“Oh, I see.” She didn’t. But she had to keep fishing. His real agenda was buried in these well-delivered lines somewhere. “You’ve given up your bid for the formula and forgiven the debt you’ve claimed I owe you. Out of the goodness of your heart.”
“That debt never existed.” His small smile wiped the one from her face. “In fact, I owe you. Because I didn’t know I had such a bad habit of turning a blind eye to what was happening around me. Briana had a baby without me cluing in. You were in love with me and I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me because I was too busy pushing you away. And then when you did tell me, I handled everything wrong. I should have admitted I was falling for you then. But instead, I clung to my freedom, not realizing it was meaningless. I’m a serial idiot.”
This couldn’t be real. All her dreams of being with Gage forever were not on the brink of coming true. Her life was not a fairy tale and he was not the guy he was claiming to be.
“So you’ve climbed aboard the commitment train?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Gage, but I can’t buy that.”
“Then you’re going to feel very silly once I do this.”
He pulled a small box from his jacket pocket and flipped the hinged lid to reveal something that might look like a diamond ring to someone whose vision wasn’t instantly blurry with tears.
His arm dropped from her waist and he pulled the band from its velvet nest to slide it on her finger. “That’s the sound of the conductor yelling ‘All aboard.’ I love you and I want to marry you.”
She went a little lightheaded. “You know that if the senator is helping us get the formula to market, marrying me won’t get you access to it, right?”
Gage just smiled. “No agendas here. Mine or yours. You know if you marry me, you have to trust me. No more dates where you pump me for information, or sleepover games designed to figure out my angle. When you have questions, we have to talk about things like rational adults. And when we spend time together, it’ll be because we can’t be apart.”
Guilt crushed through her chest. “Did you know the whole time?”
“No. I figured out later that all the strange questions were because you suspected I was involved in the leak from the very beginning. It’s okay. I realized why you thought that was necessary. I hadn’t given you any reason to trust me, which I hope I’m fixing right now.”
Finally, it started to sink in. He’d taken soul-searching to a whole other plane. And somehow figured out how to claim her heart in the process with a simple thing like forgiveness. She’d held him at arm’s length, convinced he would break her heart, when instead he’d offered his up with no strings attached.
She shoved back the flood of emotion for a second time. Or was it a third? She’d lost count because he’d done exactly what he’d predicted he would—knocked down her barriers against him.
“No agenda,” she repeated dumbly. “Then why marriage? You could hardly say the word the last time this came up.”
He took that with surprising grace and nodded. “I’ve spent years running from anything that smacked of commitment under the guise of living life to the fullest and experiencing new heights. I’ve done it all, except one thing. You’re my ultimate experience, Cass. Just you. Everything feels better when I’m with you. Why would I keep running from that?”
“Because you’re a serial idiot?” she choked out, and he laughed, pulling one from her, as well.
That was the benefit of falling in love with a man like Gage. She was botching up his marriage proposal and he still managed to pull it off.
“I am a serial idiot. I hope that means we’re a perfect match,” he said, his voice clogged with emotion she’d never heard before. “Because it would be dumb of you to take a chance on me. I’m going to immediately drop a baby in your lap. That’s a lot to ask. I get that. But if you hand me that ring back, I’m only going to keep coming around until you say yes.”
It was real. The man she loved had just asked her to marry him. She curled her hand around the ring, holding it tight against her palm. “The best thing about us is that we’re equals. Guess that means I’m a serial idiot, too, because I never fell out of love with you.”
Yes, clearly she’d gone mad because she never would have imagined admitting that in a million years. Never imagined being a mother. Never imagined she’d be this happy.