Page 89 of Save Your Breath

“I know this is crazy,” he admitted, and then he smiled that beautiful, crooked smile that had first made my teenage heart burst into flames. “But so are we.”

He popped the box open, and I didn’t have to fake the gasp that ripped from my throat.

I covered my mouth with both hands, more tears spilling over as I stared at the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. I couldn’t even remember it from the showing with the jeweler at Aleks’s condo. Then again, that had all been an out-of-body blur. I didn’t want to pick out my own wedding ring — even if it was fake. It felt so strange, like a bad omen of some kind.

And Aleks had known it.

He’d shooed me away. He’d picked out a ring to surprise me.

He’d picked out a ring better than any I could have ever imagined for myself.

I wasn’t even sure what the stonewasnestled in the delicate and intricate gold setting, but it was a mixture of green and black and gray, a swirling whirlpool of beauty in a perfectly sized gem. The brilliant band sported tiny leaves of diamonds to frame the stone — one branch spiraling up to hug the top of it while the other hugged the bottom.

It was like an entire fairytale told without a single word.

It was enchanting, and magical, and stunning.

It was perfect.

“Marry me, Mia,” Aleks whispered, like the words were strangling him. He cleared his throat and spoke louder, his dark eyes fixed on mine. “Marry me.”

Whatever I’d practiced, whatever fake show I’d planned to put on at this exact moment? It was impossible now. I was so overcome with emotion I could barely nod, could barely breathe through the tumultuous disorientation forcing more tears down my cheeks as I held out a shaking left hand.

Aleks pulled the ring from the box and slid it onto my ring finger.

It fit perfectly.

Then, he stood, his own eyes red and rimmed with tears as he stared down at me. He wiped the tears from my right cheek withhis palm, and then mirrored that action on the left until he was framing my face.

He bent, and I pressed up onto my toes, and our lips met in a kiss far too tender, a kiss that reverberated through me like an earthquake that I felt all the way down to my toes.

I threaded my arms around his neck, holding him to me even when he tried to pull away. Even if this was just for show, I didn’t care.

I wanted to pretend not for them, but for me.

I wanted to soak in every second of this fantasy where Aleks said those things to me and meant them, where he asked me to marry him and I said yes, where he loved me.

Where he was mine.

My grip seemed to be the only cue he needed. Aleks inhaled me, wrapping his arms around my frame and holding me so tight it was like he was afraid I’d float away.

I opened my mouth, and his tongue slid inside, lighting a fire deep in my stomach when it danced with mine.

That spark sent lust vibrating through me.

That flame seared my body, my heart, my soul.

That fire burned me.

And then sent me flying back to Earth in a fiery ball of reality.

I broke away from the kiss, fighting off more tears as I pressed against his chest to put some much-needed distance between us.

“I…” My next breath came more panicked than the one before it, and then again, and again, until my chest was rapidly rising and falling in a pattern I couldn’t control. “Excuse me.”

I barely got the words out before I was darting inside.

I tried to pretend like I was running over to celebrate with someone inside the boat, but I wasn’t sure if I pulled it off as I brushed past a celebrating Giana and a giddy Isabella. Mypublicist and friend tried to hook me by the elbow and hug me, but I yanked out of her grasp, sprinting for the nearest head.