Best Laid Plans(129)

She looked around, but Sean wasn’t there. Their overnight bags were on the floor by the door. She got up, grabbed a thin bathrobe, and went to find Sean.

The smell of breakfast filled the air. Not only bacon and eggs and fresh coffee and orange juice, but more. She followed her nose to the kitchen, where Sean had a huge buffet of food lined up. He was wearing a chef’s apron.

“Is my whole family coming here? How long do I have to get ready?” She looked around. “Where are we?”

Sean smiled and kissed her as he put a plate of fresh fruit and a pitcher of orange juice on the buffet. “Just us.”

She stared at the feast, dumbfounded. “We can’t eat all this.”

“Who cares? I didn’t know what you’d want to eat, so I made a little of everything.”

“So my family isn’t coming?”

“Nope.”

“Why aren’t we at Connor’s?”

“I wanted you all to myself. At least for today.”

“Where are we?”

“My friend Hank—you haven’t met him, but we were roommates before I was expelled from Stanford. He owns this house. He lives in Seattle, owns a major computer gaming company, comes here only a couple times a year. I traded for this weekend.”

“Traded what?” she asked warily.

“My services. Though my services are worth far more than one weekend at his beach house.”

Lucy couldn’t keep the grin off her face as she looked around the large, open floor plan and the expansive deck that jutted out over the sand. “I don’t know. I think it’s a pretty fair trade.”

“Then you have no idea how much money I make.” Sean kissed her again. “Dish up, we’re going to eat outside.”

Lucy was almost giddy. She piled far too much food on the plate and took it and a cup of coffee outside to where Sean had set up a table with flowers, seashells, and a bottle of champagne that looked expensive.

“Champagne in the morning?”

“You can add orange juice and call it a mimosa,” he said. “Start eating. I’ll be right back.”

He left for a minute and Lucy stared at the ocean. She could stay here for a week. A month. Suddenly, the idea of going back to work made her sad. She wanted this. Time alone with Sean. In this small piece of paradise. Didn’t they deserve it?

Barry Crawford was right—she needed to learn how to better turn off the job. Sean loved her for who she was, but they both deserved more down time, alone time, peace. She no longer felt that taking time off was a waste. Or, as she had in the past, that her off time gave her too much time to think about her mistakes, her past, and the pain in her life. That’s why she’d worked so hard in college, that’s why she’d had multiple internships—she’d never wanted a minute to relax. School, work and sleep, that had been her life for years.

No longer. She could now sit quietly and listen to the ocean and not panic that she should be doing something else. She nibbled on a strawberry, her favorite fruit.

Sean returned with his own plate of food. He’d left the apron inside. He poured two glasses of champagne and added just a little orange juice to the top. He held up his glass. “To us.”

She smiled and clinked her glass to his. “To you. You make everything better.”

“For the rest of my life, I hope.”

“Sean, you always do. When I see you, I know I’m okay. You’re a tether to all that is good in me.” She paused. “Last week, after that awful day when Barry said he couldn’t trust me and I had to listen to that sex tape and Tia was shot … I reverted back to my old self. Cold. Icy. I felt it happen, as if it were a physical change. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to, but I got through the day. I didn’t think it would go away.

“Then I came home and you were there. I saw you, and all those layers just melted away. Because of you. Only you.”

Sean took her glass from her and put it on the table next to his. He held her hands. He kissed them. “I was going to take you out to dinner tonight, on the pier, and watch the sunset.”

She smiled. “You still can. I think I might be motivated to get up in, oh, nine or ten hours.”

“I thought it would be romantic watching the sun go down.”

“It is, because you’re with me.”

“But I realized this morning when I watched you sleep that sunsets are an ending, and we are just beginning. So instead of tonight, I want to do this now.” He reached behind the vase of wildflowers and pulled out a small, velvet bag.

“You’re shaking,” Lucy said.

Sean didn’t say anything. He was never at a loss for words. She looked into his deep blue eyes and saw tears.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing. I just love you so much.” He turned her hand over and poured a ring into it. “I want to marry you. I’ve wanted to almost since the day we met. I would have proposed on New Year’s, but with everything that was going on…” His voice cracked. “You changed my life, Lucy. You gave me purpose and hope and love. I don’t want to be your boyfriend anymore. I want to be your husband.”

Lucy stared at the ring. It was both simple and exquisite, neither too big nor too small, a solitary, round, brilliant cut diamond. It sparkled as she tilted her hand. She tried to speak, but couldn’t. She slipped it on her left ring finger. She rarely wore jewelry, but it fit perfectly. It looked like it belonged.