Sweet Caroline(84)

“Yes, I want to marry you. Now. Forever.” His cocky, yet endearing smile beams. “I didn’t want to even hint at this until I had the ring. I wanted to surprise you.”

“I-I’m stunned. Mitch, really? M-marry you?”

I-I can’t . . . Do I love him? In a flash, I compare my heart for Mitch to what I felt for J. D. Oh, yes, I love Mitch. Marry him? Oh, yes.

I throw myself against him. “I love you, Mitch. Yes, yes, I’ll marry you.”

Our first kiss in many years is deep and tender, passionate with years of love and friendship. I can hear his heart thunder. “Caroline.” He reaches to slip the ring on my finger.

Wait. I back away, the heat of his lips still on my mine. The cool platinum ring lightly touches my finger. “I accepted the job with SRG.”

“Can’t you call back, turn it down?”

“Call Carlos back? And say what, Mitch? Oops—never mind, my high school boyfriend finally coughed up a ring?”

He drops his hand, cupping the ring. “That’s not fair, Caroline.”

“For you? Or me? Mitch, I gave my word. Of all people, you were the one cheering me on.”

“Of all people, I thought you wanted to be with me.”

“I did . . . I do. But not now.” I step into him, grabbing his shirt. “I told Carlos yes. He held the position open for me, Mitch. He could’ve hired someone else when I had to take the Café, but he wanted to give me a try. Hazel went out on a limb . . . ”

“Well, then, forgive me. You absolutely should take the job with SRG.” He tucks the ring into his pocket. “What’s a lifetime of love and commitment compared to a year with the Latin Donald Trump and fifteen-hour workdays?”

The muscles along the back of my neck twist, sending a sharp pain over my scalp. “Don’t you dare, Mitch O’Neal. Don’t you dare. Not after you walked away from me for your career.”

“And I was a fool to do it. Learn from me.”

My knees buckle when I look into his eyes. “Learn what? That you followed your heart and ended up with a stellar career? That you lived a dream life? Are the envy of men, the adoration of women?”

“No, that love cannot be replaced with fame, money, careers, or amazing job opportunities. Caroline, I love you. Carlos is a businessman who sees you as cheap labor.”

“And what do you see me as? Easy lover. Poor Caroline, waiting at home for Mitch to return on his white steed?” A sour word spews between my lips. “Well, not this time, Mitch. I won’t do . . . do what . . . what everyone . . . ” The expression in his eyes dissolves every irate fiber of my being. “Everyone else . . . wants. Expects . . . Now’s my chance to . . . explore . . . life. Be free.”

“Am I offering bondage?”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes, in so many words.” Mitch walks off, disappearing behind the curtain of night beyond the waterfront lamps.

“Where are you going?”

“Sooner or later, Caroline,” his voice comes from the shadows, “we have to move on. Maybe we just weren’t meant to be. I want to get married, settle down, have a family.”

“Family?” A trigger word for me. I’d love to have my own family.

What am I thinking? Do I want the Barcelona job that bad? It’s a stupid line in the sand. One crash of a wave, and it washes away. Mitch loves me. He’s here, he’s now and he’s right—Barcelona is only for a sea-son, but marriage is for life.

His steps scuffle back toward me, then stop. “Are you ready to go home? My truck is that way.”

Loneliness explodes in my chest. In a hair’s breadth, my future with-out hope of him plays across my mind’s eye.

“Please ask me again.” My ears drum with panic.

Mitch appears, half in the shadow, half in the light. “You don’t mean it.”

“Now you’re telling me what I mean?” I can’t stop shaking.

“You’ll resent me.”

“Only if you don’t ask me again.” Gripping my hands at my waist, I fight the trembling, warding off the fear that I almost lost the love of my life.

Mitch strides toward me, his eyes locked on my face. I think. Drat the darkness. Then, I see his smile. “Are you sure?”

“Will you ask me already?”

My man slips his arm around my back and tugs me close. Versace perfumes the air between us. “Caroline, will you marry me?”

I press my lips to his, then breathe out, “Yes, Mitch, yes. I’ll marry you.”

“No doubts?”

“None.”

He scoops me up with a shout and whirls me around. When he sets me down, he traps me against a pylon so I can’t escape.

“I’m going to love you like no one’s loved you.”

I loop my arms around his neck. “It’s always been you, Mitch. I’ve never loved anyone else.”

“I’m in it for real, Caroline. No record deal—I just signed a new one, by the way—can keep me from you. No world tours, no promise of fame or riches.”

“Good, because I might just have to hunt you down and—”

He cuts me off with a kiss. Oh, I see how it’s going to be.

To: CSweeney