“Did you miss the part just a moment ago when I said I was already yours?” She stabbed me with her finger in an attempt to drive the reminder home. “No one said you had to wait for that, mister.”

“I want you as my wife and queen.” Disliking the physical distance between us, I lifted her back onto my lap. “We’re getting married in November.”

Tilting her head to the side, she studied me for a long moment before her lips twitched with a ghost of a smile. “We are not getting married in November. I just told you that I am not going to be a teen bride. And excuse you, Mr. Almighty Vitucci, but if you keep barking out orders, I won’t marry you when I turn twenty either. I’ll make you wait until I turn thirty.”

My heart rate escalated painfully at the threat. Fuck, she could get my blood pumping in fear like no one else. “Nova, stick to the plan,” I pleaded.

“And just so we’re clear, you are going to have to ask me.” She folded her arms over her chest. But for once, I couldn’t tell if the glare she gave me was real or not. “You’re all freaked out over deviating from the plan, but it looks like you need to work on a new one. Because I expect you to propose in the most romantic way the world has ever seen.”

“That’s what you want? For me to propose?” She blinked at me, expecting me to know the answer from that look alone. Normally I could read what she was thinking, to the point that it was as if I could hear her every thought. But I was already panicking over her wanting to wait until she was twenty for us to get married. “Baby, if I propose in the world’s most romantic way, will you please marry me on your birthday?”

“Of course.” A relieved exhale started to leave me when she amended, “My twentieth birthday.”

“Nova,” I groaned in agony, feeling physically sick.

“Hey.” She stroked her thumb over my jaw in concern. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not fucking okay. I need you to be my wife in less than eleven months.” Maybe then this ache in the pit of my stomach would finally go away. The one that gnawed at me when I was apart from her. If she was my wife, then nothing would keep us apart. Not time or distance—no one could take her from me.

“Why?” she asked in a quiet voice. “Why is it so important that we get married then?”

“Because it’s the plan.”

“That’s not a good enough reason.” She swallowed hard, distracting me momentarily from the nausea swirling in my stomach as tears filled her eyes. Fuck, her tears were my kryptonite. How anyone could withstand them, I’d never been able to fully comprehend. “You’ve had this plan for how long now—fourteen years? And I’ve only known about it for two minutes. You got to decide every aspect of our future, down to planning the day you expect us to get married. All while sowing your wild oats with all the CeCe’s of the world, and I—”