And the tenderness on his face urges my own tears to blur my vision.
But he keeps going. Keeps reading.
“But he was wrong. Just as the wise man had said, that ruby was the best thing the Captain had ever had in his life. He loved it. But because of him, it was gone.
“And now he had a choice. He could spend the rest of his life regretting the sale, or he could do everything in his power to get it back.
“And the Captain may have been foolish once, but he refused to be that way again.”
The last page turns at the hands of one of Cap’s helpers, and a blank page rests in its place.
I look from the book to Cap with tears still in my eyes, only to find a whole new set of tears in his own.
“How does it end?” I ask, forcing the words through my immobile lips.
He shrugs just one shoulder, and my soul comes back to life. Back to me, back to here, back to the possibility of something in life I didn’t think was possible.
Love.
“That’s up to you, Ruby. I couldn’t finish the story, because the ending this time…is up to you.”
Cap
Time slows down as my heart slams against my ribs repeatedly. I’ve never in my life felt this exposed, this vulnerable—this exhilarated.
I love Ruby Rockford in a way I didn’t think was possible. Not for anyone, but especially not for me.
I love her in a way that I know I’ll be happy with her for the rest of my life and then some. In a way that laughs in the face of other women and completes something in me I didn’t know I was missing.
I love her in a way that makes me willing to fall at my love-sick friends’ feet in apology and thanks.
They’ve known all along what I couldn’t see. They’ve known that the right woman would transform a man from who he was into who he should be, and she’d do it without even changing anything about him.
Ruby’s eyes flutter as she looks to the book behind me once more before meeting my eyes. She is so perfect.
Her uncertainty. Her backbone even in the face of it.
She’s the most interesting woman I’ve ever met and, quite possibly, likes me the least out of any of them.
But it works.
She gives me the grounding I need, and I’m just the kind of asshole she needs to make sure she remembers to have fun.
I can no longer imagine my life without her, and I hope to God she’s willing to give me a chance to give her a reason to spend it with me.
“The ending is up to me,” she says softly, and I nod and swallow.
I don’t know how I wait without saying anything else—maintaining silence isn’t my strongest ability—but I won’t jeopardize the chance at a life, at a forever, with her for anything.
“Well…I guess I just have one question, then,” she murmurs.
“And what’s that?”
“If the Captain gets the ruby back, what does he intend to do with it?”
I reach out and take her hand in mine because I can’t fucking help it anymore. By some miracle, she doesn’t pull away. “Treasure it. Forever.”
She raises an eyebrow, and I nod.
“Ruby, I love you. And I can promise you with absolute certainty, if the Captain gets his ruby back, he’s never letting it go.”
I place my hands on the sides of her face, wrapping them around the delicate lines of her cheeks and lifting her mouth to mine. Our lips touch softly, and time stands still. I wait—impatiently—but finally, her body sways toward mine.
Everything in my world falls precisely into place.
“Caplin fucking Hawkins,” she says softly with a shake of her head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for some insane reason…”
I hold my breath.
“I love you too.”
Ruby
Cap’s arms are around me tightly, his lips skimming across the skin of my neck intimately, and the feeling is…surreal.
We’ve essentially gone from no physical contact to the exact opposite in the last hour and a half, and out of the two of us, Cap is definitely the more affectionate.
It’s genuine in a way I’ve never seen from him before and plentiful in a way that is downright effusive.
This man wrote me a freaking book and read it aloud for everyone to hear. He put it all out there, on the line, for me.
If that isn’t the biggest, most romantic, Cap-style kind of profession of love, I don’t know what is.
The Captain and his Ruby. Goddamn. He’s good.
And mine. He’s definitely mine.
I snuggle deeper into his arms as the people around us talk and laugh. There are so many unfamiliar faces, yet not a single one is unfriendly. Cap’s friends are a riot, and the ladies they’ve chosen to share their lives with—the ladies from the elevator I once felt oddly displaced from—are nothing short of amazing.