Chapter 23: Theron

Theron crossed the ballroom floor with the blue box in his hand.

Nobody stopped him, because nobody knew what he was going to do.

He stopped in front of me and dropped to one knee on the polished wood.

A hundred phones came up.

"Ciara," he said, and his voice carried, because he had always known how to make it carry.

"I know I've made mistakes."

"I know you're hurt, and I know my brother put you up to this."

"But I told you on the fifth of January I couldn't wait."

"I'm asking you now, in front of both our families, as I promised."

He opened the box.

The square diamond caught the chandeliers and threw small stars across the hem of my navy dress.

"Marry me."

I looked down at him.

Five years ago I'd have been on the floor beside him, crying.

Now I looked at his bent head, and the careful curl of his hair, and the rose-gold watch.

"You told me to wait for the eighteenth," I said.

"I did."

"I waited."

"Then say yes." He smiled up at me, small and sweet, with his eyes already wet. "Say yes, Ciara."

"I said you'd want to give it to me properly."

"I do."

"Then you'd better take it back to the person who's wearing the other half," I said.

He frowned.

A white sleeve moved into the corner of my eye.

It was Brynn.

She had walked up silently across the floor in her white dress.

"Hi, baby," she said.

Theron's face went blank.

"Brynn," he said.

"You did say wear white."

She pulled the little square diamond off her finger.

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