CHAPTER TEN
“So,” Chase said softly into Connie's ear, some time later. “Constance West, will you marry me?”
Connie raised her head from his shoulder to give him a quizzical look. “I already know you're a shifter. I thought you only needed me to marry you so that you'd be allowed to tell me the truth.”
“That was one reason.” Chase traced the soft curves of her bare arm, wanting to memorize every inch of her beautiful body. “But mostly, I just really, really want to marry you. So? Will you?”
Connie blew out an exasperated breath. Without answering, she rolled out of the bed, searching the floor for her discarded clothes.
From a flat-out refusal, to a hesitation before refusing, to no answer. Definite progress!
Connie scowled at him. “What are you grinning about?”
Chase attempted to school his face into an appropriately somber expression, without much success. “Not
hing. Just admiring the view.”
Connie shot him a glare, then held up her ripped flight suit. “This is completely ruined. What am I going to wear?”
Chase slid out of bed himself. “You can borrow something of mine. This way.”
“Chase, you're about a foot taller than me, not to mention a completely different shape,” Connie said dubiously as he led her into his walk-in closet. “I really don't think that you're going to have anything that will fit me.”
“Um.” Chase slid hangers of shirts and suits aside, revealing the very back corner of the closet. “Actually, I do.”
Connie blinked for a moment at the row of women's clothes. Every one was immaculate and unworn, and every one was exactly her size.
Then she groaned, rolling her eyes. “Of course you have a closet full of dresses. Heaven forbid one of your many one-night stands should have to do the Walk of Shame in last night's outfit.”
“No, of course not!” Chase said indignantly. “I bought them for you. Or, well, because they reminded me of you. Sometimes I'd see something, and think Connie would like that, or That could have been made for Connie. And then I'd have to buy it. Because it was a way of showing myself that I hadn't given up hope. That one day I'd find you again, and give you these clothes, and see you in them.”
“I don't know whether that's incredibly sweet or incredibly creepy.” Connie sighed, and started to flick through hangers. “But I can't deny that it's convenient. I notice, by the way, that you mainly appear to have been reminded of me by lingerie.”
“What can I say?” Chase grinned unrepentantly at her. “I'm an optimist.”
“Chase, people who buy lottery tickets are optimists,” Connie retorted as she selected a leaf-green, silk summer dress that perfectly matched the shade of her eyes. “People who go around acting as if they've already won the lottery are delusional.”
Chase started getting dressed himself. “What about people who've won the lottery, but then drop the ticket, so they end up walking around backward peering at the ground, and everyone thinks they're crazy, but actually they're just taking entirely logical steps to try to recover what they lost?”
“Trust you to run away with a metaphor,” Connie muttered from the depths of the dress. “You know, your big secret doesn't actually explain very much. Just because you turn into a big winged horse sometimes doesn't explain why you're so… you.”
Chase paused in doing up his jeans.
Then he smacked himself on the forehead. “I'm a complete idiot. I forgot to tell you the most important part. The bit that explains everything.”
Connie turned to face him, putting her hands on her hips. “Now this, I've got to hear.”
Chase briefly wondered whether to suggest that they went up to his rooftop rose garden, for a more romantic setting. His closet had not been the backdrop he'd pictured for the most important conversation of his life.
He settled for going down on one knee instead. “Connie—”
Connie hid both her hands behind her back. “If you propose again, I swear to God I will hit you.”
“This isn't another proposal. This is the reason for all the proposals. The reason I've been mad about you ever since I first saw you.” Chase took a deep breath, looking earnestly up at her wary face. “All shifters have a mate. Just one single person, in all the world, who's their perfect partner. You're my mate, Connie. I knew it the instant we first met. And from that moment on, I've only had eyes for you. You're the only one for me, and you always will be.”
Connie looked down at him, her expression completely unreadable, for a long, long moment that seemed to stretch into eternity.
Then, “Do you think I’m a complete idiot?” Turning on her heel, she stormed out of the closet.