Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“You did a good job. I love it.” I turned the top of my hand toward me and admired the ring. Even in the low light, it sparkled. Without knowing a single thing about jewelry, I recognized the quality of the diamonds. Wolfe never did anything half-assed, so I knew he had probably bought the most expensive ring in the store.
“I put it on a chain instead of a box so I wouldn’t lose it.”
“So you wore it?”
“Sometimes,” he said with a nod.
“Around me?”
“Yeah.”
“What if I took off your shirt?”
He shrugged. “Then I would have asked you at that moment. Would have asked you sooner, but with everything that happened, it didn’t feel like the right time. I realize that even now isn’t the right time, but I couldn’t wait.” He spun his fork in his pasta then placed the bite in his mouth before he sat back in the chair and rested his arms on the armrest. He cocked his head slightly as he looked at me and chewed.
“It was perfect. I’m glad you asked me the way you did.”
He swallowed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s our story. It’s right for us. I wouldn’t want anything fancy or showy.”
“I wanted to ask you here because it was where I saw you for the first time. And the second I laid eyes on you…” He shook his head and issued a low whistle. “I knew I was done for.”
Hard to believe this drop-dead gorgeous man could spot me from a distance away and want me, when he could have anyone. That I was somehow the one woman he couldn’t live without. That he would commit to me without hesitation or a struggle with temptation.
“So when are we going to get married?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he asked. “I hoped you would say tomorrow or this weekend.”
I chuckled, touched by his enthusiasm.
“Do you want to have a traditional wedding?”
I thought about it for a second or two before I shook my head. “No.”
“Then you want to get hitched?”
“Yeah. Just the two of us.”
That handsome smile slowly stretched across his face. “I like that.”
“Would you mind if we got married in a church?”
The smile remained, but his eyes slowly hardened into seriousness. “I’ll marry you anywhere, baby. Just tell me when to show up.”
I’d always imagined I would have a big wedding with five hundred guests and my father giving me away in the church.
Assumed we would have a grand party at a fancy hotel that my father would pay top dollar for. But now that he was gone, everything was different. I didn’t have any family anymore.
Just Wolfe.
So if I couldn’t have my father there, I didn’t want anyone there.
“Do you want me to take your last name?”
He grabbed his fork again and spun it around the pasta. “Do you want to take my last name?”
“I know that’s important to most men.”
“Well, I’m not most men, baby.” He put the pasta in his mouth and chewed as he wiped the corner of his lips with a napkin. “You can have a different last name, but trust me, no one is going to be confused about who you’re married to.”
That was another reason why I loved him. He didn’t conform to typical traditions. He was his own man with his own thoughts and opinions. So secure in who he was, his masculinity was rock solid. Having a wife who kept her last name wouldn’t create any resentment on his part.
“Do you have to decide now?” he asked. “You can always change it later, right?”
“Yeah, I guess I could.”
“Then worry about it later.”
“If we have kids, I should probably change my last name.”
He shrugged. “They could take your last name instead of mine.”
Now that was as nontraditional as it could get.
“You’re the one who’s going to grow them and give birth to them. Shouldn’t it be whatever name you want?”
I thought I might have just fallen even more in love with him.
“In any case, that’s tomorrow’s problem.” He grabbed his wineglass and took a drink. “Not today’s.”
After he’d shared his true name with me, we hadn’t really talked about it. We’d had too much going on at the time. “Do you think you feel that way because you don’t feel connected to your given name?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think that has anything to do with it.” He looked at me head on across the table, his elbows moving to the surface now that his plate was wiped clean. Focused and intense, he just stared at me.
“Do you prefer Wolfe or Cesare?” It was hard to imagine calling him anything but Wolfe since that was the name I associated with him. But at the same time, he looked like a Cesare. I felt like I’d uncovered a new layer to him.
“No one has called me Cesare since I was eight,” he said. “Let’s stick with Wolfe.” He spoke freely about it with me, so it didn’t seem to be a sign of contention.