Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot Page B

in history?
    â€œNo,” I said. “It’s perfect.”
    â€œYou’ve barely looked at it. Here, try it on, at least.” He took the glass from me, tossed the remains of my champagne into the sand, then fished the ring from the bottom. “I hope I got the right size. You never wear rings. Tina helped me guess—”
    â€œTina?” The ring slid neatly onto the third finger of my left hand, where the large colorless diamond caught the rays of the setting sun and flamed like the fire at the end of one of the nearby tiki torches. “Tina knew?”
    â€œOf course she knew. Well, some of it.”
    This explained everything. I can’t believe poor Tina kept herself from breathing a word of it to me.
    â€œDo you like it?” Michael asked again. He actually looked a little anxious, but also excited, like a kid at Christmas. Or Hanukkah, to be exact.
    â€œI love it.”
    I lowered my head to kiss him, because obviously when a man has gotten down on one knee in the sand to propose to you with a lab-engineered diamond, the natural thing to do is wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him, quite deeply, and for a long time, as the ocean waves lap gently around you.
    â€œBut, Michael,” I said a little while later, after catching my breath, “I thought we were going to wait to get married until—”
    He’d had his arms around my waist, and his head was resting quite comfortably against my chest, in a sort of dreamy way. But when I said the thing about how I thought we were going to wait, his head jerked up.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mia, but I’m tired of waiting,” he said, in a decidedly unromantic manner. “We can’t even live together, thanks to those vultures in the press. Think about it, because I have, a lot. What if something were to happen to you? I wouldn’t be the first person they’d notify. I doubt anyone would remember to notify me at all. I wouldn’t even be allowed into your hospital room—”
    â€œOh, Michael, how can you say that? It isn’t true.” I ran my fingers through his thick dark hair, still slightly damp from his shower and giving off that irresistibly fresh, clean scent of his. “First of all, nothing’s going to happen to me—”
    His gaze was filled once again with dark hurricane clouds, and I realized this was what had been troubling him all along. “How can you say that after what happened to your stepfather?”
    â€œMichael, we all loved Frank, but you know he was terrible about following up on his medical care. Nothing like that could ever happen to me, because I’m very proactive about my health.”
    â€œFine, but what about those protesters? Or your stalker? Next time it might not be only an orange that gets thrown in your direction.”
    â€œYes,” I said patiently. “But that’s why I have the Royal Genovian Guard. There’s nothing Lars would love more than to take a bullet for me—”
    â€œ I want to take a bullet for you,” Michael said, his hands curling into fists in my lap.
    â€œMichael, that’s the last thing I want.”
    â€œI don’t understand why you’re arguing with me about this. Do you not want to marry me?”
    â€œOf course not! I mean, yes. Yes, of course I do, but—”
    â€œBut what?”
    â€œBut I don’t want you to ask me because you feel like you have to, or because you want to take a bullet for me, or because you feel pressured to do it—”
    â€œMia, I’m a grown man. No one can pressure me into doing anything I don’t want to do.” He looked quite fierce as he said this, his dark eyes flashing. There wasn’t a hint of shadow in them anymore. They were very clear. “I want to marry you because I love you, and I want to spend as much time as I have left on this earth with you. And the most practical way for me to do that is by marrying