She shook the paper in front of me. “Why else would I be holding it out to you?”
I searched her face fast, not sure if this was a lapse in judgment of hers. If she thought I’d be happy about her professing her love for her dead boyfriend, she’d be mistaken.
Fuck. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it all. Suddenly, my palms sweat like I wouldn’t be able to handle if she did love him.
What if she loved him more than me? I mean, he was gone, but could I live with that?
I’d have to. I still wouldn’t let her go for shit. With a lot more fear slithering through my veins about my proposal now, I snatched the letter from her hands.
Line 1: I won’t say this is a love letter, because it’s not.
Line 2: But if I were to have written one, it wouldn’t have been about you.
Line 3: You left me, and you promised you wouldn’t.
Line 4: You promised to love me forever. But you didn’t.
Line 5: Don’t ask me if you were weak or strong.
Line 6: Even though I’ve moved on, I still don’t know what’s right or wrong.
Line 7: I do know you lost so much good when you threw away the bad.
Line 8: I do know I’m older, smarter, and know you could have had a better life than you had.
Line 9: I wish you could have seen how to fight.
Line 10: That someone gave you the strength and love to see the light.
Line 11: Can you see that I found a love that wrecks me but still makes me whole?
Line 12: I feel the pain, the wreckage but also the love deep in my soul.
Line 12: So, I won’t thank you for what you did but I’ll thank you for leaving me.
Line 13: It led me to him and to see I could be the person I wanted to be.
Line 14: I’m sorry you got lost in your mess.
Line 15: But thank you for showing me I should never let go.
“Jesus,” I murmured and let out the long breath I’d been holding.
She loved me. And it wrecked me and put me back together too. I felt it while reading that letter, how my stomach twisted at thinking she may love him, how it uncoiled when I realized she didn’t, and how it felt like electricity zinging through my system when it read like she was ready to be with me forever.
“What?” she asked quietly, like she was suddenly embarrassed.
“I’m ashamed to say I was fucking nervous you were still going to love him more than me in this damn letter.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” She guffawed and tried to grab the note from me.
I recoiled quickly enough that she couldn’t reach it though. Then, I placed my other palm on her face gently. “It’s beautiful, Izzy. Painful and raw too. It’s you. Someone he didn’t deserve and I don’t deserve either.”
“Oh, you deserve me. I’m going to make your life hell for the rest of it.”
“Better believe it.”
I got on my knees right then and there to pull the ruby ring from my pocket. “Say yes to hating that you love me for the rest of your life, Izzy Hardy.”
“Cade? Seriously?” she whispered, staring at the ring and then staring at me as tears streamed down her face.
“Serious that I love you? That I love your attitude, the fact that you might still spray paint a line down our bed, that I currently owe Stonewood Enterprises for those computers and for the wall and bed on that retreat, that I wouldn’t have it any other way?”
“I’ll pay for that.” She shook her head.
“You won’t pay for a damn thing ever again, dollface. Say yes so I can tell your brothers and your father that I won’t have to fight you over it.”
“You asked them?”
“I did, and then when they said ‘Well, what if we say no?’ I told them it wouldn’t matter.”
“What if I say no?” She smirked.
“Doesn’t matter if you say no either.”
She laughed and then hiccupped, tears streaming down her face. “I’m still a mess. I still have to stay sober, and I still have to—”
“You’re my mess. The one I want. Every fucking part of you, Izzy. Now, listen to your boss and say yes.”
She sighed and continued to give me hell like the brat she was as she chewed her cheek. “You’re still a dick, Cade.”
“I know. Last time I’ll tell you—say yes so I can fill you with our first of many babies.”
“Fine,” she giggled. “Yes.”
The End