The Wake-Up Call(106)

“Lucas,” I say, pulling back from him. “Will you marry me?”

For a long moment, he just stares at me, the droplets on his skin catching silver-pink in the sunrise.

“Lucas?” I say after a moment, gripping his shoulders tighter. “Should I not . . . Do you not . . .” I glance at the skyline. It’s an artwork of pink and purple and orange. “This just seemed like a totally perfect moment to propose.”

“I know,” Lucas says, voice catching slightly in his throat.

He shifts, one arm letting go of me in the water as he moves to show me something in his closed hand.

A ring.

I know that ring. It’s Maisie Townsend’s ring. My hand flies to my mouth.

I saw Mr. Townsend just a couple of weeks ago, before we left for Brazil; I’m still working part-time at Forest Manor while I launch my business. We’d caught up over Arjun’s new afternoon tea, and as I’d walked him back to his room, Mr. Townsend had said something that now makes a lot more sense. Have a good Christmas, he’d said, and then, as the door was closing behind him, he’d added: And Happy New Year from Maisie and me.

My knees go loose with shock, and I almost go under. I grab Lucas, spluttering, as he says, “Why do you think you’re in the sea for the sunrise?”

“Oh my God,” I say, clinging to him, reaching for the ring.

He closes his hand again.

“Izzy Jenkins,” he says, “have you really just one-upped my proposal?”

I throw my head back and laugh.

“Do you know how much planning went into this? There is a picnic breakfast waiting for us on that beach. I had to bribe the receptionist to do a wake-up call—in English—because the hotel doesn’t even offer them. I had to get this ring out of the hotel safe while you were brushing your teeth, and you kept wandering out of the bathroom.”

“Give me that ring!” I say, reaching for his hand.

“Do you even have a ring for me?” he asks, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as I try to peel back his fingers.

“Well, no,” I admit. “It was kind of a spontaneous thing.”

“So . . . no ring,” he says, counting off on his other hand. “No picnic breakfast waiting.”

“Great setting, though,” I say, gesturing to the dramatic sky. “You have to give me that.”

“One-all on setting,” he agrees.

“And a point to me for actually asking the question,” I add, still trying to open his hand. Even the man’s fingers are ridiculously muscular—there’s no budging him. “You haven’t technically asked me anything yet.”

“My apologies,” Lucas says, and he stills my hand with his, catching my gaze. “Izzy,” he says, and now I’m not laughing. “Izzy Jenkins. My love for you grows stronger every day. I want forever with you. I want to find out how big and bright this love will be when we’re old and grey.”

His bottom lip trembles ever so slightly. I’ve long since learned that I was wrong to think of Lucas’s expression as implacable: the emotion is always there if you look closely enough.

“I’ve known I’ll ask you to marry me since that moment at the airport last Christmas, but I wanted to wait until I truly believed enough of myself to trust that you would say yes. I still think this isn’t a question you should ask because you need to know the answer.”

“Oh my God,” I say, beginning to cry.

Lucas’s hand tightens over mine, and then he extracts his fist, unfolding his fingers and holding the ring out to me over the water.

“Mr. Townsend gave me this ring to give to you when the time was right. He knew you had lost a ring that mattered to you, and he wanted to start a new story for you with this one. I wish I could have found the ring your father gave you. But I think this one holds its spirit, maybe.” He smiles. “There’s something I would have never said before I met you.”

I’m all tears and seawater. I swipe at my cheeks with trembling hands.

“Izzy, will you accept this ring, and do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

“Yes. Yes.” I sob as he slides the ring onto my finger. “Oh my God. I can’t believe . . .” I clench my fist. “Let’s get out of the sea. I am not losing this one.”

Lucas laughs. I love that laugh—it’s his lightest one, unselfconscious and full. I want to make him laugh like that a hundred times a day forever.

“OK, so now I have asked the question . . .” he says.

I grab his hand as we find our footing on the sand and begin to walk to the shore. Rio de Janeiro stretches before us, waking up, if it ever truly slept. Apartment windows blink bright in the sunlight, and the fierce blue mountains rise behind it all, just waiting for us to explore them.

“Yes,” I say, looking over at the man I hated, the man I love, the man who makes me burn my brightest.

“I win? At proposing? I win this one?”

I laugh. “You win this one,” I say, and he scoops me up in his arms, whooping, dancing up the beach.

I feel the ring pressing into my palm, carrying so much within it. I’m crying, laughing, clinging to Lucas as the December sky lightens above us. What an honour to wear this ring. And what an honour to call this difficult, wonderful, obstinate, generous man mine.