Rita stayed at Matthew’s house until late Sunday evening, long after the great nor’easter ended, and long after the snowplows had cleared the streets. She wanted to stay even longer, but made herself return home for two reasons. One, so that she could sort through her feelings before going back to work. And two, because he hadn’t invited her to stay any longer than the weekend.
Mostly, though, she did need to figure out what she felt for him. And she knew he needed time to himself, too, to try and make sense of his own emotions. Their weekend together had been an escape from reality in so many ways. On Monday morning, they would return to the real world of working with each other again, and she, at least, needed to be prepared, just in case Matthew decided to revert to his old beastly ways again.
She told herself that wasn’t going to happen, especially after the way he kissed her good-night on the doorstep of her brownstone after driving her home, then placed the crystal bud vase holding her rose so carefully into her hand. Strangely, he hadn’t asked her about the rose once over the weekend. But he had tended to it as carefully as she, making sure it had water and was placed in a sunny window. It had been just another enchanting aspect of their time together. There had been something magical about the snowstorm, something unearthly and illusory about the entire weekend. The real test, she knew, would come in the morning, when the two of them were thrust back into the workday world. She just hoped they both still felt the same way Monday morning.
But the first thing Rita saw on Monday morning was a note from Matthew that he had tucked into her mail slot. I won’t be in today, the note read, but meet me this evening for dinner, 7:00 at Darian’s. We have to talk. Matthew.
It was that last sentence that caused Rita the most concern. What did they have to talk about? she wondered. She folded the note and tucked it into the pocket of her scrubs with some trepidation.
Tonight, she supposed, she was going to find out.
The restaurant Matthew had chosen for dinner was one Rita had never visited before. Darian’s was considered to be one of Boston’s finer venues, but its prices were hard to manage on a nurse’s salary. Yes, she was a member of the wealthy Barone family but she was unwilling to dip into her trust fund for something like dinner out.
Still, in light of the restaurant’s reputation, she had dressed in her only outfit appropriate for such an establishment, the little black dress she’d worn to the party at Baronessa headquarters the night she and Matthew had made love for the first time. And if a not-so-little part of her was rather hoping this evening might have the same outcome as that one, well, that was just something she’d have to deal with. And she had. In fact, she’d dealt with it by wearing the same naughty lingerie she’d worn that night, too.
Well, a girl could dream, couldn’t she?
Until the night of the blizzard, Rita had been so certain things with Matthew weren’t going to work out, that the two of them had been finished before they could even get started. And after that night, she began to realize how very badly she did want them to work out. Before the party at Baronessa headquarters, she’d liked and admired him. Yes, he was gruff and standoffish, but she’d always sensed that there was a reason for that, something in his past that had wounded him and kept him from getting too close to anyone else. At the party, of course, she’d learned what that something was. And when she had realized the depth of the wounds from which he had had to recover—both physically and emotionally—she’d experienced a new kind of admiration for him. And she had begun to feel a sort of affection for him, too. Affection that had gradually grown into love.
There were many things the two of them had in common. They both took their work seriously, and were dedicated to their callings. He had a wry sense of humor, when he showed it, and he’d always seemed confident and reasonably content with his life. Rita had simply responded to him on a level she didn’t with most people. She’d always felt comfortable around him, in spite of his seeming distance, and always felt better whenever he was around.
She remembered once, back before Christmas, when the nurses in CCU were passing a boring shift by taking turns answering the question “If you had to be stranded on a deserted island with someone from the hospital, who would you choose?” Most of the nurses had chosen a notoriously handsome intern, but when her turn had come, Rita had thought for a moment, then had said she thought Dr. Grayson would be a likely choice. The others hadn’t bothered to hide their surprise that she would choose the beastly MD, and a few had outright called her nuts. But Rita had defended her choice, had told the other nurses she thought he would be good to have around because he was smart and self-sufficient and wouldn’t panic.
What she hadn’t told them that day was that she thought he was kind of attractive, sexy even, in his gruff, standoffish way.
Even back then, she realized now, she had been attracted to him. And the more she got to know him, the more appealing he’d become. Making love with him had finally made her understand how very much she did care for him. How much she had come to love him. The reason she had made him her first lover, she understood now, was because she had known on some subconscious level that he was indeed special. That he was someone she wanted to share her life with. That he was someone she wanted to share herself with. Because she had loved him. Even then.
