Trust Me (Paris Nights #3)(74)

Vi made a pffing gesture of dismissal at him, as if he really should not be whining about a paltry few attempts at his demise.

“Did she say yes?” Ian asked Jake.

Jake looked down at Lina, their eyes meeting from so close, his hazel brilliant and rueful. “This is what I get for making this a public proposal. I think I imagined people in a respectful silence.”

“Say yes!” someone shouted from the restaurant floor.

“Say yes!” someone else took it up. Within seconds, a rhythmic pounding started up on the tables, supporting the chant. “Dis oui! Dis oui! Dis oui! Dis oui!”

“Not to put any pressure on you, but I think all of Paris wants you to say yes,” Elias said, amused.

Ian glanced back. “Yeah, they’ve got their phones up. You should come out to say it.”

This was ridiculous. But Thomas the waiter caught up the plate with the dragon and its egg and carried it to them, and Vi pushed Lina toward the door, and Jake wouldn’t let go of Lina, so he grabbed her hand and came with her.

The kitchen staff all crowded onto the restaurant floor behind them. The mostly strangers at the restaurant tables—all those strangers who had been brave enough to come, to make a point of coming, of saying you can’t beat us—were clapping and chanting and stomping their feet. Célie and Joss were there, and Jamie and Dom, and Lina’s family, all looking deeply intrigued. None of them were chanting, but Célie was clapping, and Lina’s parents had their heads cocked as if they were considering whether Jake might have one or two points in his favor.

“Say yes! Say yes! Say yes!”

“Jesus, we’re never going to be sent covert again in our entire lives, are we?” Ian muttered suddenly to Mark. “We’re all on camera.”

“Slouch,” Mark retorted. “You know, act civilian.”

“Say yes! Say yes! Say yes!”

“You must have been pretty confident about what I would say,” Lina muttered to Jake for his ear alone. She knew she’d been very openly into him, but wow. This risk was public.

“I guess I was hoping you would seize me with both hands,” he said quietly.

Their eyes held. He was so freaking beautiful, it was insane. Strong shoulders, hard abs, kissed all over by freckles. But his beauty came from more than that. It was that collected and concentrated determination of his, steady, persistent, fun to fluster and yet utterly sure.

She reached out and seized him with both hands. Damn, the resilience of his upper arm muscles felt good under her fingers.

He gave her that little lopsided smile. “Because I don’t break. No matter how much pressure you put on me.”

True. Her fingers kneaded into his muscles.

“And neither do you.” He held her eyes as if he could see right through to the depths of her soul. And thought those depths were everything he’d ever craved. He reached out for the egg on its plate, that Thomas still carried with eager encouragement right by their elbows. “Even if the outside cracks under pressure”—he held the ring up—“the inside holds true.”

“Awww,” gushed the whole room. Lina’s mother clutched her father’s arm, going all mushy, too.

“Shouldn’t he be down on one knee?” some stranger called.

“I can take a knee,” Jake said, and started to bend a leg.

Lina smacked a hand on his chest. “Don’t you dare.”

He stilled, and they stared at each other a moment. Lina hesitated. “You’re sure you don’t want to date for twenty years or so to make sure we are compatible like most people do?”

“Your culture is insane,” he said. “No. I knew what I wanted the first moment I saw you.”

“Love at first sight?” Lina said, dumbfounded. Wait, hadn’t he first seen her when—

“It was a telling moment. Your face was white, your eyes were huge, you had blood all down your chef’s jacket, your own friend’s blood. Your hair was tumbled over your face from fighting. And yet you had this tight grip on yourself, exuding calm because you knew you had to, sliding your shoulder under your friend’s to help her.”

Lina flinched. “I don’t want you to have fallen in love with me then.” It was the worst moment in her entire life.

Jake watched her a moment, with that steadiness of his that was like his own shoulder sliding under hers to help her. That secret humor curved his lips. “Okay. I guess it must have been when you asked to use me for sex, then.”

“What did he say?” the woman at the nearest table asked the man beside her. A burble of laughter and encouragement ran through the room as people grasped it. Lina’s mom clapped her hands over her father’s ears.

Jake shrugged. “What? You really are f*cking gorgeous. Don’t know your own power, I’m guessing.”

Lina had never met anyone who made her feel as powerful as Jake did.

“When did you fall in love with me?” Jake said.

She noticed he very deliberately didn’t ask if. She considered him, so ridiculously masculine and beautiful that he kind of redefined what beauty was. And a little sigh escaped out of her, as if all her muscles just released her into happiness.

“I don’t know,” she said, and stretched out her hand, ring finger offered. “I just know that I am now.”