Page 136 of By Invitation Only

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Booker

Apart of me thought Carrie was moving too fast with Taylor. They’d been dating for such a short amount of time before announcing they were getting married. But it didn’t matter the length of time someone was with a person. It mattered what they felt for each other. And that was no different from how I felt about Peyton.

There wasn’t a day that went by that I second guessed our relationship and I decided I wanted it to be permanent too. So one day during lunch, I went ring shopping.

I returned from lunch and went straight to Randy’s office. When I was at court and saw my woman doing her thing with her cases, a thought hit me. A thought my father had told me about my mum when they’d first arrived from Leeds over the Christmas holiday. “I knew I wanted to marry her. I couldn’t get her out of my head.” And that was true for me too. So instead of heading back to the office to see if Randy wanted to grab a quick lunch, I’d gone to the nearest jewelry store.

Now I had the ring in the pocket of my trousers as I walked to tell my mate what I wanted to do. “Hey.” I knocked on his open door. “Do you a minute?”

He looked up from his computer screen. “Yeah. I don’t need to be in court until three.”

“Good,” I said and moved to sit in the chair before his desk. Before I sat, though, I dug into my pocket and pulled the velvet black box out and set it in front of him.

Randy looked from the box up at me and as I sat he asked, “This for me?”

I chuckled. “No, you bloody wanker, it’s for Peyton.”

He lifted the lid. “Holy shit!”

I smiled.

“Are you sure?” It was a valid question given the length of time Peyton and I had been together, and what Randy and I did for a living.

“Yeah, mate. Deadly sure.”

“When are you going to do it?”

I reached for the box, and he handed it to me. As I stared down at the shiny diamond, I said, “Soon.”

“How soon?”

I thought for a moment. “Would it be weird to propose at the club? I mean, it’s a beautiful backdrop off my balcony.”

“With the moans of women coming in the background?”

“Right,” I agreed. But something was telling me that it was right to propose at the place we started at. “What if I do it in my room with the door closed?”

He nodded. “I think that would be okay if you’re really set on doing it there.”

“I’m going to need your help then.”

“Okay, tell me what you need me to do.”

The plan was set.

I’d given the ring to Randy when we arrived at Sensation. Lorelei dragged Peyton inside without us because that was her job inthe plan. When we were all inside and went our separate ways, I knew that Randy and Lorelei went up to my room and put the box in the drawer as I’d instructed.

Then I pretended it was like any other night at the club. We usually spent an hour or so looking around after getting a drink so I couldn’t rush going up to the room. Though it was killing me.

When Peyton finally opened the top drawer, my heart was pounding so hard that I was positive she could hear it. The wait felt like hours as I watched her examine a few of the toys. Her gaze finally landed on the box, and when she reached inside the dresser, my heart stopped. I quickly got off the bed and knelt in front of her.

And my speech wasn’t planned. I’d planned to just pop the question so to speak, but then looking up into Peyton’s mocha eyes, I knew I needed to express how I felt about her. I wanted to tell her every thought I had about her from the first day I saw her until that moment. But instead, I voiced my fears and told her how I never wanted to be without her. Luckily she never wanted to be without me either.

The other big news was my divorce from Carrie was fast approaching. I never thought I’d be excited to divorce her, but I was. Our lives were changing for the better and working out better than I could have ever hoped for.

“We decided to have a beach wedding,” Carrie stated as we ate cheeseburgers at the dining room table.