Ashna hadn’t been this breathless, this excited ever, and it had been a breathless few weeks. They kissed like they hadn’t seen each other in centuries. Like parched earth in a cloudburst.

“You almost gave me a heart attack there, Rico!” she said when they came up for air. “What is wrong with you?”

“Other than the fact that not being able to check up on you this morning almost killed me?”

“I’m sorry. Things got to be a lot with my mom.”

He stroked her cheek. “She’s lovely. There’s so much of her in you.”

She nodded and kissed him again, because hearing that made beautiful feelings dance inside her.

With one tug at the clasp in her bun, he made her hair slide down her back. “Did you really think I’d propose to you on live television? It’s like you think I don’t know you at all.”

“Thanks for knowing me.” She stroked his lips with the pad of her thumb. “Also, I would have killed you if you had done it. There were knives there.”

He kissed her fingers and unleashed his chuckle on her poor heart. “First, I know how you feel about proposals putting the power of a relationship’s future in a man’s hands.” She had told him that back in high school. She hated the rabid romanticizing of proposals—as though the act of women waiting to be claimed were a good thing. “If I did want to express my feelings—in a non-proposal—I would do it in private. Just you and me. Maybe in a room where I finally had you back in my arms, where I had prayed so hard to have you back, I don’t know how I didn’t crack the walls.”

He fell to his knees.

“Rico, your knee.”

“Good as new.”

She went down on her knees in front of him. “What are you doing?”

“Exactly what you think. You ready? It’s going to be a long speech.” He extracted a box from his pocket and flipped it open. There, on white satin, sat the most exquisite blood red ruby circled in diamonds.

She wiped the tear that slid down his cheek. He was too choked up to speak. “I’m waiting for the speech.”

He swallowed and squeezed her hand, his own shaking. “All those years ago when we were together, I used to wonder what might happen if you left me. I remember the terror of it. Finding you after I had lost everything—it felt like too much. I used to have nightmares about losing you too. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to bear it. I imagined each day to be hell, I imagined having no way out. But I had no idea.