I had to blink at least three times before my blurry vision was clear again from the tears that seemed helpless against his incredible words. I clutched Lily tighter in my arms, and pressed a kiss against her tiny fingers that clawed at my lips as I watched Ashton step back onto the blanket. He picked up the box that held a simple yet elegant white gold diamond ring. A nervous sob-filled giggle escaped me when he got down on one knee.
“Ava, baby, will you marry me?”
My smile almost burst from my lips. It wasn’t even a question that needed a moment’s thought. I’ve always known the answer since the minute he declared his love to me in that hotel room in Miami all those months ago. I may have been there before, stood in front of a beautiful man on bended knee, but it wasn’t like this. Even though it was romantic as hell and I cried—a lot—it was wrong to say yes the first time around because it wasn’t enchanting; it didn’t take my breath away, my heart didn’t gallop in my chest, my skin didn’t erupt in tiny little goose bumps at the impact of his words … but now they were and I’d never known anything so right, not until that very moment.
I looked at Lily with amusement and asked her, “What do you think, baby girl? Should I say yes?”
She saw my smile and hers beamed even brighter as she nodded her head. I turned to Ashton and the smile I saw on his face, one that said he was in love with me, it made me fall even deeper in love with him than I ever thought possible.
“Yes, I’ll marry you!”
His nervous smile was gone and was replaced with a huge-ass grin—so huge you’d think he’d just won the lottery—and he was on his feet in an instant. I shifted Lily to my right side as Ashton took hold of my left hand before sliding the ring on my finger.
“I love you!” he exclaimed before slamming his lips onto mine. It was short-lived when Lily’s hands began to claw at our faces and we pulled away. He looked down at Lily and with a chuckle he said, “No need to get jealous. I love you, too.” He brushed his lips along her forehead.
“Now that you’re my fiancée, can we eat? I’m starving.”
“Trust my son to think about his stomach seconds after proposing!” pipes up Alana as she cracks up with laughter once I’ve finished telling them my proposal story.
Mia gives out a dreamy sigh. “That’s so romantic … and to include Lily too … damn I think my ovaries just exploded.”
A round of laughter roars around the table, and as I take a sip of my wine, my eyes fall on Riley and I notice just how forced her laugh seems, especially as her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. I keep thinking it’s my paranoia, but I get the distinct feeling that her feelings for Ashton—even after all these years—are still unresolved. It’s pretty sad to be hung up on someone who clearly doesn’t reciprocate those feelings. I would feel sorry for her if it weren’t for the ulterior motives of trying to get my man’s attention with her skimpy little outfits and the way she’s pawed over him all day.
Hell, I’m glad we’re only here for another two days because I sure as hell don’t want Ashton anywhere near her. I have no idea how far her efforts will go in a bid to gain Ashton’s attention, and that scares me.
I turn my focus from her to Mia, trying desperately to eliminate the nausea I feel in my stomach at the sheer jealousy of Riley ever succeeding with her efforts. She wouldn’t because Ashton loves me, but … the thought is still there, irrationally so. It’s like the seed of doubt has been planted and my mind just continues to run away with itself.
“So, how did Tyler propose?” I ask, intrigued.
She takes a sip of her water before placing it back on the table. Leaning back in her chair, with her bare leg hanging over the arm, she smiles. “Not as romantic as Ashton proposing in the place you first met, but it definitely has its merits.”
She begins to tell us how Tyler took her to her favorite restaurant for her birthday. “After dinner, the dessert was brought to our table. It was a chocolate fudge cake—my favorite. Once I began digging in, I noticed just how nervous he suddenly seemed.” She turns her attention to Alana for a moment. “He was doing his eyebrow twitchy thing, you know the … ” She demonstrates by raising her eyebrow up in a rapid motion causing us to laugh out loud at how ridiculous she looks while doing it.
“Oh Lord, my boy sure does twitch when he’s nervous,” Alana says once she’s stopped laughing.
“Seriously, I thought he was having some kind of epileptic fit, but when I asked him what was wrong he just shrugged and said he had something in his eye. I didn’t argue, I just continued to eat my cake. After another minute or so of even more twitching, I lost it and dropped my fork on the table to ask him what the hell was wrong with him, and … well that was the moment I saw the diamond ring embedded in the middle of the cake.
“Before I could take in what was happening, he was suddenly down on his knee in front of me, taking the ring out of my cake, wiping it down with his shirt before proposing to me in the middle of the restaurant. It was so sweet the way he did it but,” she looks down at her ring with a smile forming at her lips, “it took forever to get the melted fudge from out of my ring. I think it’s only just found its original sparkle.”
After the discussion of romantic proposals, I excuse myself to use the toilet; after three glasses of wine and a bottle of water, my bladder is about ready to burst. Once I’ve done my business, I make my way towards the kitchen when I suddenly stop in my steps when I hear Alana in a heated discussion with someone.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re playing at, but you need to leave him alone. Ava might not have noticed your indiscrete flirting with Ashton, or Ashton for that matter, but I certainly have. Ava’s been through enough shit in her lifetime without having some little hussy trying to get in the way of her much deserved happily ever after. They’re happy and in love, and whatever you’re thinking may happen between you and Ashton is never going to happen. Never. He didn’t love you when you were kids, he will never love you now. You need to leave them alone.”
My heart is racing as I take in Alana’s sharp words that, I assume, are being directed to Riley. Nervous laughter follows and I find myself leaning towards the entrance of the kitchen to try and hear better.
“Alana,” I hear Riley begin with a slight stutter. “Seriously, I don’t know want you think you saw today, but I swear to you it was innocent. I didn’t mean anything by it. He’s just an old friend.”
“Well the flirting needs to stop. It’s disrespectful to Ava and quite frankly flirting with a man who’s engaged to be married is downright distasteful, no matter how innocent it is. You don’t want to cross me or my family because I guarantee it will end badly for you, so back the hell off, okay?”
“Is that a threat, Alana?” I hear the condescending tone in Riley’s voice and my mind is left reeling, shocked. Is it a threat? Holy shit, is this conversation really happening right now? I was sure this was all in my head, but Alana just confirmed that my insecurities were most definitely warranted.
Silence only follows from Alana, and after a moment passes a set of footsteps descend from the kitchen. I flinch when I hear the sound of a glass slamming along the countertop and Riley muttering, “Fucking bitch.”
After a few minutes, once I know the coast is clear, I finally make my way through the kitchen out onto the veranda, pretending that I didn’t overhear their heated conversation.
“Hey, honey … you were gone a while, is everything okay?” Alana asks, concerned. Ignoring the heated stare I can feel coming from Riley, I smile timidly at Alana as I take a seat and grab hold of my glass of wine, forcing myself not to down it in one as I try to make sense of the conversation I just heard.