Chapter 8 - A Promise Written in Gold
The afternoon sun broke through the clouds, casting a brilliant beam of golden light across the garden.
Lucas held the velvet box open. Inside rested a breathtaking, vintage-cut emerald diamond set in a delicate band of platinum, surrounded by smaller brilliant white diamonds that caught the light like stars.
It was not a cold display of wealth. The emerald was the exact color of the dress Madison had worn on the terrace on New Year’s Eve—the dress that had brought her into his life.
“Madison,” Lucas spoke, his voice filled with a raw, profound emotion that made her heart soar. “A little over a month ago, I was a man living in absolute darkness. I believed that power was the only thing that kept a man alive. And then I met a woman on a cold terrace who kissed me without knowing my name, and who loved her son with a fierce, beautiful honor that humbled me to my core.”
He took her shaking right hand in his.
“You and Noah gave me a soul, Madison. You gave me a home. I step away from my past today, not because I am afraid, but because I have found something far more precious to protect.”
He looked up into her tear-filled eyes.
“Will you marry me, Madison? Will you let me be a father to Noah, a husband to you, and spend the rest of my life ensuring that neither of you ever feels alone again?”
Noah ran over, stopping beside Lucas, looking up at his mother with wide, curious eyes.
“Say yes, Mommy,” Noah stated clearly, holding up his blue dinosaur. “Dino says yes too.”
Madison let out a joyful, sob-filled laugh, wiping tears from her cheeks as she dropped to her knees in the grass, throwing her arms around Lucas’s neck and kissing him with all the passion, gratitude, and love in her heart.
May you like
“Yes!” she cried against his lips. “Yes, Lucas! A thousand times yes!”
Lucas wrapped his arm around her waist, lifting her up off the grass as he kissed her back, while Noah giggled, wrapping his small arms around both of their legs in a tight family hug.
