Keeping the Pieces
Page 27
Just why was he holding their freaking wedding cake in his hands?
“Emma.” His deep voice stirred her belly, and she was pulled toward him as if he were a magnet and she a tiny heart-shaped bit of metal.
“Yes?” She stepped close to him, looking in the depths of his warm eyes, realizing that her parents were crowded behind her when they jostled her elbows to get a closer look at Derek.
Derek handed her the cake. On the top Trudy had piped in flowing script, “Love me.” Emma read the words and swallowed hard. Her hand fluttered to her lips. She looked at Derek, raising her eyebrows at him. He knelt down. Was he proposing?
He took her right hand, and she tried to balance the cake in her left, but before she could drop it her mother quickly took it from her, and Trudy just as quickly took it from her mother. She stood on a chair and placed the last layer on top. Derek cleared his throat. Emma returned her attention to him.
“I’ve been thinking about our plans, Em. Our wedding plans, our surveillance plans, and all our plans together. All I know is that I want to keep making plans with you forever. For real. I love you.” He kissed her hand, and she melted onto her knees in front of him, throwing her arms around him as she’d wanted to do from the second she saw him. She kissed his lips, and he tightened his arms around her, claiming her mouth with force. She was glad they were kneeling because her knees could not have supported her to stand. He raked his fingers through her hair, holding her to him, keeping her with him. When they finally parted to breathe, he was panting, desire flaming in his smoldering eyes.
Emma beamed at him. “Yes.” She blinked. “I already do.”
“Do what?” He cocked his head to the side.
She thought of the message he’d had written on their cake and answered him with her whole heart. “I already love you.”
About the Author
Brenda Lowder is an award-winning author of lighthearted women's fiction and romantic comedy novels. She lives in Atlanta and loves international travel, fine dining, and air conditioning. She's a big fan of fiction in all its forms--books, films, television, and the lies we tell ourselves. Her brilliant and smoking-hot husband and two princess-scientist daughters love her enough to insist she's still twenty-nine.
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