?’ I mouthed.
‘Wait,’ said Dox, followed by the sound of a chair sliding back, then footsteps on the polished wooden floor, ‘are you two eavesdropping on us?’
‘No,’ Andrew said confidently, stepping into the doorway and facing his sister down, pulling me along by the hand. ‘Miri’s tired, so we’re heading to bed.’ I pushed in front of him, ready to protest, but he tugged me back against his chest and wrapped his arms around me from behind, knocking the wind from my sails.
‘Sweetheart, I’m not sharing you a moment longer,’ he murmured in my ear. The combination of his tone and his eyes and the use of the endearment made my stomach drop, and my mouth went so dry, I could only manage a squeak in reply.
Beth’s face split into a wide smile. ‘You two look so good together!’ she gushed, as Andrew maneuvered me out of the room.
‘Night, everyone,’ he said. ‘Thanks for dinner, Mum. Delicious as always. See you at breakfast.’
His mother nodded as though it were only to be expected that a dinner provided by her would be first-rate, and I bit my lip to stop the smile that wanted to spread across my face.
‘Thank you,’ I echoed, and then Andrew was entwining our fingers and tugging me down the wide, paneled corridor and up the plush, carpeted stairs, past console tables containing hand-thrown bowls filled with fragrant potpourri and into his childhood bedroom. Andrew had brought our bags up earlier, and I hadn’t yet had time to see it, Beth having cornered me the second I’d arrived.
It was a large room with dark blue walls and a wooden trunk at the end of the king-sized bed, the fresh, light scent of a gorse and sea-salt candle mingling with Andrew’s sweet, earthy musk. An enormous bay window was concealed by thick, patterned curtains, and a vintage wooden cupboard, battered writing desk, and tall chest of drawers lined the walls. Shelves filled with books, trinkets, and a couple of photos had been built into the alcoves on either side of the refurbished fireplace, and I made a beeline for them but stopped short when I was close enough to make out the details of the pictures.
‘Andrew, I …’ I turned to look at him, finding him watching me, his features a little guarded. ‘You told me there were no photos of the two of us!’
I picked up the simple silver frame and stroked a finger across Andrew’s younger face, his cheek pressed to my temple, my sleeping head resting on his shoulder.
‘I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it,’ he said slowly. ‘Noah took that years ago. He gave me a copy. I didn’t know if you’d seen it or … I had it in a drawer until recently, but now …’
I shook my head. ‘I love it,’ I breathed, sliding both hands to the back of the frame and stroking the glass with my thumbs. If only I’d been more open, more vulnerable, less traumatized … I could have been falling asleep on his shoulder like this for years. A decade. The thought sent a regretful shudder down my spine, and I told myself not to think like that. All that mattered was that we were together now. That we were happy.
Andrew seemed not to be breathing, almost like he was nervous, so I smiled reassuringly up at him. ‘If it wasn’t you in this photo, it might be kind of creepy,’ I conceded, ‘but seeing as I love you—’ I put the frame down, planning to step into his arms and pick up where we’d left off downstairs, but my fingers hit something cold and hard, something large and out of place.
I picked it back up and turned the frame over, and for a moment I couldn’t make sense of what my eyes were showing me. There was a metal loop for hanging, but something had been pinned to it, something round and gold and … What the fuck? What the actual …
I almost dropped the frame in shock because the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen rested against the black padded velvet. A gold ring with a large rectangular top inlaid with a sea of small, emerald-cut gems in all the colors of the rainbow.
I gasped. ‘Andrew … I …’ He stepped closer, his forehead slightly pinched.
‘I bought it years ago,’ he said slowly, taking the frame from my hands. ‘I saw it in the window of a jewelry shop the same day Noah gave me this photo. I knew I could never give you the ring, so I tried to put it out of my mind, but I kept thinking about it and staring at it every time I walked past. I would change my route just to go and look at it. I knew you’d love it and I so desperately wanted to buy it for you, but … it would have been weird.’
I laughed gently and slid a hand to his cheek. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’
He huffed a laugh, then unclipped the ring, keeping hold of it as he put the frame back on the shelf. ‘But one day I walked past the shop and the ring wasn’t there. I panicked, felt like it was a sign from the universe or—’
‘You don’t believe in signs from the universe.’
