He drops his face to my neck and presses it there, tightening his arms around me, so I whisper the last part right into his ear.

“But actually I love you more than all those things combined, Cameron McGregor. I love you like I never knew I could love anything. You’re more important to me than air itself, and I don’t ever want to spend a day without you. Because you believed in me, this little ugly duckling finally became a swan.”

A delicate shudder runs through his chest. He inhales deeply, squeezing me so tight I feel every single wild beat of his heart.

“You were always a swan, you bloody idiot,” he says in a strangled voice.

I tilt my head back and laugh, though my eyes are filled with tears. They’re happy tears, however. Happy-ever-after tears. “Whatever I am, prancer, I’m yours. Now kiss me before you say something stupid and ruin the moment.”

“God, you’re bossy,” he grumbles, but when he lifts his head, he’s grinning from ear to ear. His eyes are filled with happy tears, too. He bends his head toward mine but then stops. “Wait.”

I crinkle my brow. “What?”

“You haven’t said you’ll marry me.”

“Well . . . technically, you haven’t asked.”

He pretends to think about it. “You’re right. I haven’t.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, I prompt, “So?”

“So I think I should wait until after lunch. I’m pretty hungry.”

“Cam!” Outraged, I smack his arm.

He laughs, delighted by my reaction, which is obviously exactly what he was hoping for. “All right, hold your horses, Miss Snufflebottom, gimme a minute to compose myself before I pop the question!”

I stare at him with pursed lips as he clears his throat and adopts a serious expression. When he looks at me, I realize I’m holding my breath.

He declares, “We’re gettin’ married.”

“Ugh! That wasn’t a question!”

He presses his lips together to keep from laughing. “Are we getting married?”

I growl like a bear, ready to rip his head off. This is the first marriage proposal I’ve ever received, and the man is making jokes! I look at his smug, smirking face and decide I need to take matters into my own hands.

“Fine. I can see I’m going to have to take control of this situation.” I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin, and look him right in the eye. “Cameron McGregor, will you marry me?”

His expression goes all melty, as if he’s fighting tears. He takes my face in his hands, whispers vehemently, “I thought you’d never ask,” and kisses me like he’s starving.

When the kettle starts to whistle, neither one of us pays it any mind.

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away,

A duckling born to a family of swans

Was mistakenly led astray.

It took a prince of beauty and brawn

With a brogue like rich brown sugar

To show the duckling the way back home

So she could grow bigger, better, surer

Of herself so she no longer had to roam

Through the dark forest of lost hearts.

But along the way she fell under his spell

From the prince she never wanted to part,

In the circle of his arms she longed to dwell.

So the duckling said to her princely valentine

“For all time I’ll be yours, and forever you’ll be mine.”