Chloe laughed and tipped up her glass of champagne. “God, he was such a little shit, wasn’t he? I still haven’t forgiven him for that.”
“Nor should you ever,” Charlotte said.
“We’ll just be a minute.” I grabbed Chloe’s arm and tried to drag her out of the room, but my dad blocked our path.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” he boomed. “Grab a glass of bubbly. I’m about to make a toast to your grandmother for her birthday.”
“We’ll be right back,” I said, trying to get around him.
“Oliver, stop it,” Chloe hissed, shaking me off. “We can’t miss this.”
“Chloe, I have to talk to you.”
“Later,” she told me. “Now go get a glass so we can toast to Gran. She’s watching us.”
Reluctantly, I went over to the table where a tray of full champagne glasses rested and took one. Then I trudged back over to Chloe and stood next to her, surveying the group assembled. My parents, her parents, Hughie’s family, Charlotte and Guy, Gran—they’d all witness my utter humiliation if she said no.
“Are we all here?” my dad asked loudly, looking around. “Everybody have a glass? Good. We’ve got a lot to celebrate today.”
“Hear, hear!” Hughie shouted, which annoyed me for no reason. Did he always have to get a word in?
“Not only are we celebrating our great nation’s independence, but we’re here to honor my dear mother, who is slightly younger than the United States of America, but no less formidable.”
Everyone laughed at the joke, and Gran smiled. “More formidable, some might argue.”
“I can attest to that,” said my mother, prompting more laughter.
“We also have an upcoming addition to the family,” he said, nodding at my sister, “and a new sailboat to christen,” he went on, gesturing toward Hughie and Lisa.
“What will you call this one?” Charlotte asked.
“The Lisa Yvonne II, of course,” Hughie said, smiling at his wife.
How boring, I thought. As if on cue, Chloe leaned over to me and whispered, “If you ever name a boat the Chloe Lorraine, it’s over between us. Ew.”
I gave her half a grin. “I was just thinking the same thing. We’ll come up with something better.” Seeing her suppress a giggle made me feel better. We thought alike in so many ways—she got me. She’d get why we had to fake this engagement, wouldn’t she?
“I’d also like to toast our lifelong friends, John and Daphne Sawyer,” my father orated, lifting his glass in Chloe’s parents’ direction. “John, here’s to your retirement, to your continued success and good health, and to finally getting you to take a holiday off and play some goddamn golf with me. Tee time is nine A.M.”
“You’re on!” John shouted, raising his glass.
“And finally,” my father said, “I’d like us all to raise a glass to a new partnership, both professional and personal. Oliver, your mom and I couldn’t be happier for you and Chloe. We’ve always loved her like a daughter and we can’t wait for you to make it official.”
Next to me, Chloe made a sort of squeaking noise, and a murmur moved through the room. I caught my grandmother’s eye and she nodded, giving me a shrewd smile.
Oh, fuck.
The room spun. My heart raced. My palms felt sweaty. I felt every single eye on me as I turned to face Chloe and set my champagne glass aside. Time was up. If I was going to do this, I had to do it now.
I couldn’t fail.
Looking her right in the eye, I dropped to one knee.
21
Chloe
NOW
No.
This couldn’t be happening.
It was too ridiculous. Too farcical. Too absurd. There was no possible way Oliver was going to propose to me right now.
And yet there he was, going down on one knee.
Someone in the room gasped. I nearly dropped my champagne. Oliver looked up at me with a strange mixture of desperation, guilt, and anxiety on his face—not the expression you want the guy to have as he asks you to spend the rest of your life with him.
“Chloe,” he said, his voice unnaturally loud, like he was on stage. “I know this probably seems sudden.”
Sudden? Was he kidding me? We’d only been together for two days!
“But we’ve known each other all our lives, and no matter how far apart we were, our paths always seemed to lead us back to one another.”
Okay, that was true, and kind of sweet, but it still didn’t explain what he was doing down on one knee. I’d have asked him, but I was too stunned to talk.
He reached into his pocket and then took my left hand. “You’ve always been the only one for me, and I hope you’ll do me the honor of becoming my wife. Chloe Sawyer, will you marry me?”
“Oh my God,” I heard my mother say.
My knees were knocking. My pulse was hammering. My breath was coming too fast. I felt like an actress who’d forgotten all her lines and we’d come to the most climactic scene in the play.
“Uh,” I said.
“What?” someone in the room whispered. “Was that yes? Did she say yes?”
I looked around the room in a panic, desperate for an escape hatch.
Oliver squeezed my hand, and I met his eyes again. They were deep and blue and familiar. There was an urgency in them I read immediately as please go along with this. I need you.
The fact that we could communicate effortlessly without words tugged at my heart. I was going to fucking kill him for this, but I wouldn’t do it in front of his family.
I plastered on a smile. “Yes.”
Oliver looked shocked. “Yes?”
“Yes!” I leaned down and kissed him, then whispered in his ear. “Put the ring on my finger, asshole.”
He fumbled with it, but eventually managed to slide it onto my fingertip and I shoved it the rest of the way. I stared at it for just a second—it was a beautiful vintage style, Art Deco maybe, with an engraved platinum band and a large round-cut diamond that sparkled in the last rays of the sun slanting through the library window behind me. I held it up for all to see. “I said yes!”
The room erupted with cheers and applause, and Uncle Soapy’s voice rang out again. “So let’s all drink to health, to happiness, to wonderful years past and all the wonderful years to come. Cheers!”
“Cheers!” everyone echoed, lifting their glasses and taking a sip.
Immediately afterward, we were surrounded by family. Every single person present hugged and kissed and congratulated us. Aunt Nell and Charlotte cried. Gran looked smug. My mother and father were dumbfounded, of course, since they’d seen the way I’d treated Oliver just the other night, but they hugged us both and said how thrilled they were.
“So was that all an act?” my mother said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Had you two been seeing each other in secret? Hiding it from us all?”
I laughed nervously. “We’ll explain everything in a minute, I promise.” I grabbed Oliver’s hand. “I just need a moment alone with my fiancé here.”
“Good idea, honey.” Oliver took the lead, pulling me out of the library, down the hall, and through a swinging door into the butler’s panty.