All she could do at this point was hope that Matthew shared at least some of her feelings. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he saw this as little more than a passing fling. She didn’t think he did. He didn’t seem the kind of man who would indulge in something so frivolous and superficial. But she wouldn’t know for sure unless he offered her some kind of sign that what was happening between them meant as much to him as it did to her.
Of course, inviting a woman to the most expensive restaurant in town was certainly a good start, Rita thought as she pushed open the door to Darian’s and entered. She saw Matthew immediately, waiting by the hostess stand, his gaze fixed on the door as if he hadn’t wanted to take his eyes off it, lest he miss her entrance. He was wearing another one of his dark power suits with a white dress shirt and a conservative, berry-colored necktie, and although she had decided the other day that she preferred him in his more casual attire of jeans and sweater—or, better still, his even more casual attire of nothing at all—she went a little weak in the knees at the sight of him.
He was so incredibly handsome. And so charmingly unaware of the fact. And he was so gentle. And so sweet. How anyone could ever think him beastly was beyond her. She smiled a bit tentatively, feeling nervous for no good reason she could name.
“Hi,” she said softly.
He smiled in response to her salutation, a slow, easy, very confident, very sexy smile. A small bubble of heat burst inside her, sending a warm sensation reeling throughout her entire system. After exhaling a small, soft sigh that felt very much like contentment, she strode forward and stopped beside him.
“You look beautiful,” he said by way of a greeting.
She grinned. “You don’t look so bad yourself,” she replied.
Then he surprised her by leaning forward and covering her mouth with his. It was a brief, spontaneous show of affection, and she felt as if she would melt right there on the spot. It wasn’t a lingering kiss, but it was a public kiss, a public avowal that she was important to him. Somehow, that pleased Rita down to the very depths of her soul.
He pulled back with obvious reluctance, but by then the hostess had returned and was telling them their table was ready, if they’d please just follow her. Matthew held Rita’s chair for her as she took her seat, then, instead of moving to the other side of the table equipped for four, he sat down immediately to her right, as if he didn’t want even the scant distance of a table separating them. That sensation of heat spread through Rita again. A server appeared immediately to take their drink orders, and after a quick glance at the wine list, Matthew ordered something red and full-bodied.
He seemed impatient about something, Rita thought as she watched him make the decision and place the order. Though not in any sort of negative way. She got the feeling there was something he wanted to discuss with her—but then, he’d said as much in his note—something she now realized must be very important. But he didn’t seem to know how to go about approaching it.
“What?” she said, hoping to spur him. “What’s wrong?”
He looked surprised by her question. “Wrong?” he echoed. “Nothing’s wrong. Why would you ask that?”
She shrugged lightly, even though she didn’t much feel light. “In your note, you said we needed to talk,” she reminded him. “You must have something on your mind.”
In response to her remark, Matthew only gazed at her in silence. And suddenly, Rita began to feel doubtful about what she had felt so certain of only moments ago. Could she have been wrong about the mood of the evening? she wondered. What if he really did see this as nothing more than a fling? What if, instead of an effort to cement their relationship, he intended tonight to be the big kiss-off?
“It’s not that I have something on my mind,” he finally said “It’s that I have something in my pocket.”
“What?” she asked warily.
He studied her in silence for a moment longer, then sat back in his chair and reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. Just as he was beginning to withdraw whatever was in there, however, their waiter returned with their wine and Matthew set his empty hand back on the table between himself and Rita. Their server went about placing their glasses meticulously on the table, taking such great care and time to do it just so, that Rita nearly jumped out of her chair to throttle him. Finally, however, he seemed to reach the proper level of feng shui because he smiled and nodded at both of them, offered a quiet, “I’ll just give you a few more minutes to study the menu,” then pivoted and walked away.
Rita turned her attention to Matthew, but he was diligently perusing his dinner choices. “The veal looks good,” he said blandly.
Rita mentally gritted her teeth at him. Whatever he had been about to remove from his pocket, he was clearly planning to wait to show her now. So she, too, turned her attention to the menu, choosing the first item upon which her gaze fell.
“Rosemary-encrusted lamb chops,” she muttered, looking back up at Matthew. “I’ll have that. Now then, what was it you were saying?”
He glanced back up at her, seeming confused about something. Then his expression cleared. “Oh. The veal. I was saying it looks good.”
Argh, Rita thought. “No, before that,” she said. “We were talking about something else.”
“Were we?”
“Yes, we were,” she assured him, biting back her impatience. “You—”
But she never got to finish her thought, as their server returned again to take their orders.
