Page 97 of Married in Michigan

I snicker. “How long do you think she’s going to stay out there yelling?” I ask my nail technician.

She shrugs. “I have no idea.” Her eyes widen. “I did her nails once. She scares the hell out of me.”

I grin. “Would you believe I used to be a maid in her hotel?”

The technician stops, staring at me. “No way, really?”

I nod. “Really.”

“And now you’re marrying Paxton?”

I grin even more widely. “I know, right? I feel like Cinderella.” I wiggle my bare foot. “Hopefully I don’t turn back into a pumpkin.”

She laughs. “I don’t think that’s how the fairy tale goes.”

After an hour and a half of glam squad prep, the team leaves, and I’m alone for a blessed moment, in nothing but a thin silk dressing gown, waiting for Julie to arrive with my dress—she did some last-minute alterations to it, and she is still on the way here with it.

The door opens behind me, and I turn expecting Julie. Instead, it’s Paxton. “I wanted to catch you before you put your dress on,” he says.

I give him a tender smile; he’s incredible in his tuxedo—he’d better be, though, considering it’s a bespoke Kiton three-piece. “You look delicious,” I tell him.

He kneels in front of me. “Thank you.” He bites his lip. “I realized something, late last night, or early this morning.”

“What’s that?” I ask, touching his stubble with my fingertips.

He hesitates. “A hundred and sixteen days ago, we agreed to marry each other, as a business arrangement, more or less.”

I nod. “I remember.”

“And then things changed.” He blinks hard. “I fell in love with you.” He still hasn’t said it—I won’t let him. I told him I don’t want him to say it until we’re married.

I cup his cheek. “Save it for the vows, honey.”

He shakes his head, gazing up at me earnestly, seriously, desperately. “Is this still what you want?”

“Yes, without a doubt.”

“Absolute truth? You’ve considered it long and hard?”

I nod, wondering where he’s going with this. “I barely slept last night, asking myself that. Do I want to marry him? Do I really? I’ve known him for four months.” I bite my lip to keep the emotion at bay. “I want this, Pax.”

He reaches into the inner pocket of his tuxedo, brings out a ring box. “Then I have one more question for you, Makayla.” He opens it—inside is a diamond engagement ring, twin round diamonds set in delicate, intricate platinum filigree, the band encrusted with countless scintillating tiny stones, each enormous stone at least two full carats. “Will you marry me?”

I laugh, tip my head back and sniffle, reaching for Kleenex to dab at my tear-filled eyes. When I have something like control, I look at him, and I laugh. “An hour before the ceremony, you ask me.”

He laughs, too, equally emotionally fraught. “I know. I just realized we’d made an agreement and just went along with my mom’s plan. But I never actually asked you, and you don’t have a ring, and I want this to be real, even if it is happening in the strangest way possible.”

I look down at the ring. “It’s incredible.”

He laughs, a bark of sarcasm. “So, Makayla. Will you?”

I nod, biting my lip. “Yes,” I whisper, laughing. “I will.”

He holds the ring up to the light, and the brilliant gleam is blinding. “Do you want to know about this ring?”

I smile, biting my lip to keep from laughing. “There’s a story?”

He nods. “Of course there is,” he says, grinning, and I hear him take on his I’m-about-to-lecture voice. “The two center stones were mined in the early eighteen hundreds, and purchased by my great-great-great-grandfather at a cost that would make your eyes water even by today’s standards. He kept them as family heirlooms for the next fifty years, until my great-great-grandfather had them made into two plain diamond solitaire rings. And by plain, I only mean simple, but no less beautiful. He gave them to his daughters, and they wore them as wedding rings until they both died together in a train accident in France near the turn of the century.”