She didn’t know what to do. How to react. So she just stood frozen.

Until he opened it.

“It’s handmade,” he said. “And I’ve been assured that the salt-and-pepper diamond there is ethically sourced. I don’t know what all that means, Sammy, or the full implications of it. But I know that it matters to you. And I thought...if I was going to get you a ring, it had to somehow be all the things that you were. It had to be beautiful, and it had to be unique. But it had to be a diamond, because even though this doesn’t look exactly like you think when you say diamond, it’s still traditional underneath all that. And it had to somehow be a ring that cared about the world and how it all worked, how it would all connect, because that’s how you are. So this was the best thing I could find.”

She examined it as he held it out to her. It was made with rose gold, and a beautiful princess-cut diamond with colored flecks in it, which was all very trendy in handcrafted jewelry circles.

And he was right. If there could have been a ring that came right from her own heart, it would’ve been this one. She couldn’t have made herself one so perfect as the one he had found for her, and that was really saying something.

That was a feat. One that only Ryder could’ve ever pulled off.

“So I never really asked you, not properly. Not like this. And I thought that I ought to have something to offer when I did. Sammy... Samantha, will you marry me?”

A laugh escaped her lips; it was either that or burst into tears and start sobbing, and she didn’t want to do that, because everything was so beautiful. He had made this. And he had gone out and found that ring, and now he was down on one knee. And she had never felt more special or herself in her entire life. She wondered if maybe this was it. If maybe this was the journey she had been on, to this destination. One she had never been able to see, because it ended with this. With being Ryder’s wife. And it all seemed joyful now, and not half so frightening or traditional for the sake of it.

Suddenly, she wanted to have that ring on her finger, and she wanted to wear it with her wedding dress more than anything else in all the world. She wanted to see his face when she walked down the aisle toward him, and she hoped that it was filled with...

She blinked hard. “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

He let out a breath that she hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and took the ring out of the box, sliding it slowly onto her finger. Then he stood up, grabbed her and kissed her hard. “Good thing,” he growled. “Since we’re getting married tomorrow.”

She laughed. “Yes. I guess so.”