The Suspicious Proposal (3 page)

It played in the back of her mind, nagging at her and making her wonder, and a few days later they were in bed one night, their bodies wrapped around each other in bliss as they stroked each other gently in the afterglow of love and gave one another soft kisses.

"Logan," she asked him quietly, as the thought finally came to the forefront of her mind and made its way to her mouth.

"Hmm?” he asked her, sated with pleasure and nearing sleep.

"Logan, are we dating one another exclusively? Are we... are we, a couple?" she asked with her heart beginning to pound. She hadn't thought about him answering it any way but the obvious yes, but as she asked him, she realized that it was entirely possible that he would say...

"No, baby, we aren't. I don't want to get tied down to anyone, do you? That's no fun, and look what a good time we're having! We are having such a good-" he kissed her mouth, "time, aren't we?"

She nodded and made a slightly agreeable sound, but her heart felt like it was going to tear in half.

"Logan," she said quietly, leaning her head back and looking into his blue eyes, "I love you."

He stared at her for a second and then smiled and kissed her softly. "Thank you, honey, that's so sweet. It's adorable coming from you." He kissed her again as she realized that he hadn't said it back to her. Then his mouth grew more fervent over hers, his hands moved to cup and massage her breasts, and moments later, he was pushing her thighs apart and driving himself deeply into her. She felt loved, whether she had heard it or not.

When Lena talked to her a few days later, she was a lot quieter about it, and a little heartbroken.

"I told you he wasn't playing seriously with you. I knew he was moving way too fast for your own good. You weren't listening to me. That man is just a little more trouble than you need. I know he's fun, and I know you are having a good time, and honey, I am glad for you for that, but he is just not at all what you ought to be having in your life. You need a man who is going to commit to you and mean it.

“That's not him. That man is out for a good time and nothing but, and he may be setting you on fire now, but you give it a short while and he'll get bored with you and let you go. Then your heart is going to be broken and you won't have anyone but yourself to blame,” Lena told her firmly.

Brittany sighed. "I guess you might be right, but you don't see him when he's with me... it's like I'm his oxygen and he can't breathe without me. It's incredible. I think he does love me, he's just not able to admit it to himself. He's not used to being in love, that's all it is."

Lena scoffed. "Girl, you better let your head have some room in that relationship and stop leaving it all up to your heart, or you're going to wind up wanting to die. You trust me on this one. This isn't what you want at all. Take your time and wait to see if he really loves you. You're already nursing the wounds of him not telling you that he loves you."

Brittany frowned and bit her lip. Lena wasn't wrong. She had spent more than a little time crying to herself over the fact that Logan hadn't told her that he loved her. It was enough to make her heart sore and ache, and she didn't seem to care or have any common sense about it at all.

She just kept right on wanting him and loving him, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that Lena had spoken words of truth.  Logan might very well hurt her one day if she wasn't careful about how much of her heart she gave him.

Chapter 2

Brittany was sitting at her desk in the bank where she worked one Friday afternoon when her cell phone rang with the special ring that made her heart skip a beat and her breath catch. She picked up her phone and got up to close her office door.

Her conversations with him were rarely material that should be heard by anyone else.

"Hi baby!" she said as she answered.

"How's my hot little number doing?" he asked with a grin she could hear right over the line.

"I'm good, just thinking about you,” she said with a smile as her eyes danced with the lights of love.

He chuckled. "That's good... I like it when you think about me. Listen, I wanted to take you out to dinner tonight. Something special. What time can I come and get you?" 

She smiled. "I can be ready anytime. How should I dress?" she reached up and began to twirl a strand of her hair around her fingertip.

"Wear something that will drive me nuts until I get it off you,” he told her in a quiet voice.

She giggled at him. “I can do that."

"Excellent, you do that and then I will pick you up at six, how does that sound?" he asked with s smile she could almost hear. 

"That sounds like a date!"

After they hung up, she wondered about what Lena had told her. She was torn, knowing that Lena was looking at things from an outsider's perspective, which meant that she couldn't see all the little romantic nuances that happened between them, and also knowing that it meant that Lena was perhaps, just maybe, seeing things that Brittany wasn't able to see with her heart all fogged up.

