She wraps them around my neck and clings to me.
“I can’t let you go either. Last time I didn’t have a choice, but this time I do. I love you. I don’t care what you did, because I know you did it for me.”
Thank fuck.
I crush my mouth against hers, taking her lips, and Greer’s fingers curl around my nape, pulling me closer. For long moments, there’s nothing and no one but us.
Until we hear the clapping.
I grudgingly release Greer, lowering her to her feet as I scan the crowd of onlookers that has formed. There are only a dozen or so, but their phones are out, and I know this is going to be all over YouTube within minutes.
“Are you rehearsing for a movie? Because I want to see that one,” a lady calls out.
Greer presses her face into my chest, but her laugh sneaks up between us. “If they only knew,” she whispered. “If they only knew.”
I look down as she releases her grip on me. “You ready to go home, baby?”
“Where’s home, exactly?”
It’s just one more thing we need to work out . . . but I go with my gut.
“The Hollywood Hills. I think you were born to be a California girl.”
Greer slips her hand into mine. “Then take me home, Cav.”
A year later
I’m just leaving Starbucks, iced coffee in hand, when a woman asks me, “So, are you going to say yes?”
It’s Hollywood. I’ve gotten used to being recognized, but people mostly leave me alone.
“Excuse me?” I pause at her table.
“Are you going to say yes?” This time she holds up her iPad, and I see the text of an ad on a popular gossip site.
“May I?” I ask before snatching it out of her hands when she nods. The ad was posted only minutes ago.
Desperately seeking gorgeous, caring, perfect woman with a huge heart to make an honest man out of me and give Hollywood a happily-ever-after like it has never seen before.
I’ve got a big . . . ring, just sayin’.
GREER KARAS—WILL YOU MARRY ME?
He didn’t. He did.
That man. That man.
I hand her back the iPad. The grin on my face can’t be wiped off to save my life. Some things are permanent. Apparently, like me and Cav.
“I think I owe him the answer first, don’t you?”
Her smile and shrug are well meaning, and she holds out a Sharpie and a napkin. “Could I have your autograph?”
Shifting my purse, I set my iced coffee down and sign my name, and then grab another napkin and quickly draw something for myself before folding it up and sliding it in my purse.
When I moved in with Cav a year ago, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. Never in a million years did I expect to be standing on the red carpet of a movie I was in, with Cav accompanying me to the premiere.
He asked me to help him run lines one night, and I got into it so much that he started bugging me to talk to his agent about auditioning for a role. I scoffed at the idea. Scoffed. Greer Karas was no actress.
But I was wrong.
I might not be starring in any big movies like Cav, but I’m having more fun with work than I ever thought possible.
And now it’s time to get home and talk to that man of mine.
I think I’m hearing things when the knock comes at the door. I’ve been waiting for a frigging hour for Greer to see the ad and come home.
No one knocks on our front door because of the gate . . .
I grab the box from the counter, hop off my stool, and slide across the wood floor in my hurry to get to the foyer. Six feet from the door, I slow.
This is it. The only time I’m ever going to ask a woman to marry me—well, other than in the ad I posted this afternoon.
Closing the remaining distance to the door, I unlock it and pull it open.
Greer stands there, holding a heart drawn on a napkin in black marker. “It’s not huge, but it’s the best I could manage under the circumstances.”
“I love you, Greer.” The feeling hasn’t dimmed in the time we’ve spent together, only grown. “I love you so damn much.” I drop to a knee. “I’ve been thinking about this for four years. What I would do. What I would need to say to convince you to say yes.”
It’s not smooth or polished, but the words are raw honesty.
“All you had to say is exactly what you did. I love you too, so much that sometimes I feel like there’s nothing else holding the pieces of me together. This has been yours since before I even realized you stole it.” She holds out the napkin.
I lift the box I’m holding. “I think this is a fair trade.”
Flipping the top open, I wait for her reaction. It is big, but it’s not a diamond. It’s tanzanite, which I read is a thousand times rarer than diamonds. It seems perfectly fitting for the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.
Greer’s eyes go wide when she sees the brilliant blue stone surrounded by diamonds.
“How long have you had that?”
It’s not a question I was expecting, but I tell her the truth. I always tell Greer the truth.
“Eleven months.”