When she looked at Ethan, she saw Preston. As she fell in love with Ethan, she was falling in love with Preston. While kissing Ethan, she was really kissing Preston. And when she said she’d rather die than live without Ethan, a part of her acknowledged that her feelings for Preston were surpassing everything else: her upbringing, her conscience…everything but her ambition, which kept a steely eye on the future but bent its neck in a whispered confession that losing him might break her.
The day of Elise’s final performance as Mattie Silver dawned dark and gray, raining cats and dogs over the island of Manhattan. Compounding her melancholy over the end of Ethan Frome was the fact that Preston was headed to Philadelphia to take the Pennsylvania bar exam, wouldn’t be back in New York in time to catch her final performance. Lying on her side, in the safe, warm cocoon of his arms, she stared balefully out the floor to ceiling bedroom window across from the bed, watching the raindrops slide down the glass in rivulets.
“I’m going to stay,” Preston said, his lips moving softly on the back of her neck, his warm breath at once soothing and arousing. “I’m not going to miss your big night. I can take the exam next year.”
“Absolutely not,” she replied.
“Elise, I already took New York and I’m sure I did well. I already have the job. It’s done. I can take Pennsylvania next year if I still want to. But, really, what’s the point? We both work here in New York. There’s no need for me to take the Pennsylvania exam now, and besides, it’s your last—”
She flipped over, lying flat on her back and looking up at Preston who was propped on his elbow hovering over her.
“No,” she said firmly, nailing him with her mother’s no-nonsense glare. “Now, stop.”
He rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Why can’t we talk about this?”
She reached up and palmed his cheek, forcing him to look down at her. “I’m not here to ruin your plans…or change them. You wanted to be able to practice in New York and Pennsylvania. That was your plan. That is your plan. You’re taking the test.”
He dropped his elbow and fell onto his back beside her, huffing softly. “It feels wrong not to be there for you tonight.”
“Well, it’s not wrong,” she said, leaning up on her elbow now, distractedly tracing words in his chest. Elise. Loves. Pres. “I would never dream of standing in the way of your career.”
He was silent for a long moment before looking up at her, a small, tender smile playing on his lips. “Me too.”
“You too…what?”
“I love you, too.”
Her finger stilled, and she flattened her palm over his heart, her eyes suddenly glistening as they locked with his. “I do. I love you.”
“I know.” He grinned at her, reaching up to brush her tears away. “You just wrote it on my chest.”
“I would write it in the stars,” she murmured, stroking a rogue black wave from his forehead, “so that every night when you looked at the sky, my love would shine back at you.”
His jaw worked as he swallowed. “What’s that from?”
“A play I did in college,” she said, laughing softly as she wiped away another happy tear.
“Marry me,” he whispered in the same low, passionate tone that had beseeched her Please don’t say no at the stage door when he surprised her with a picnic, and Please stay when he gave her his keys.
His eyes, green and clear, held hers with the same tenderness that had become so familiar, and yet still so precious, to her. Their short courtship flashed before her eyes: Preston walking her home from the theater and buying her flowers, Preston waiting for her every evening at the fountain, Preston giving her a place to live, Preston teaching her heart—and her body—how to love.
In all the world, there would never be anyone who loved her as he did. She knew this. She knew it like she’d known, as a small child, that God had created the world and the heart in her chest and the mind in her head.
Staring back at him, at the face that she’d grown to love so quickly over the past couple of months, she heard herself whisper, “Yes.”
His eyes flashed open with surprise. “Yes?”
“Yes,” she said again, laughing at his shocked face as she leaned down to press her lips to his. He groaned with pleasure, rolling her onto her back and covering her body with his.
An impromptu marriage proposal! It was so passionate, it felt almost unreal—like a wonderfully dreamy scene from a beautiful movie.
“Tomorrow,” he rasped, his eyes searching hers desperately, his breath quick and panting against her cheek. “When I come home. Just you and me. Let’s just do it!”
Tomorrow?
Tomorrow felt so soon. And yet…
…they loved each other, right? And they lived together, for all intents and purposes. What was the point of waiting?
Swept away by the romance of the moment, she grinned up at him. “Tomorrow?”
“Just you and me,” he repeated, leaning back to look into her eyes.
“But your family…” she started, real life intruding. He had family. She had family. Oh, God, her family…
He read her face like a book. “I don’t want my family there if yours won’t be there, and I’m guessing that they wouldn’t come if you married a Lutheran, right?”
Feeling bad and hoping the truth didn’t hurt his feelings, she nodded.