“Please. We’re good together. I never would have done any of this without you.”
She shrugged.
“Tell me you don’t want to be with me. That you don’t want our baby to have a father.”
“That’s not the issue—”
“Well, then stop this. I want to be a father to this child. I want to be with you.”
Michaela looked up at him. “You really mean that?” The concrete crumbled a bit more, and her heart began pumping in earnest. A mix of excitement and nervousness rushed through her. This might really be happening, just as she’d hoped it would.
“Absolutely.”
She bit her lip, her trust still shaky. But she wanted to believe. Oh, she wanted to. “I don’t know. I don’t know how we’ll make this work.”
“We’ll take it slow, remember? One day at a time.”
“But what about ‘no long-term commitments’? A baby is about as long-term a commitment as you can get.”
“I know. I’ve realized it’s not really about the length of the relationship, it’s about the two people involved. I was stuck in old habits. Old patterns… Look, have you eaten?”
“I ordered room service before you got here,” she admitted.
“Can you cancel it?”
“I don’t really think…”
He was already on the phone.
When he hung up, he took her hands and said, “Come.”
…
Everyone was smiling when they arrived at Lily’s restaurant. “God, it looks like they’ve all been working on cruise ships,” she said.
Dylan just laughed. He kept patting his jacket pocket, and he was jumpy.
“Are you okay? We really didn’t have to come out to eat.” She toyed with her hair, his jitters making her nervous.
“Oh, yes, we did.”
Their first course arrived with a glass of sparkling grape juice for Michaela. She sipped at it and then couldn’t take it any longer. “What is it?” she asked. “Is there something else you need to tell me?”
His smile seemed rigid, the nerves almost visible on his face, and Michaela froze. “Oh, no,” she said very softly. “If there are any more surprises, I really don’t want to know. I don’t think I can take any more.”
“Okay then,” he said, and took a deep breath. “Just one more thing, but it’s more of a question.” He looked over at his sister-in-law, who nodded. “I was planning a whole song and dance routine around this, you know, violins, more roses, champagne, but it seems like we’re never going to do things in an orderly fashion.” He got down on one knee as the lights dimmed and a piece of beautiful music filled the restaurant.
Michaela felt her mouth open.
“Michaela Western, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Dylan opened a small blue box, and Michaela gasped when she saw the antique diamond ring it held.
“How did you… When did you have time to…?”
“It was my mother’s,” he said. “I asked Lily if she minded my giving it to you rather than passing it on to her kids, and she agreed. It’s what Mom would have wanted.”
“But you don’t believe in marriage.”
Dylan paused. “I was looking for reasons not to believe in it. I’ve had to deal with the fallout of Brian’s marriage for so long, I ignored the other examples around me. My mother always talked about the good marriage she had before my father died. That’s what I want for us. For our child to grow up as part of a loving family.”
“But you said…when we were on the ship…”
He put a finger to her lips. “Maybe I just hadn’t found the right woman to be my wife.”
“Your wife?” she managed.
“Of course,” he said. “And the mother of my child.”
“But I want to keep working. I don’t want to be just your wife, or just a mother. I want everything.”
“And so you should. You are a woman completely capable of getting everything you want.”
Could this really be happening? Did she want it to? “You haven’t said anything about how you feel.”
“How I feel?” His face was blank.
“If I have to spell it out…”
He smiled. “Michaela, I love you. I love everything about you.”
Michaela thought back to the speech she used to give to new crew members when they first arrived onboard the Pacific Empress. Welcome to a new world, she’d say. A world where you will be part of other people’s dreams.
She must be dreaming now. “Where would we live? How will I be able to—”
“One day at a time, remember?”
The pause seemed to stretch out for an eternity, and suddenly she felt the eyes of everyone in the restaurant on her. “I don’t know what to say,” she managed.
“A yes is all I need.”
A woman sitting with her grandkids caught Michaela’s eye and gave her a wink and thumbs up.
Michaela nodded, and Dylan slipped the ring onto her finger as the restaurant erupted into cheers.
This time, the dreams weren’t other people’s. They were hers.