That night as they went to the restaurant, Brittany noticed that he seemed a little more uptight, a little more nervous than usual and she was curious about it. His hand was tighter over hers than it normally was, and his smile was a little smaller.

They were seated at an excellent table on a balcony overlooking a pond set in the back courtyard garden area of the restaurant, where a chamber orchestra played softly to them.

There was candlelight glowing all around them, and the air was sweet with the fragrance of the roses growing along the balcony, and set into vases near each table.

Logan ordered a bottle of champagne and after it was poured into their glasses, he lifted his flute to toast her, saying with a smile, "To a woman who has not only turned my head, but also turned my heart in many ways. I wish to express my profound passion and emotion for you, by offering you my own heart and this small token of the future that I want to share with you."

They drank to his toast as she smiled and wondered what he was up to.

Putting his glass down, he pulled a small box from his pocket and opened it, and inside was a large diamond ring, glittering and sparkling in the candlelight. He pulled it from the box and held her hand in his, sliding it onto her left hand as he locked his gaze onto hers and said in a low voice, "Marry me, Brittany. Be my wife and stay with me for the rest of our lives."

She stared at him in amazement and her heart felt as if it might swell right out of her chest. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Here she had wondered at his intentions; worried over his emotions and true feelings for her, and hurt over the fact that he hadn't told her that he loved her. All the while he was thinking of something much more long term. He had been considering her for marriage.

She was astounded by his gesture and his request. She could never have seen his intentions coming, not even remotely, and it caught her heart by surprise. She blinked at him and as tears filled her eyes, she stared down at the ring on her hand, shining brightly against her dark skin like a star in the night.

"Well?" he asked her with a smile, and she looked back up into his clear blue eyes.

"Will you be my wife?" he asked her, moving near to her and placing his finger just below her chin, lifting her mouth to meet his in a soft kiss. His lips touched hers gently and then he looked at her again, speaking with a smile. "Marry me..." he told her in a whisper.

"Yes..." She smiled back at him and spoke softly. "I will marry you."

She felt as if her heart had somehow sprouted wings and was going to take off right out of her body.

He grinned at her and seemed to breathe much easier as if it had been heavy on his heart to ask her and her answer had been an enormous relief to him. He reached for her, holding her close and kissing her softly before he let her go and smiled at her.

"I am so surprised!" she gushed, laughing lightly. “I can't believe this... I just... I never saw this coming!" Brittany said, staring at the ring and trying to make herself believe it.

He shook his head and laughed a little as well. "Neither did I, but you are like an answer to my prayers. I just had to ask."

She marveled at it and then looked up at him and kissed him once more.

"I don't even know how to begin planning for something like this... where would we even have it?" she asked curiously.

"Oh, I was thinking at that little hotel right on the beach, you know, they have a beautiful garden and the ocean is right there. We can use the garden for the wedding and reception. Guests will have a place to stay, and it's an excellent location."

She looked at him in surprise. "I'm amazed! You seem to have already given this a good deal of thought!"

He nodded. "You have no idea."

"Well, you have the location picked out, is there a date you have in mind?" she asked, looking at him in wonder.

He reached for her hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissing her fingers slowly and sensually, making her draw in her breath sharply and look around them in a sudden worry that someone might see the effect he had on her.

"I want you to be my wife as soon as possible. I don't want to wait for you... I have waited long enough; through years of dating other women, through the time that we have spent together, and I don't want to wait any longer. I want you to be my wife as soon as we are able to.

“I think six weeks, maybe eight at the very most, would be more than enough time to plan an event like our wedding. Don't you think?" he smiled at her and rubbed his thumb over her hand.

She stared at him and her heart began to pound so hard that she could hear it in her ears. "Six to eight weeks? Why, that's no time at all!" she said in a gasp. "Why would we rush into it?"

He shook his head and reached for her cheek, touching it gently. "I have waited all of my life for this, and I don't want to wait any longer. There's no one like you. Why would we wait to share something as precious and wonderful as our lives together?" He smiled at her and kissed her softly.

"It's just so soon!" she sighed with a smile back for him.