She placed her order, then listened impatiently as Matthew wavered between the veal and the New York strip. Finally, he opted for, of all things, the beef medallions, something that sent their server scurrying off to do whatever it was servers did when they weren’t annoying their patrons by interrupting their dialogues at the most inopportune moments. Rita took advantage of his absence to fold her elbows over the table and lean forward, blatantly invading Matthew’s space.
“Before the veal,” she said, striving for a patient tone, “you were about to say something else.”
Matthew opened his mouth with the obvious intention of telling her that he couldn’t remember, but Rita cut him off by lifting one hand, index finger extended.
“You said you had something in your pocket,” she reminded him stoically. “Something you were about to take out and show me,” she added, just in case he’d forgotten that part, too.
He made a soft tsk and nodded. “That’s right,” he concurred. “I remember now.”
Finally, Rita thought.
“But maybe I should wait for dessert,” he said.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight and silently counted to ten. “No,” she said slowly and calmly when she opened them again, “you should tell me now.”
When her gaze met his, she saw that his dreamy green eyes were fairly twinkling with mischief, and she realized he’d been deliberately stringing her along all this time.
She smiled knowingly. “C’mon,” she said, turning her hand palm up now, and wiggling her fingers. “Let’s have it,” she said.
He continued to gaze at her for a moment longer, then leaned back in his chair again and reached into his jacket pocket once more. But he still hesitated a moment before withdrawing whatever was inside, and he suddenly seemed to be a little anxious about what he was doing. Slowly, though, he pulled his hand back out, cupping it over whatever he held so that Rita couldn’t see it. Then he halted completely before showing her what it was.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She expelled a mildly exasperated sound. “Why?”
“Just do it,” he told her.
She obeyed his edict, sitting back in her chair and folding her hands in her lap, then closing her eyes. She heard the soft shuffle of movement, then nothing.
“Okay,” he said, his voice still laced with something akin to apprehension. “You can open them now.”
When Rita did, she saw first Matthew’s handsome face gazing back at her with what was clearly trepidation. Then, more curious than ever, she lowered her gaze to the table. There, sitting before her on the white china plate atop the white linen tablecloth was a small white box. A small white box tied up with gold ribbon.
Just exactly like the small white boxes tied with gold ribbon that her secret admirer/stalker had left for her in her mail slot at the hospital.
“What…?” And then she understood. It had been Matthew all along. He had been the one leaving her the anonymous gifts.
She jerked her head up to look at him, and understood then why he looked so worried. Because he was the one she had been concerned might be stalking her. Even after she had voiced that concern to him, even after she had told him how uneasy, even frightened, she was about the anonymous gifts, he hadn’t told her the truth. And he was uncertain what her reaction would be, now that she did know the truth.
In all honesty, in that moment, Rita wasn’t sure what her reaction was.
“It’s been you all along?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes.” When she only continued to stare at him in silence, he blew out an impatient breath and tried to explain. “That first time,” he began, “all I really wanted to do was to somehow say thank you for your help in the E.R. that day with Joe, the homeless man. Do you remember that?”
Rita nodded. “Yes,” she said. “But, Matthew, I was only doing my job that day. You didn’t owe me any thanks.”
“I owed you more than you realize,” he told her. “You calmed the man down, and you made it possible for me to do my job. You also told him I was an excellent surgeon. The absolute best.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “And you told him I was a wonderful man. And when you said that, you sounded like you really meant it.”
“I did mean it,” she told him.
He nodded. “I know. That’s why I felt like I needed to thank you. Because no one had ever said anything like that about me before. Certainly no one had ever meant it.”
“Oh, Matthew,” she said, her heart turning over in spite of her dismay.
“When I left that first gift,” he continued, “I thought I left a note with it, explaining why it was there, telling you thanks for your help in the E.R. It wasn’t until later, when I heard the rumors of your secret admirer, that I realized I had inadvertently forgotten to leave the note. It didn’t even occur to me until later that it was Valentine’s Day. And once everyone started talking about Rita Barone’s secret admirer, I was too embarrassed to make myself known.”
“Because you weren’t an admirer,” she concluded.
He shook his head. “No. Because I was.”
She eyed him curiously. “But—”
“Looking back, I think maybe, subconsciously, I wasn’t leaving you a gift to say thank you. I was leaving a gift to say I care about you. Because I did care about you then. I still do. That’s why I left the other gifts, too.”
“On my birthday?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“Yes,” he said.
“And the anniversary of my first day at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“And the rose, too,” she said, making it a statement this time, not a question.
