Why was he ruining it?
Keith skirted the chairs and knelt by her feet. Almost as if—
No! He wasn’t about to sweep her up in some sort of sham proposal strictly as part of the show. He wouldn’t dare.
Then he took her hand, his gaze swimming with earnestness and something else she couldn’t place, couldn’t fathom, and she couldn’t look away.
“I have trouble expressing myself,” he said. “I like that you don’t force me to dredge up what’s inside. But you deserve more. I want to give you more. I want to stop pretending temporary is all I can do instead of sticking around and figuring out how to say what I’m feeling.”
Sincerity resonated in every word out of his mouth. Oh, this was real. So achingly, wonderfully real.
A hum in her tummy spun outward to sweep across her skin with a delicious heat. “So temporary isn’t all you can do?”
He shook his head. “Not anymore. I want to give you everything your heart desires. No matter what it is. Losing you is unacceptable. Because I love you.”
The crowd murmured and sighed as all the blood drained from her head and white stars burst behind her eyes. “What?”
“It’s for real.” His voice dipped, laced with all sorts of emotions. “I’m sorry it took external forces to get me to realize it.”
“Meredith told you what I said, didn’t she?” Sisters. Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them. “That...blabbermouth.”
Of course, her interfering sister’s conversation with Keith had prompted all of this so maybe it wasn’t so bad that Meredith couldn’t keep her fat mouth shut.
Keith nodded once. “I’d like to hear it from you, though. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about earlier.”
Oh my. Stubbornness had nearly cost her everything. Fortunately, Keith wasn’t one to sit around and wait for life to happen. She heaved a happy sigh. “Yeah, I’m afraid it’s true. I do love you. But I can’t believe that’s what it took to get you on your knees.”
“It didn’t. When I saw you in that dress, that’s when it clicked. I want to marry you and be there for you every moment of every day for the rest of our lives.”
Her chest squeezed and she forgot to breathe. Marriage. Keith was talking about marriage. Obviously he’d been out in the sun too long. “That’s crazy, Keith. It’s just a dress.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s special because it’s you in the dress. Be my bride, but not just for one day. Every day.”
Her heart lightened all at once. He really and truly got her. For so long, she’d yearned to wrap herself in the experience of getting married, to put on the dress as if it held some mystical power. But eventually, you had to take it off and start the marriage.
And there was no one she’d rather do it with than this man, who’d crashed a fake wedding to turn their relationship into something real, who encouraged her to be his equal, who’d told her to grab what she wanted. And she wanted Keith Mitchell.
“Cara, I want to share everything with you. Houses, names, futures. Say you’ll marry me.”
She held the hand of the man she’d sworn to never trust, to never let crush her again, to never be in the presence of while wearing a wedding dress. Looked as if the answer was easy.
“Yes.”
Epilogue
Dawn burst through the floor-to-ceiling glass in the honeymoon suite and the pristine beach spread out in both directions as far as the eye could see. Cara snuggled up against Keith’s warm body and watched the sun rise over Aruba from their bed.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this view,” she commented. “It doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve seen it every morning for two months straight. It never gets old.”
“I agree, Mrs. Mitchell,” Keith murmured, his gaze on Cara and not the panoramic scene outside their room. “You are definitely the best thing in the world to wake up to every morning.”
Was it possible for your heart to actually burst from happiness? She hoped not. “Ha. That’s not what you said yesterday. I believe your exact words were, ‘Stop that or you’ll make me late for the third day in a row.’”
Her husband laughed. “Yeah, I guess I did say that. And you did not stop if I recall.”
Cara shrugged. “Sorry. That’s what you get when you bring a girl to a resort in Aruba and then insist on working the whole time.”
She liked to think of it as fate that the next resort on Regent’s turnaround agenda was located in Aruba, the same island she and Keith had selected for their canceled honeymoon two years ago. But they’d made it to the altar, and the honeymoon, this time.
“It’s my job,” he said, and not the least bit apologetically. “Which you encouraged me to take right away, I’ll remind you. I wanted to take some time off but you were worried Regent would amend the contract.”
Yeah, that was her fault. The day after the expo concluded, Keith had marched Cara down the sand aisle and married her in a real wedding on the beach in Grace Bay, with no ring, no influential guests and no fanfare. But there’d been plenty of love and a desperate desire to be united in matrimony. It had been the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her.
She’d repaid him by insisting he start immediately at the next resort. Because he loved his job and she loved him. Of course, when her husband’s job promised to take them to fifteen different versions of paradise over two years, it was a little hard to complain about much of anything.
“Yes, the contract. That was the reason.” She kissed him soundly and shoved him out of bed. “Go to work. I’ll be here later.”
Keith grinned. “Be naked when I get back.”
“Maybe.” She pretended to contemplate but it was pretty much a sure thing. “I have to finish Yvette’s dress but then I might be available.”
Keith made short work of getting dressed in a delicious dark suit that she couldn’t wait to strip him out of at the end of the day. “Now who’s the workaholic? I thought Meredith was taking over more of the business since you’re in boutiques and have more orders than you can handle?”
Cara had asked Meredith to be a full partner and even offered to change the name to Chandler-Harris Designs, but her sister had pointed out that she was the only Chandler-Harris around and until Meredith could afford to buy into the company, Cara’s name should remain.
“She is. But the company is still mine.”
“That’s my bride.” Keith blew her a kiss and went to terrorize the resort staff.
Yes, Cara was a bride...and a wife and a business owner. Instead of replacing one with another, she’d gotten it all, thanks to her perfect husband who had made her life complete.
* * * * *