He raised one eyebrow. "It's twice as long as we've been dating... if that's any consolation to you." He grinned and gave her a wink.

She looked at him in wonder and realized that he had a point. She had agreed to spend the rest of her life with a man that she had only been dating for a month; having the wedding in eight weeks was twice as long as they were dating, and it was also a valid point that if they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, why would they wait? She kissed him.

"Eight weeks it is, then. Thank you, Logan, I'm so honored, and I love you so much," she told him as happiness washed all through her.

"Me too,” he said with a smile as he toasted her with champagne again.

The following morning, when he had left her house, she called Lena, ecstatic with joy.

"You are not going to believe what just happened!" she squealed with excitement as she held the phone tightly to one ear and stared at her hand again for the thousandth time.

"What? What just happened?" Lena said, trying to wake up fully and catch up with the excitement that Brittany was emitting.

"I went out to dinner with Logan last night and he asked me to marry him!" she exclaimed blissfully.

Lena was silent one moment and then Brittany knew that she was fully awake. "What? What happened?" she asked again. "I know I didn't hear you right. Say that to me one more time."

"I said that Logan asked me to marry him last night!" Brittany smiled happily.

Lena gasped loudly into the phone. "Oh my Lord in heaven. What did you say to him?"

"Well, I said yes, of course!" She laughed as if it was the most absurd thing she had ever heard.

Lena groaned. "Girl, I tried to tell you, this is too fast. He's moving way too fast. This just doesn't sound good to me! I know you have your heart and your head in the clouds, but baby, you just can't do that! You need way more time to get to know him. You can't be with someone for a month and then decide you're going to marry them and spend the rest of your life with them! What are you thinking?

“You aren't thinking. That's the problem here. Your heart is cutting off all of the circulation to your head, and you are making life-altering decisions without really giving any thought to what you are doing and what the consequences of your decisions are going to be! You can't go rushing in like that! You just can't!" She sounded like she meant every word of it, and she was not about to hold anything back from her friend.

Brittany sighed deeply. "I know you mean well, but you just can't see how much he loves me! It's real, Lena, he loves me, and I love him, and we want to spend our lives together. I know it's happening fast, but I have never been this happy and this much in love in my life! Seriously. Think about this. You've known me for more than ten years! Have you ever seen me like this? Even when I was with Darren?" she asked, thinking for a moment back on the boyfriend she had broken up with just a few months before.

Lena jumped on the subject immediately. "You thought you were in love with him too until you caught him chasing after that little Miss Whatshername. Then you got your heart broken. You dated him for a year and you thought that you and he were going to get married and have babies and raise up a family, but he went and showed you that you don't know a person, not even after a whole year! You've only been with Logan for a month and you're ready to commit your life to him!"

Brittany frowned. "You're not even looking at the whole picture! I was never this happy with Darren. I don't think he was happy either, and that's why he went after Amy; maybe he thought that she could make him happy because he wasn't finding his happiness with me.

“It's lucky he did go after her, or I probably would have wound up marrying him and then I would never have known what true happiness and true love is! I know now, and what I had with Darren isn't even a shadow of what I have with Logan. It's nothing at all like it. I just don't think you can see it, that's all. We love each other, we trust each other, we are each other’s number one priority."

Lena grew annoyed. "How can you trust each other? You've only known each other a month!"

Brittany shrugged. "I don't know, we just do. That's just how love works, and it's beautiful."

Lena sighed in resignation. "Well, it sounds like you aren't about to listen to anything I have to say, so congratulations, and I wish you the best of luck."

Brittany smiled a little. "You realize I'm going to want you to be my maid of honor, right?"

Lena sighed loudly. "You would ask me to do that."

Brittany laughed at her.

"Oh alright, I will do it, but don't you dare put me in some throwback to the eighties prom dress and make me look like a fool, do you hear me?" she insisted.

"I hear you loud and clear, sister!" Brittany laughed again and began to relax, knowing that her best friend would see the light when she saw them together and realized just how much they were in love.

"We'll go dress shopping together and you can pick out the style of the dress as long as it's in my wedding colors, okay?" Brittany offered as a peace treaty between them.