“My two legs and two feet, they all work perfectly well together,” she reminded him as she laid her head on his shoulder.

“Shut up,” he said. “Whatever. This gets you into my bed as quickly as possible, and I’m hungry for my five-star meal. Don’t plan on going home tonight.”

She should text Sarah to let her know, she thought. Then Alexei swung her onto the bed and came down over her in one controlled motion, and all rational thought splintered.

She knew how powerful it was to be the sole recipient of his dedicated attention. Her body remembered too, and it ignited everywhere he touched her. She lost herself in a haze of sensuality and pleasure and only remembered she was supposed to text Sarah when it was well after two a.m.

Sarah always kept her phone on in case there was a coven emergency, and Molly certainly didn’t want to wake her with an apology. After deliberating for some time, she decided to let it go and apologize the next morning.

When she did, Sarah laughed. “I didn’t think anything of it. Honestly, I was surprised you waited as long as you did. The way he looks at you… I always like to tell the man that he’s the lucky one, but he looks at you like you’ve hung the moon.”

She bit her lip and then smiled. “He does, doesn’t he?”

On their fifth date, he proposed. Out near the labyrinth by the light of a full moon, down on one knee as he held out a blue-diamond engagement ring.

“It’s gorgeous,” she breathed.

“The blue is for the ocean,” he told her. “I love you. More than that, I like and admire you, and I will want and need you every day for the rest of my life. We won’t get it right all the time—and I know I certainly won’t get it right. But I can promise you this: I will support you in everything you want to do, and I will cherish and respect you for as long as I live in this body. And when I do something wrong, I will make it right.”

She stared down at him. For someone who wasn’t a romantic man, he had put so much thought into the proposal. The moon, the ocean, the labyrinth.

He was telling her so much more with his actions, not just his words, and it was so perfect.

So perfect.

She replied, “Absolutely, yes.”

A keen smile lit his features. He surged to his feet, picked her up, and swung her in a circle. She threw her arms around his neck, holding him tightly.

She would have said yes if he’d mentioned the possibility casually over lunch at some point, but she didn’t tell him that until much, much later.