Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires, #12)(109)

I chuckled. “I hope you’re not thinking about returning me.”

“No,” he said with a smile I could hear. “I’ve long since ripped your tags off.”

“Har-har.”

After a few more quiet minutes, the car slowed and pulled to a stop. “A moment, Sentinel.”

The weight in the car shifted, and the door shut. A moment later, my door opened and he touched my arm. “I’m here, Sentinel. Let me help you out.”

I put my hand in his, turned to put my feet on the ground, and stood. I took in a breath, trying to scent out where I was, but got nothing unusual. “Time to take this off?”

“Not yet,” he said, closing the car door, and situating himself on my right-hand side, tucking my arm into his. “A bit farther to go first. Just hold on to me.”

Not having a better choice—I’d long ago decided to trust him—I took careful steps, one hand wrapped around his biceps, the other out and feeling for any obstacles in my way. That was how I knew we’d passed through a door and traveled down a hallway before emerging into a larger room. A few more steps, and he came to a stop.

“I’m going to take the blindfold off now.”

I nodded while he unknotted the silk, then blinked when he revealed only darkness.

There was a buzz of sound . . . and then the lights came on.

“Dear God,” I said, eyes wide and staring. We weren’t in a room, big or otherwise.

We were in the middle of Wrigley Field.

I turned in a long, slow circle.

Because my last try had gone so horribly wrong, I hadn’t actually been inside Wrigley since becoming a vampire. I hadn’t seen the bleachers, the scoreboard, the Wrigley rooftops where fans outside the stadium watched the games. None of it since I’d gotten fangs, which didn’t explain why I was here now.

I looked back at Ethan, found his gaze on me, his expression indecipherable. “What are we doing here?”

“Last week, Logan took this from you—this experience at Wrigley. But I took this from you more generally one year ago when I made you a vampire. I took from you things that you won’t get back, including afternoon baseball.” Ethan took my hand. “So I mean to give you back what I can.”

Realization struck me. “The night we went to Wrigley,” I said. “You’d meant to propose.”

“Yes.”

I thought back to that night. “That’s why everyone was gathered in your office. It wasn’t a ‘feel better’ celebration. It was supposed to have been an engagement party.”

“You should have gotten a ring; instead you were shot. Unexpected metal, either way, but I thought you still deserved a gathering.”

I smiled at him. “Or you didn’t want to waste the champagne.”

“I’m not a troglodyte; it was very good champagne.”

I didn’t try to rein in my adoring grin. “You were going to propose to me at a Cubs game, and you had an engagement party planned. Ethan Sullivan, that nearly makes up for your centuries of imperiousness.”

“It’s neither the first time nor the last time I’ve been romantic, Sentinel. Much like Liam Neeson, I have certain . . . skills.”

He even got the pause right; Luc would have been proud.

“Color me convinced. Ahem. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, what, exactly, did you have planned?”

“A proposal on the big screen.”

“No!” I whined, dropping my forehead to his chest. I loved big-screen sports proposals. And it would have been even better now; the new Cubs screen was enormous.

“You’ll note that even though I was not able to reschedule the screen, I did, in fact, give you Wrigley Field. And then there’s this.” Ethan Sullivan pulled a small burgundy box from his pocket.

I probably looked like a kid on Christmas staring down at it.

Ethan chuckled. “I assume from the awestruck expression on your face that you’d like to see what’s inside?”

“I mean, you went to all the trouble, so . . .”

Ethan flicked it open.

Nestled on a bed of burgundy satin sat a glorious double-diamond ring. The band, so delicate it looked like diamonds had been threaded together on silver string, spiraled around two round diamonds.

It was a toi-et-moi ring. The phrase meant “you and me”—symbolized by the gemstones. Napoleon had given Josephine one. I knew, because I’d researched it for my dissertation before I was made a vampire.

“Damn, Sullivan.”

“I do my research,” Ethan said, sliding the ring from its box. He took my left hand in his free one, slid the ring onto the fourth finger. “Now it’s official.”

He drew me toward him, kissed me good and hard.

“And now,” he said, pulling back and glancing behind me, “we celebrate.”

He turned me around.

Ethan had given me diamonds, Wrigley Field . . . and my family. My grandfather. Mallory and Catcher. Jeff and Fallon. Luc and Lindsey. Margot and Malik. They rushed forward with bottles of Veuve Clicquot and glasses, and threw glittering handfuls of silver confetti that danced in the light. There was a small table in the grass covered with a Cubs cloth and dotted with snacks.

A man who’d already given me immortality, who’d sacrificed his life to save mine, who’d stood for me and challenged me . . . and on occasion made me utterly and completely crazy, had thrown me a party in Wrigley Field.