He nodded. “I wasn’t sure you’d even make the connection with the date on that one, it having been two weeks since we made love. But you did,” he added. “You were thinking about it that day, too.”
“I’ve thought about it every day since it happened,” she told him.
“Me, too.”
She shook her head slowly, scarcely believing what he was telling her. “But how did you even know the anniversary of my first day working at Boston General?” she asked.
He inhaled deeply as he fixed his gaze on hers. “Because I remember that day very well,” he said evenly. “I was in the E.R. when you reported for your first shift, and I remember how the first time you walked behind the nurses’ station, the whole place just seemed to…light up, in reaction to your presence. And I remember every day that’s passed since then, Rita. The day you came to Boston General was one of the most important days of my life.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she only asked, “Why?”
He leaned forward again, dropping his hands to the table, skimming one across the linen to cover one of hers. “Because that was the day that, for the first time since I was a child, I felt good inside.”
She gaped softly at him. “What?”
He nodded. “It took me a while to figure it out, but there was just something about you that, from the first time I laid eyes on you, made me feel good again. And then, when you didn’t shy away from me that first time we were introduced, when you didn’t even seem to notice my scars, I knew you were someone special.”
“Why would that make me special? And why would I shy away from you in the first place?” she asked. “I remember thinking how handsome you were the first time I met you.”
He eyed her dubiously. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the scars.”
“Of course I noticed them,” she said. “But they didn’t matter to me.”
He nodded. “And that’s why you’re so special,” he said. “Thinking back, I realize now that that was the moment I began to fall in love with you.”
For a moment, Rita was sure she had misheard what he’d said. Or else, she had misunderstood. “But…” she began, not daring to hope.
“Open the box,” he said before she could finish, as if he were afraid of hearing her answer.
“But—”
“Please, Rita,” he said, a little more desperately. “Open it. It will be the last one, I promise.” His expression turned a little grim. “One way or another. It will be the last.”
She started to object again, but something in his expression halted her. She wanted to tell him she loved him, too, but again, something made her stop. It seemed very important to him that she see what was in the little package before she replied, so she turned her attention to it again. It was a perfect cube, roughly two inches. Gingerly, she picked it up, then carefully slipped off the gold ribbon. As the white paper fell away, she saw a black velvet box beneath.
A jeweler’s box, she couldn’t help thinking.
She looked up at Matthew, and once again she opened her mouth to say something. But he stopped her with a gesture, pointing at the box.
With trembling fingers, Rita did as he requested, folding back the top to see what was hidden beneath. Then she caught her breath at the ring inside. A perfect, heart-shaped diamond solitaire on a platinum band.
Holding the box in one shaky hand, Rita lifted her other to cover her mouth. And when she glanced up to look at Matthew, she felt two fat tears spill from her eyes to stream down her cheeks.
“Are you, um, proposing?” she asked weakly.
He smiled, expelling a single, hopeful chuckle. Instead of answering her question, though, he asked one of his own. “Are you accepting?”
“That depends,” she told him.
His smile fell some. “On what?”
“On whether or not you actually said what I think you said a minute ago.”
He looked confused. “About what?”
She sucked up all the nerve she had and said, “About falling in love with me.”
Now he looked stunned. “Did I say something about that?” he asked.
She nodded, but her heart began to sink. “I thought you did. You said that when we first met and I didn’t seem to notice your scars, that that was the moment you began to fall in love with me.”
“Oh,” he said, clearly bothered by the reminder. “I, um, I really shouldn’t have said that.”
Something went cold inside Rita at his response. And all she was able to manage in reply was a fragile-sounding, “Oh.”
“I misspoke when I said that then,” Matthew told her. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded dispassionately, but inside, she was wondering if she could make it to the restaurant exit without falling apart. “I see,” she said softly.
And just as softly, Matthew told her, “Because I meant to wait until now to say it.”
A small flicker of heat sparked in Rita’s midsection, and she snapped her gaze to meet his once again. “Say what?” she asked faintly.
He smiled. “That I love you. That I’ve loved you for years, even if I didn’t realize it, and that I will continue to love you until I take my last breath. And that I want you to be there when that last breath leaves me.” He held her gaze intently as he added, “So what do you say? Will you marry me, Rita Barone?”
She looked at him for a long time in silence, then, unable to help herself, she smiled back. “And here I’ve always thought you were so serious about everything.”
He sobered some at that. “I am serious. About loving you, anyway. Rita, I—”
“Matthew, I—” she interjected at the same time.
