Too Late, Mr. Sterling—I’m Marrying Your Rival Chapter 11

I knew.

I ran down the cliff path in the dark, the same path a skinny amber-eyed boy once carried me up, my coat flapping in the wind.

Then I stopped at the top of the stairs to the cove.

And couldn’t breathe.

The whole beach was glowing.

Hundreds of lanterns lined the sand in the shape of a path, leading down to the water. Sea lavender, my mother’s favorite flower, was scattered between them, silver in the moonlight. The waves rolled in, soft and shining.

And at the end of the path, standing on the exact rock where he’d pulled me out of the ocean twenty years ago, was Rhys.

He saw me and smiled.

“Ava!” he shouted over the wind.

I walked down slowly. My legs were shaking.

“I love you!” he called. “I’ve loved you since you were eight years old and screaming at me for not saving the trash bag!”

A laugh broke out of me. Then a sob.

“I loved you when you were gone. I loved you when you married someone else and I told myself to let it go. I loved you every summer I came back to this beach and you weren’t here.” His voice cracked. “And I love you more now than I ever did. Can you forget him? Can you just-start over with me? Let me love you right?”

I stopped one step away from him.

His amber eyes held nothing but truth.

Somewhere in this world, all those years when I felt Invisible, someone had been loving me without asking for a thing.

My eyes burned. I couldn’t speak.

Panic flashed across his face.

“What you told Sterling,” he said quickly. “In my room. Does it still count?”

Something mischievous warmed in my chest.

“Which part?” I asked innocently.

His face fell so completely-so anxious, so wounded-that I almost laughed.

“The part where you said you liked me, Ava!”

His eyes were shining. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat.

I stepped close. Close enough to feel the warmth of him in the cold air. I looked straight into his eyes.

“It counts,” I said. “Rhys. I like you too. I think I’m falling in love with you.”

He looked at me like I’d hung the moon over the water myself.

Slowly, with trembling fingers, he pulled a small velvet box from his coat.

He opened it.

My breath stopped.

It was my mother’s ring.

The one I’d sold to buy that St. Christopher medal for Damien. A thin gold band. One tiny sapphire. I knew

every scratch on it.

“How-” I couldn’t finish.

“You told me about it in the hospital. I spent three weeks tracking down the jeweler in Manhattan, then the woman who bought it from him.” He swallowed hard. “She cried when I told her why I wanted it. She wouldn’t take my money.”

Tears poured down my face.

“I know it’s fast,” he whispered. “I don’t care. Ava Hale, will you marry me?”

I didn’t answer.

I grabbed his collar, rose up on my toes, and kissed him.

He made a stunned sound against my mouth. Then his arms wrapped around me, and he kissed me back like he’d been waiting twenty years to do it.

When we finally broke apart, foreheads pressed together, I laughed through my tears.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, Rhys.”

He slid my mother’s ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly.

Behind us, from the top of the cliff, someone in the dark started clapping. Then another person. Then dozens.

I turned. The whole town was up there with flashlights-Whitaker, Mrs. O’Leary, the nurses, the lobstermen.

“He told everyone,” I said, laughing.

“I needed backup in case you said no,” Rhys admitted.

I was still laughing when my phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

One message. Unknown number.

I know it’s over. But before you marry him, there’s one thing I have to give back to you. Tomorrow. Then I’ll

never bother you again.