I get downstairs with my overnight case packed up and ready to go, only to stop in my tracks when I see there’s a note waiting for me on the kitchen island. Ant’s scrawled handwriting is beautiful, just like him.
Come and go as you please, gorgeous.
The alarm code is 1991
He’s left a key with it, and my heart pumps like crazy, because no fucking way. What the fuck? He’s given me a key to his house. It’s a shiny golden key attached to a remote-control key fob, the same as Ant used to open the gates.
I turn it over in my hand, really struggling to believe that I, Cassandra Emery from quaint little Bucklebury, is with a man like him. That a man like him wants to settle down.
I only pray I can live up to what he needs.
It feels so good, setting the alarm before stepping outside and closing the door.
I’m grinning so much on the drive back to Newton Road that the drivers in the opposite lane are smiling back at me.
Some of my unpacked boxes are still in the apartment hallway when I step inside, but I couldn’t give a shit about that anymore. I slip on a pencil skirt and blouse and I’m out again in a flash, ready to head down to the office. I don’t even bother checking my mail, just send Ant a quick message with Thank you! Just, wow! Then I’m off on my way.
Janie’s face is a picture when I arrive at work. She holds up her hands like I’ve got the secret of the century to share with her.
“Something’s obviously happened. Did you see him?”
I leap up and down. For real. I actually leap up and down with a shriek, like a teenager who’s just landed her crush.
“Ant’s amazing! I stayed at his last night and he’s just… beyond words. He’s the most incredible man I’ve ever met!”
I sound like a fluffy heroine in a romance movie, but I don’t care. Neither does Janie. She leaps up from her desk and rushes over, wrapping me tight in a hug.
“CONGRATULATIONS! I knew he was into you!”
It’s like I’m one of the brides-to-be visiting us, fresh from their engagement. I’m trembling as I pull Ant’s front door key from my pocket, showing it to Janie with a smile.
“I stayed at his last night, and he left me this.”
She takes it from me, holding it up like a gem.
“For real? He’s given you a key to his place after your very first night there together?”
I nod, holding back another happy shriek.
“That’s insane,” she says. “He must be so into you. Like SO into you.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.”
Even now, with a front door key in my hand, I feel nervous. Not quite daring to believe it. But is it really so crazy that someone like him could be this all in so soon? This is the kind of thing romance stories are made of, after all. People falling in love at first sight. Fated romance. All the things I used to read in my storybooks, my heart soaring with every page.
Only I didn’t read about women fucking ten guys at once while their prince watched them, did I? I didn’t read about princes wanting their princess to be his slut and let whoever he wants pound her however he likes.
Janie jolts me from my thoughts.
“Are you as into him as he’s into you? You sure look like you are.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m definitely as into him as he is into me.”
“If he asked you to move in right now, what would you say?”
“I’d say yes.”
I laugh at my instant answer, because it should be absurd. We shouldn’t even be talking about it.
Maybe it’s because we work in a wedding planning office, but Janie doesn’t roll her eyes and tell me I’m a romantic fool who needs to get my feet on the ground.
“Honestly, Cass,” she says and clutches my hands. “I’m so pleased for you. It’s amazing that you’ve found someone like him.”
Our conversation has to stop when our first client of the day steps in. A lovely woman called Claire, with her bridesmaid-to-be, Lena. She’s almost my age, and it feels like another synchronicity as she tells me how happy she is she found the love of her life before she hit thirty, since she was scared that she’d be left on the shelf. I focus on her big day with everything I have, and so does Janie, but there are looks passing between us constantly, unspoken OMGs about Ant.
Claire begins to look through some of our wedding dresses, and she picks out a gorgeous one in cream satin.
“This is stunning,” she says, and the look on her face is way more beautiful than the dress.
“You’d look amazing in that,” Lena tells her as I take it down from the hanger.