Cole swallowed down his fear of being on camera, focusing only on the woman he loved as he entered the living room, slab on his shoulder, and waited for Sierra to notice him.

“So we’ve already stained the mantel and done everything that needs to be done to it,” she said, facing the camera, “and now we’re just going to— Oh.” Her eyes went big as she realized Cole was the one standing there. “Camera’s rolling,” she said to him in a whisper.

Cole nodded, his heart racing, only distantly aware of anything but her and the heavy-ass piece of wood. “I know. Andy asked me to step in. Let’s set this down.” He lowered the wood to the floor, set it on end, resting it against the bricks as Sierra ad-libbed to the cameras.

“A surprise,” she said. “This is Cole, my former foreman, and he’s—”

To save her from having to sputter too much other nonsense, Cole got straight to business, reaching into his right front pocket as he went down to one knee.

Sierra sucked in her breath and her hands flew to her face as she gazed down at him. “Oh, my god,” she said from behind her hands. “Cole, what are you doing?”

His goddamn hands were shaking, and he hoped that didn’t show on camera, but what the hell. He sucked in a breath and took one of her hands in his, the ring in his other one. “I once told you I would support you in this project in any way possible, as long as I didn’t have to be on camera. Do you remember that?”

She nodded, and he could see tears forming in her eyes, which made his emotions clutch up even tighter in his throat. He fought through them, though, because he’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted her.

“And here I am,” he said with a shaky laugh. “I’ll do just about anything in the world for you, because I love you more than I ever knew was possible.” He swallowed again and held up the ring, looked into her gorgeous brown eyes, and asked, “Will you marry me, Sierra?”

With his words, her tears overflowed and streamed down her face, and it felt like eternity ticked by before she nodded silently as she tugged at his arm to pull him up off the floor. He stood, staring into her eyes, which peered back up at him with so much love that he could barely believe his luck.

“Yes,” she said on a gusty exhale. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Cole.”

Grinning like an idiot, he slid the ring onto her finger, his hand still shaking like crazy. He pulled her into his arms and spun her around as everyone in the room—his family, the production crew, even Eldridge himself, all of whom were in on his scheme—cheered and clapped.