He sits me down on the larger couch and settles next to me, and then draws the envelope to his thigh.
“If my mother couldn’t meet you, I thought you could still meet her.” He pulls out a 5 x 7 color photograph from inside and extends it to me.
I feel a visceral reaction to the image of the woman I see, and the handsome teenager standing beside her, letting her wrap her arm around him even though he’s already taller. I recognize him instantly.
How can I not? I love him to pieces. Every part of him. And I love that woman in the picture simply because of the smile she’s wearing and how lovingly she’s holding him.
“She was reckless, spent money like her life depended on it,” Malcolm tells me. “She was passionate, and brave, and she loved me. Despite everything.”
He reaches into the folder again, and this time takes out a box with the name Harry Winston on it. He snaps it open. And there’s this lovely, exquisite ring sitting proudly at its center. It’s a round stone, super classical.
“When I was born my father told her to go buy the biggest rock she could find to celebrate the birth of what could now only be their only son. She didn’t buy the biggest rock, she bought the most perfect: D, internally flawless, 4.01 carats. She took off her engagement ring and wore this ring for as long as I can remember. When her leukemia was diagnosed, she told me she wanted to give me this ring. This was symbolic to her for me, and she wanted my bride to have it. I told her there would be no bride, to keep it. When I . . .”
He pauses, his expression troubled by the memory.
“When I came back from my skiing trip with the guys, I was given a folder with that picture she kept on her nightstand. A trust fund. And this ring.”
As he lifts the ring, it refracts all the lights around us, sparkling rainbows.
“So I went to the bank, got it the biggest box I could find, and stored it, having no intention of ever opening that vault. But all I’ve been able to think of lately is getting this ring out of that vault . . .” He kisses my hand and slips it on. “And onto your finger.”
The ring slides easily onto my finger. It’s a little big, and suddenly my finger feels just as heavy as my chest. Sin surveys my adorned hand, then looks up at me with this hopeful, loving gleam in those eyes of his. Eyes that used to be cold, when I met him for the first time, now look at me with the heat at the core of the earth.
There’s a smile on his lips too, a smile so adorable it’s almost boyish.
“Tie the knot with me. Be safe with me. Reckless with me. Be who you are with me. Be my wife, Rachel—marry me.”
My eyes get blurry and my lips are trembling as I purse them painfully because of his story. Because I’m wearing a ring on my finger.
And he speaks: “You once told me you wanted the world to stand still, you wanted a safe spot to stand still. I want to be that place for you.” His hands are almost swallowing my face, but it’s his stare that swallows me most—swallows me whole. “Even if I’m spinning through life, the spot beside me will be the eye of the hurricane, and nothing there can be touched or harmed. I want you here with me, beside me.”
My breaths have become ragged and I’m shaking all over in disbelief and happiness and emotion.
“Have you wondered what a man in love looks like?” As confident as ever, he kneels, ducks his head and kisses my naked hand. “This is what he looks like.”
I break down and duck my face and bury it in his hair as a sob escapes me. I’m melting. Swooning. Dying. I should probably speak but I’m struggling with a wet face and a clogged throat. His mother. The only other woman this man has ever truly loved before me. I feel so grateful to hear about her. I feel so humbled that he thinks me worthy of wearing this ring.
Saint hears my sniffles and straightens back so he can dry my tears.
I love my mother so much; I can’t imagine how it must’ve hurt him to lose her.
“This . . .” I struggle to explain, “is what a woman in love looks like when the man she loves shows her he loves her too.”
There’s a deep texture in his voice when he lets out a breath and says, “She looks lovely.”
He starts to straighten and tucks his hands under my armpits. “What are you doing? What is—what are you—Malcolm!”
Laughing, he lifts me up to his eye level as he stands—lifts me up as if I weigh nothing—kisses me on the mouth. “What does she say?”
He waits a little, eyes searching, impatient, anxious, claiming, primal, male, Malcolm’s. “Rachel?” he prods softly.
I’m hyperventilating. “We never . . . we never . . . you never told me you wanted . . . you were thinking . . .”
He takes my hand. I feel him rub the diamond under his thumb in a slow, languorous circle. “I’m telling you with this.” He looks at me somberly.
My reaction is visceral, instinctive, there is no doubt in my mind as I grab his shirt, boost up and I’m shaking all over and press my mouth to his, answering with my wet kiss. He lifts me up by the waist and my skirt hikes up as I curl my legs around him.
“Yes,” I breathe, grabbing his jaw in my hands and drowning in the lights inside those green forests of his that I swear to god contain the sun right now.
He nuzzles my nose. “Yes?”
“Yes, Malcolm. Always yes.” I press my lips to his, no tongue, just lips, and I squeeze my legs and arms around him as tight as I can as we hug . . . for a long time. Simply hold each other. For a long time.
The wind teases my hair, and I feel it wrap around our faces as we lean our foreheads against each other.
I’m crying and laughing and, suddenly, raining wet kisses all over his jaw, his temple, his forehead, his nose, his lips again . . .
He stops me with his hands to look into my eyes. “Two more times.”
“You want me to say yes four times?”
God. What do you do when the man you love asks you something?
You say yes.
Four times yes.
What do you do when a Saint loves you? You love him with all that you possess.
What do you do when Sin comes calling?
You do him.