books – Day & Knight

Cheyenne

My heart literally stopped when I saw Mateo drop down on one knee. The waves lapped along the shoreline as the clouds darkened above.

He gazed up at me, love beaming from his eyes. “Will you, Cheyenne? Make me the happiest guy on this planet?” He breathed out, “Marry me.”

The look on his face should have melted me into a puddle right there. But it didn’t. It wasn’t the gushy love proposal I’d longed for–the security, the insane happiness I’d felt when I had been with Zachary in college…no…this feeling was different.

An overwhelming trap seemed to close me into a prison.

I couldn’t marry Mateo.

His exuberance turned to tension. “Say something, Chey. You’re worrying me.”

My hands tightened as my throat clenched. I whispered hoarsely, “I…just…can’t.”

“Why?” he countered.

Mateo’s face struck me like a knife to the heart. Why? He deserved an explanation. But how could I tell him that I just didn’t love him? Not like that. I loved him with all my heart as a person but…not in that forever into the sunset as we grow old kind of way.

No.

I bit my lip as I cast for something to say. Anything that wouldn’t break his heart.

His face read mine like a tragic novella.

The simple ring he offered me twinkled in his hand. It was perfect. Exactly my style. He knew me better than anyone, even better than Kristie. But was friendship enough for a marriage? Especially with our huge careers going across different continents. It wouldn’t work.

“I…I just don’t…love you.” I hated how those words sounded so cruel as I spoke them but anything less and he’d plead with me, trying to talk me out of my madness.