Undeniable (Cloverleigh Farms #2)(58)

Next to me, Chloe made a sort of squeaking noise, and a murmur moved through the room. I caught my grandmother’s eye and she nodded, giving me a shrewd smile.

Oh, fuck.

The room spun. My heart raced. My palms felt sweaty. I felt every single eye on me as I turned to face Chloe and set my champagne glass aside. Time was up. If I was going to do this, I had to do it now.

I couldn’t fail.

Looking her right in the eye, I dropped to one knee.





21





Chloe





NOW



No.

This couldn’t be happening.

It was too ridiculous. Too farcical. Too absurd. There was no possible way Oliver was going to propose to me right now.

And yet there he was, going down on one knee.

Someone in the room gasped. I nearly dropped my champagne. Oliver looked up at me with a strange mixture of desperation, guilt, and anxiety on his face—not the expression you want the guy to have as he asks you to spend the rest of your life with him.

“Chloe,” he said, his voice unnaturally loud, like he was on stage. “I know this probably seems sudden.”

Sudden? Was he kidding me? We’d only been together for two days!

“But we’ve known each other all our lives, and no matter how far apart we were, our paths always seemed to lead us back to one another.”

Okay, that was true, and kind of sweet, but it still didn’t explain what he was doing down on one knee. I’d have asked him, but I was too stunned to talk.

He reached into his pocket and then took my left hand. “You’ve always been the only one for me, and I hope you’ll do me the honor of becoming my wife. Chloe Sawyer, will you marry me?”

“Oh my God,” I heard my mother say.

My knees were knocking. My pulse was hammering. My breath was coming too fast. I felt like an actress who’d forgotten all her lines and we’d come to the most climactic scene in the play.

“Uh,” I said.

“What?” someone in the room whispered. “Was that yes? Did she say yes?”

I looked around the room in a panic, desperate for an escape hatch.

Oliver squeezed my hand, and I met his eyes again. They were deep and blue and familiar. There was an urgency in them I read immediately as please go along with this. I need you.

The fact that we could communicate effortlessly without words tugged at my heart. I was going to fucking kill him for this, but I wouldn’t do it in front of his family.

I plastered on a smile. “Yes.”

Oliver looked shocked. “Yes?”

“Yes!” I leaned down and kissed him, then whispered in his ear. “Put the ring on my finger, asshole.”

He fumbled with it, but eventually managed to slide it onto my fingertip and I shoved it the rest of the way. I stared at it for just a second—it was a beautiful vintage style, Art Deco maybe, with an engraved platinum band and a large round-cut diamond that sparkled in the last rays of the sun slanting through the library window behind me. I held it up for all to see. “I said yes!”

The room erupted with cheers and applause, and Uncle Soapy’s voice rang out again. “So let’s all drink to health, to happiness, to wonderful years past and all the wonderful years to come. Cheers!”

“Cheers!” everyone echoed, lifting their glasses and taking a sip.

Immediately afterward, we were surrounded by family. Every single person present hugged and kissed and congratulated us. Aunt Nell and Charlotte cried. Gran looked smug. My mother and father were dumbfounded, of course, since they’d seen the way I’d treated Oliver just the other night, but they hugged us both and said how thrilled they were.

“So was that all an act?” my mother said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Had you two been seeing each other in secret? Hiding it from us all?”

I laughed nervously. “We’ll explain everything in a minute, I promise.” I grabbed Oliver’s hand. “I just need a moment alone with my fiancé here.”

“Good idea, honey.” Oliver took the lead, pulling me out of the library, down the hall, and through a swinging door into the butler’s panty.

The minute the door swung shut, I dropped his hand. “What the hell, Oliver? Am I losing my mind, or did we just get engaged?” I spoke in the angriest whisper I could manage, but what I really wanted to do was scream.

He held up his palms toward me. “I can explain.”

“You damn well better.”

“It’s about my trust fund.”

I stuck my hands on my hips and cocked my head. “What?”

“My trust fund. The money I’ll get for hitting this important, mature milestone. Once we’re—”

“Oh my God.” I shoved his chest, then fisted my hands in my hair. “The money for the land. This was your plan? Con your grandmother into thinking we were engaged so she’d give you access to the rest of your trust because you blew the first part of it on hookers and blow?”

Oliver looked offended. “I have never hired a hooker, thank you very much.”

“You know what I mean!” I poked at his chest. “You’re a con man, and now you’re making one out of me.”

“We don’t have to con anybody, Chloe. We’re really engaged. I asked you, and you said yes.” He grabbed my hand and held it up. “See? There’s a ring on your finger.”