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“Why do I feel like you’ve just cheated?” I laugh, reaching out for the next balloon and handing it to her. I ask her to pop it and there’s a loud pop and a sprinkling or more fine stardust, then another scroll lands on the table. I pick it up it, roll it out, and hold it up before my eyes. I smile at Kingsley as she waits, before I start to read.

“Kingsley Murray, this is your graduation. You have now been inducted into the Hall of Kickass Businesswomen. We have no doubt you’ll go far in life… kicking ass.”

She laughs and claps her hands together, taking the scroll from me and tucking it into a corner of the table as she tells me she’d cherish her graduation certificate forever.

“There’s one more balloon,” she exclaims. “You’ll probably give me the keys to the kingdom in that one.” She laughs again and I join her, grabbing the balloon again and holding it between us. I watch her as she moves her hand toward the candle and pops the balloon. A spray of red rose petals come floating out of the balloon, and another scroll falls dangerously close to King’s lap. She looks at it, but makes no move to retrieve it. Neither do I. I reached for the last two, but I won’t reach for this one. This one I want her to open.

“Open it,” I command.

She lifts the scroll reluctantly, obviously more happy to let me take the lead. She opens the thick paper, blinks as she looks at it, then raises her eyes to mine. She looks back down at the scroll, swallowing nervously, then folds it out on the table, tears shining in her eyes. This is not the reaction I’d been hoping for.

75

KINGSLEY

“Marry me.”

Two words.

Two beautiful words that stretch across my heart like a tattoo. He wants to marry me. It is the last thing I am expecting, but not something that’s totally unwanted. There’s nothing I want more than tying myself to Dante. Any time I think of him not being in my life, it’s like I lose a little bit of my soul. I need him in my life. I want him in my world. And there is no one else I would rather spend the rest of my life with.

I’m too tongue-tied to say anything, and so I say nothing. Dante brings out his phone, fiddles with something, and the soft strains of a song I know and love filter through the room.

“Dance with me,” he says, holding his hand out to me as he rises from his chair. He lifts me up, holds me to him, and we start to glide slowly across the room to the sounds of The Righteous Brother’s Unchained Melody. I try to hold them back, but I can’t help the tears that form in my eyes and slide down my cheeks. This man. This man that can be soft and caring and comforting as much as he can be hard, ruthless, and angry. This man that’s stolen my heart. This man who has become my whole world and who will continue to be until I take my very last breath.

Dante kisses the top of my head, inhaling me as he leans into my body. My silent tears come faster, until they are falling in a torrent down my face, staining his shirt until it’s wet with my mark.

“Yes,” I whisper, as the song comes to an end. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Before I know what is happening, Dante has me in his arms and he is twirling me around the room, then planting a kiss on my lips. He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses it, then brings up his other hand and slips a ring on my finger. A beautiful ring. The right size. The perfect style. An elongated oval-cut diamond cushioned above a hidden halo of smaller diamonds in a platinum finish. It suits my finger perfectly and sits against my hand like it has been made to my specific measurements.

“We can get another if you don’t love it,” he says.

“Are you crazy?” I hold my hand up to display the ring’s beauty on my finger. “It’s gorgeous.”

“A ring fit for a queen named King,” he smiles.

My hands go to his face, holding him for the longest moment. It is only when he raises his hands against mine that I realize how lost I have become in his eyes. “This is the last thing I was expecting.”

“Regrets, already?” he asks, leading me out of the room.

“I will never regret the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Dante. You are my world.”

* * *

I’ve never beenthe type to put my life on display. Sharing the intimate details of my world has never come naturally to me, perhaps because there’s never been a wide circle of friends or family to share it with. The list of people I’d tell my news to is almost nonexistent. Except for Stella.

When I connect with her over an online meeting, her reaction is instantaneous and exuberant. She leans toward the camera, her face alight. “Finally! Dante got his head out of his ass and realized he should put a ring on your finger before someone else did. About time.”

The ring on my finger glints in the soft light, its presence undeniable. It’s substantial, taking up the space to the first ridge of my finger, impossible to ignore. And yet, I don’t bring it up unless someone else does. I don’t need to. Everyone must already know—Dante’s constant presence at my side is enough to make it clear that we’re a couple.

But Fiona notices. Oh, she notices. My PA’s eyes dart to the ring every time she’s in the room. She tries to play it off, her expression blank, but it’s impossible not to see the tension in her posture or the way her gaze keeps returning to my hand, as though the ring is a magnet she can’t resist. She blusters in and out of my office, her usual efficient composure replaced by something unsettling—a mix of agitation and something sharper, darker.

It makes my skin crawl.

Later, I mention it to Stella. "I can’t figure her out," I admit, leaning back in my chair. “She’s been distracted lately. Off. It’s… unnerving. Especially the way she keeps staring at the ring.”

Stella’s brow furrows on the screen. “Fiona? That’s strange. When I hired her, she had glowing references. Everyone she’d worked for couldn’t say enough good things about her. Diligent, reliable, thorough…”