‘Well I did that day,’ he said, sliding his arms around me and resting his forehead against mine. ‘I rushed into the shop and demanded to know if it was still for sale. God only knows what the poor salesperson must have thought … but there it was, sitting on the counter in a velvet tray. Someone had tried it on and had gone away to think about it, and I told the guy behind the counter I’d take it then and there.’
‘You … Andrew!’
He pulled back a little and held the ring between us, both of us looking down at the sparkling gems. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose it. It almost felt like if I lost the ring, I’d lost you, that there was no hope of us ever being together.’
A swell of emotion pushed up through my chest, and I put my hand over his, squeezing gently.
‘Do you like it?’ he asked, meeting my gaze, searching for the truth.
‘I love it, but …’ My insides squirmed as I tried to find the right words, tried to work out what it could mean. Surely not …
He tipped his head to one side. ‘I know you don’t want to get married. I’ve heard you say that so many times, but this ring has always been yours. I’ve been trying to find the right way to give it to you.’
‘So it’s not an engagement ring?’ I blurted, then clamped my lips together, hardly believing I’d said the words aloud.
He froze, his eyes boring down into mine, and I could practically see the cogs turning in his mind. ‘Do you want it to be?’ he breathed, then paused, then continued when I didn’t immediately reply, ‘because if you want it to be, Miri, I would marry you in a heartbeat. Say the word and I’ll marry you tomorrow. Wait, do I just need to ask?’
My heart leapt into my throat. ‘No, Andrew, I didn’t mean … You were right, I don’t believe in marriage. My parents’ marriage was a warzone, and I just don’t see the point, other than a few tax breaks. If I was going to marry anyone, it would be you, but I don’t need a contract to tie us together. I’m committed. All the way, but marriage isn’t right for me. If you—’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pressing the ring into my palm and closing my fingers around it, then covering my fist with his much bigger hand. ‘I just got carried away. I know how you feel about marriage, and if that’s what you want, that’s fine by me, but the ring is yours either way.’
I nodded, then smiled up at him. ‘Thank you,’ I said, relief and love chasing away my bone-deep discomfort. I deliberated for a moment before sliding the gold band onto the ring finger of my left hand. It felt right for it to sit there, even if it didn’t mean what everyone would assume it did. But I was committed to Andrew, even if I didn’t want to marry him, and that was what a ring on that finger meant to me. It fit perfectly and was even more beautiful on. ‘I love it so much, Andrew.’
‘I love you,’ he murmured, then took my cheeks in his hands and kissed me. ‘And while we’re on the topic of commitment, I think we should live together. I can’t bear to be apart from you.’
‘Okay,’ I agreed between kisses.
‘And I want a joint bank account, and for us to argue about whose family we have to spend the holidays with.’
I chuckled as he kissed me again. ‘Okay.’
‘And I want us to make joint decisions and for you to think of my truck as our truck and—’
I kissed him so hard he didn’t have the oxygen to keep talking, and when we finally came up for air, I held out my left hand and admired the unbelievable gift he’d given me. ‘My crew are going to lose their shit when they see this.’
He wrapped his arms around me and held me close. ‘I hope so.’
I laughed, then swiped him. ‘Andrew! But seriously, what will we tell everyone?’
He inhaled deeply and pressed his cheek to my hair. ‘We could start with the truth?’
‘Hmmm,’ I said skeptically, ‘that doesn’t sound like something we would do. And anyway, what is the truth?’
He squeezed me tighter. ‘That I’ve loved you for a decade, and now you’re finally mine.’
I really hope you enjoyed Miri and Andrew’s story, and if you did, I’d so appreciate a rating or review on Amazon. If you’re active on social media, sharing it on there would be greatly appreciated, too, especially on TikTok, where it’s no exaggeration to say you could literally change an author’s life.
READ NEXT: If you love paranormal romance as well as contemporaries, check out Nation of the Sun, where Amari has hated her soulmate, Caspar, for a hundred years, but in this life, he finds her before she remembers her past …