day he’d come to Beverly Hills, he’d recklessly told me he planned to buy a nearby house, on sale for twenty million dollars. “I want to be close to you.” Privately, I’d thought he was out of his mind; even more privately, I thought if he lived forty minutes away, it would be a case of out of sight, out of mind and he’d stop pursuing me. So I’d convinced him he should instead rent a beach house getaway.
“You have to help me pick out the house,” Edward had agreed. Backed into a corner, I’d consented. The estate agent had taken us to ritzy McMansions all over town, but I hadn’t loved any of the newly built palaces, all of them the same with their seven bedrooms and ten bathrooms, with their tennis courts and home theaters and wine cellars. When Edward saw I wasn’t interested in them, he wasn’t either. Finally, in an act of pure desperation, the estate agent had brought us here.
Built in the 1940s on Malibu Beach, this cottage was squat and ugly compared to the three-story glass mansions around it. When Edward saw it, he almost told her to drive on.
“Wait,” I’d said, putting my hand on his arm. Something about the tiny, rickety house had reminded me of my family home in Pasadena, where I’d lived when I was a very young child, before my father had died.
When he saw my face, Edward was suddenly willing to overlook the house’s flaws. Good thing, because there were so many. No air conditioning. The kitchen was ridiculously tiny and last remodeled in 1972. The wooden floorboards creaked, the dust was thick and the furniture was covered with white sheets. When I pulled the sheet off the baby grand piano, a dust cloud kicked up and made us all cough, even the estate agent.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” she said apologetically.
“No,” I’d whispered. “I love it.”
“We’ll take it,” Edward said.
But where was he now? I went heavily up the creaking stairs to the second floor. I’d been up here only once before, when we’d toured the house with the estate agent. It was just a small attic bedroom with slanted ceilings, and a tiny balcony overlooking the ocean.
As I reached the top of the stairs, the bedroom was in shadow. I saw only the brilliant slash of orange and persimmon to the west as the red ball of the sun fell like fire into the sea.
Then I saw Edward, sitting on the bed.
And then...
I sucked in my breath.
Hundreds of rose petals in a multitude of colors had been scattered across the bed and floor, illuminated by tapered white candles on the nightstands and handmade shelves. When Edward saw me standing in the doorway, in my sundress and casual ponytail, he rose from the bed. His chest and feet were bare. He wore only snug jeans that showed off his tanned skin, and the shape of his well-muscled legs. Stepping toward me, he smiled.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I can see that,” I whispered, knowing I was in trouble. Knowing I should run.
He lifted a long-stemmed red rose from a nearby vase. Leaning forward, he stroked the softest part of the rose against my cheek. “I know your secret.”
I blinked. “My...my secret?”
Leaning back, he gave me a lazily sensual smile. “How you tried to resist me. And failed.”
“I haven’t. I haven’t agreed to marriage or fallen into bed with you. Not yet,” I choked out. Then blushed when I realized the insinuation was that I soon would.
His smile lifted to a grin. He nodded toward a pile of books in a box in a corner of the room. “I just got that box this afternoon from Mrs. MacWhirter. It seems you left something, buried in your bedroom closet at Penryth Hall.
I looked down at the open box. Sitting on top was the faded dust jacket of the fine manual written by Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley, Private Nursing: How to Care for a Patient in His Home Whilst Maintaining Professional Distance and Avoiding Immoral Advances from Your Employer.
“Oh,” I said lamely, looking back at Edward with my cheeks on fire.
He gave a low laugh. “Didn’t do you much good, did it?”
Biting my lip, I shook my head.
Tilting his head, he looked at me wickedly. “What do you think Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley would say if she saw you now?”
I looked down at my hugely pregnant belly, which strained the knit fabric of my sundress. “I’m not sure she’d have the words.”
“I think...” He ran his fingertips lightly over my bare shoulder, turning me to face him. “She’d tell you to marry me.”
A tremble went through my body. My bare shoulder pulsed heat from the place when he touched me.
Scowling, I glared at him. “Do you always get your own way?”
Lifting his hand, he cupped my cheek.
“Ask me tomorrow,” he said softly.
And Edward fell to one knee before me.
I stared down at him, my mouth wide with shock. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done long ago.” He looked up at me in the small, shadowy attic bedroom. “You know I want to marry you, Diana. I’m asking you one last time. With everything I’ve got,” he said quietly. “All I want is to make you happy.” He drew a black velvet box from his jeans pocket and held it up in the flickering candlelight. “Will you give me the chance?”
Looking down at him, I couldn’t move or breathe. I suddenly knew that whatever happiness or misery came to me—and my daughter—would all stem from the choice I made in this moment.
“Diana...” Edward opened the black velvet box. “Will you marry me?”
I saw the enormous diamond ring and covered my mouth with my hands. I blinked hard, unable to believe my eyes. “Is that thing real?” I breathed. “It’s the size of an iceberg—”
“You deserve the best,” he said quietly.
I’d spent years in Hollywood. So I’d seen big diamonds before. Madison had worn lots of big diamonds to awards shows—gorgeous borrowed jewels to go with her gorgeous borrowed gowns. But even in Hollywood, the million-dollar jewelry was an illusion. When the event was over, the jewelry had to be returned. Faster than you can say glass slipper.
But this wasn’t borrowed. This was meant to last.
Edward meant this to last.
“Don’t do this to me,” I whispered, stricken. “We don’t need to get married. We can live apart, but still raise her together....”
“That’s not what I want,” he said quietly, still on one knee. “What is your answer?”
I looked down at him. Looked at the rose petals, the candlelight. I took a deep breath. “You’ll change your mind....”
“I won’t.” He hesitated. “But if you love someone