He smiled again, though he still seemed uncertain. “You go first,” he said.
She swiped a bent knuckle under first one eye, and then the other. “Oh, it was nothing,” she told him. “I was just going to say I accept your proposal, that’s all.”
His smile then went supernova. “Oh, is that all?”
She nodded.
“And here I thought you were always so serious,” he countered.
“I am,” she readily assured him. “About wanting to marry you. You see, it seems I’ve fallen in love with you, too, somewhere along the way. Maybe I’ve loved you since that first moment, too. And I want to be with you for all the moments we have left.”
It seemed all Matthew needed to hear, because without another word, he took the jeweler’s box from her hand and plucked the ring from its velvet housing. Then he lifted her left hand to slip the ring down over her third finger.
“A perfect fit,” he said as he completed the action.
“Yes, we are,” she agreed.
He lifted her hand to his lips then, placing a chaste kiss first on the back, then in the center of her palm, a gesture that sent a shiver of heat shimmying through her. Then he lowered their hands back to the table, his palm up, and hers palm down against it. The ring caught the candlelight from the table and reflected it back in a dozen dazzling shades of orange and gold and blue, and Rita couldn’t help thinking it was a sign of just how bright the future was for both of them.
“Oh, my brother Nicholas is going to be so happy,” she said as she turned her hand first one way and then the other atop Matthew’s, admiring the way the gemstone sparkled. “He always wanted me to marry a doctor.”
Matthew chuckled. “Isn’t it usually the mother who’s pleased about that?”
“Oh, Mom will be thrilled, too,” Rita promised him. “In fact, all the Barones will be thrilled.” She looked up at Matthew then. “How about the Graysons?” she asked. “How are they going to feel about their venerable blue blood mixing with the new-American Barone blood?”
Matthew looked grave at that. “When I told my parents my intentions,” he said in a very serious voice, “they were so upset about it, they broke a long-standing Grayson code.”
“Uh-oh,” Rita said. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Matthew nodded. “They broke down and they…” He inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “They smiled,” he finished. “And then they did something really shocking.”
Rita grinned. “What’s that?”
Matthew shook his head in mock solemnity. “They hugged each other,” he confessed. “And then they hugged me. It was quite a scene,” he added. “But I’m the first to marry, see, and they’ve been wanting grandchildren for some time now.”
Rita laughed. “Gee, I guess we’ll just have to accommodate them there. Eventually,” she added meaningfully. “I think I want you to myself for a while first.”
“Sounds good to me, Ms. Barone.”
“Soon to be Ms. Barone-Grayson,” she said with a smile, entwining her fingers with his.
He nodded in approval. “That has a nice ring to it.”
“Yes, it does,” she agreed. And then she realized something that made her smile grow broader. “Oh, wow. It just now occurred to me, I’m the fourth Barone to get engaged this year. I think it’s becoming a new family tradition. And you know, we Barones take family traditions very seriously. I wonder who’ll be next?”
Matthew squeezed her hand gently in his. “I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is I love you and I can’t wait to start our lives together.”
“I love you, too,” she vowed, dropping her gaze to their joined hands. “And I think, for dessert, we should go back to your place and have something very special.”
“But they serve Baronessa Gelati here,” he objected mildly. “Didn’t you see it on the menu?”
She nodded. “But as much as I like Baronessa, there’s something else I think we’d both rather have for dessert tonight.”
He grinned. “What’s that?”
She grinned back. “Each other.”
“Well, gosh, why wait for dessert to have that?” he asked.
“Because I don’t want to send our server into psychotherapy,” she told him. “I don’t think the poor guy could handle it if we just took off. He seems to take his job very seriously.”
“If he has a good medical plan,” Matthew said, “maybe his insurance will cover the cost of counseling.”
Rita laughed. “Hey, I’ve got a good medical plan,” she said. “One that involves a cardiologist and a nurse and some very naughty lingerie.”
Before she could say another word, Matthew stood and reached back into his jacket, withdrawing his wallet this time. Then he tossed enough cash onto the table to cover their dinner and a tip. “Say no more,” he told her.
“But don’t you want to have dinner?” Rita asked as he moved behind her chair and pulled it—and her—out from the table.
“I’d rather have dessert first,” he told her. “Lots and lots of dessert.”
How could Rita possibly turn down an offer like that? She was, after all, a Barone. Dessert, she had always felt, was without question the best part of life. So, arm-in-arm, she and Matthew went home. To start the best part of their life together.