Stuck in Paradise with You

Chapter 43

43

LUKE

Six Months Later

I light the final candle in the hotel room, too nervous to sit on the bed that’s covered in rose petals, too weak at the knees to pace the floor.

I check my watch, again; it’s eleven fifty-nine in the morning, though the room is lit only by candles, the blackout curtains drawn across the windows. A playlist of songs we’ve created together during the evenings we’ve spent on the sofa in my apartment or Carrie’s over the last six months is playing through my docked phone.

I hope today will be the beginning of the end of our separate living.

In one minute, she should be here, because that’s the time I wrote on the note I left her:

MEET ME AT OUR HOTEL. ROOM 252 – 12p.m.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! x

In fact, it wasn’t my note but hers. The note she wrote me more than seven years ago on my birthday, asking me to meet her in our hotel room. The only time I never turned up for her. The note I kept all this time, I think subconsciously as a reminder of how much I messed up. I won’t make that mistake again, ever.

As I hear footsteps in the corridor outside, my heart that has been racing starts pounding to be released from my chest. My stomach that has been jiggling is spinning like a laundromat. I pat the pocket of my suit jacket to check the ring box is still there, despite knowing it is.

Then I hear the keycard she’s collected from Reception being slid into the door lock and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, the door begins to open.

I can’t breathe. Genuinely, can’t draw breath. She steps into the room wearing a black dress that fits every curve of her perfect body. She’s styled her long red hair just the way I like it, though, frankly, I like her just as much when she wakes in the mornings, when she’s cold in the evenings and wearing her thickest winter pajamas, when she’s fresh out of the shower, no make-up, wet hair, wearing nothing but a towel. Those are the times when it feels most intimate. The versions of her I know are truly special and hidden behind closed doors, just for me – and Eddie.

But hot-damn, she looks mesmerizing right now, and when her green eyes widen as she takes in the room, she near knocks me dead.

Between tracks on our playlist, the door clicks shut and though I had every intention of playing this cool, of pouring her a glass of champagne, maybe even making love to her among the rose petals first, I just can’t wait.

Finally coming back into my body, I draw the ring box from my pocket and bend to one knee, lifting the lid to display the sparkling diamond and emerald ring that I’ve had made for her because it reminds me of the most beautiful irises I have ever seen in my life. The eyes I hope my children will have one day too.

Carrie gasps, slowly moving toward me. Though my throat constricts and my eyes burn with emotion, I’m going to get through this.

‘I got my note,’ she says, while I’m gathering myself. ‘You kept it all this time and you waited for my birthday to give it back to me?’

I nod. ‘I finally showed up to correct the biggest mistake of my life,’ I tell her, trying to push the weakness from my voice. ‘That note was a reminder of everything I regretted walking away from, Carrie.’

She steps so close, I’m looking directly up at her, feeling small against the power she has over me, my heart. ‘It feels like I’ve waited forever to ask you something I knew I wanted to ask a very long time ago. Something I’ve regretted walking away from ever since. Carrie, you are the smartest, funniest, kindest, most beautiful woman I have ever met, or will ever meet. I don’t want to change anything about you, or the way you are, the things you do. All I am asking is if you can find space in your life for me.’

She sighs. ‘Of course I can, Luke.’

The sight of her eyes filling finally makes mine crack too. I need to get this out. I exhale heavily and finally ask her: ‘Carrie, will you make me the happiest man in the world, for the rest of our lives, and marry me?’

She laughs and cries and nods all at once and when I stand, she throws her arms around my neck, pressing her mouth to mine.

‘Yes, Luke. A hundred, thousand, million times, yes!’

I slip the ring on her finger and lift her from the ground, twirling my wife-to-be in my arms. ‘I love you, Carrie. I love you so fucking much.’

She giggles. ‘I love you too.’