Page 83 of Season's Schemings
We breeze past the night-time security guards, and the lone teller left on-site unlocks the gate. I notice Seb slip him a bag that I’m almost certain contains a signed jersey.
How my other half lives…
Stepping through the gate and into the Gardens, it’s like I’ve entered a literal fairytale. The sky above is inky black, but we’re engulfed in the glow of a million twinkling lights.
I clutch my gloved hand on Seb’s arm as we walk. The night is cool, the air calm and still and crisp, and in the background, soft music plays. We walk through a tunnel made entirely of sparkling lights, and over a bridge rimmed with shimmering, silvery ropes, and into a treed area where thousands of lit teardrops hang from each of the branches.
It’s beautiful. And the fact that Seb and I have the entire place to ourselves makes it all the more amazing.
Then, Sebastian stops under the canopy of a sparkling tree and spins me towards him. His handsome face is lit by a million glowing lights as he lowers his lips to meet mine, and I realize that this is, by far, the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me.
And it suddenly doesn’t matter at all, whatsoever, in any iteration of the universe, that our marriage started out as temporary. Because I love this man with all my heart, with my entire being. And I fully believe that he loves me with his, too.
By the time we pull apart, we’re both breathless and flushed.
“Is this date up to the lady’s standards?” Seb asks with a quirked brow.
“Blew all my expectations out of the water,” I say, standing on tiptoe so I can wrap my arms around his neck and hug him close. “I can’t believe you planned all this for after the game.”
“I planned it right after Mal and Chantal crashed our sushi date.” He looks down at me. “I realized I’d never taken my wife on a proper date, and that needed fixing. Immediately.”
His tone is so sincere, so sweet, that my eyes prick with tears.
Seb’s forehead creases and he takes a small step away from me, even as he reaches for my hand. We get to walking again, following a path over a pond, and I can clearly see that Seb’s frowning. I tug his hand slightly so that he comes to a stop next to me. “What’s on your mind?”
He chews his lip for a moment. “It’s just… you’ve always wanted romance and a fairytale wedding, but you didn’t get those things with me. I don’t like that.”
“I don’t care about those things anymore.” I shrug. “I’m with you, which is what matters.”
He pauses for a long moment, his eyes searching mine. “I love you, Madelyn.”
His voice is full of emotion as he stares down at me, and I practically choke, my throat raw. “I love you too, Sebastian.”
And then, under the glowing, ethereal lights of the Botanical Gardens, Sebastian Slater gets down on one knee. His hands are still holding mine, and my chest is so tight, I feel like I can’t breathe.
What is happening right now?
“I love you so much,” he says in a low voice. “And I know that I can’t go back and give you the fairytale beginning, but Icangive you the ending you’ve always wanted. We’ve done this whole thing backwards, but one thing’s for sure: you come first. No matter how this started, from here on out, we are in a marriage based on nothing but love.”
My heart flutters wildly as Seb takes a deep breath and meets my eyes. One of his thumbs rubs over the ring already on my left hand.
“I can’t exactly ask you to marry me, but Icanask you to date me. To let me keep getting to know the amazing person you are. I want to send you flirty texts and take you to nice dinners and surprise you with peonies and freesias and calla lilies, just because. I want to laugh with you and cuddle you and care for you and make love to you every night for as long as I live.”
By now, a mixture of tears and laughter are pouring out of me as I look down at the man that I love. My husband.
“Madelyn Louise Grainger Slater… will you make me the happiest man alive and do me the honor of continuing to be my wife?”
“YES!” I practically scream through my tears. “Yes, yes, a million times yes!”
Seb is on his feet in an instant, and he picks me up off the ground and crushes my body to his as he twirls us around.
“She said yes!” he bellows, the sound echoing through the trees in a perfect concoction of pure laughter and happiness. Around us, the lights twinkle their applause.
I’ve never been happier. This is all I want… for us to be together, just like this. And I want us to have the choice to keep choosing each other, every day, just like this.
So I know what I have to do.
I pull slightly back from Seb’s embrace to look at him. “On… one condition.”