Dare: A Stepbrother Romance (17 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

SOPHIE

Eight months later

“This is paradise. Literally.”

I dangled my feet in the cool lake water off the edge of the large raft we were on. The raft had a thatched roof to keep the sun out of my eyes as I lay back, but I closed them anyway, listening to the quiet sound of the wind and the barely-moving water.

We were in Loei. It was a province in north-eastern Thailand, and it was much different from what most vacationers would expect upon going to Thailand. It was a quiet, secluded area up in the mountains, and there was none of the buzz most tourists looked for in much bigger places like Bangkok or any of the holiday islands. It was the peace that was the main draw – I hadn’t slept so well in months. The weather was nice too. Unlike a lot of the more southern regions, there wasn’t much humidity, only cool mountain air and the occasional cloud.

Right now Drew and I were on Huai Krathing, a massive lake up in the mountains. For a relatively cheap price, you could rent a huge raft like the one we were on. The owners would attach it to a silver motorboat and drag the raft out to the middle of the lake, and then you could slowly drift around all day, or just for as long as you wanted. If you wanted to order and food or drinks, or if you simply wanted to announce that you were ready to come back in to shore, you put a flag up and waited for a motorboat to arrive.

We’d come on vacation to Thailand to celebrate two major things. Firstly, I’d just graduated from college. I’d been working on a book all the way through, and I’d been offered a publishing deal practically as soon as they handed me my degree. Secondly, Drew had just scored a massive new modeling contract for a major fashion house. What Drew didn’t know was that I was planning on announcing a third major thing to celebrate…

“Let’s order some food,” Drew said, launching himself out of the water and back onto the floating raft.

After this long with him, I was still enraptured with his face and body. A lot of people got too comfortable with relationships after a long time and didn’t seem to notice their partner as much as they used to, but holy hell…I doubted that would ever happen with me and Drew. How could I not notice him? He still had the perfectly-chiseled face, the bright blue eyes, the contoured muscles and the cheeky smirk. Yep, he was perfect.

And he was all mine.

When the silver motorboat pulled up with someone to take our food and drink order, Drew conversed with the person in broken Thai. Not a lot of people up in this region spoke English, so we’d experienced a crash course in learning the language.

“Err…khao niao,” Drew said, referring to the sticky rice that had become my favorite thing to munch on. It was served with most meals, and it was incredible.

He also ordered some som tam, bamboo shoot salad, some sort of chicken dish, and something called kueng ten, otherwise known as ‘dancing shrimp salad’. It was named as such because the shrimp were added to the spicy salad while still alive, so they were still moving around in the bowl before being eaten.

When it arrived, Drew looked shocked. “Shit. I thought I ordered the sleeping shrimp salad, where they aren’t jumping around.”

“Oh well, you still have to eat it,” I said, flicking a tiny bit of rice at him.

“So do you,” he replied, picking up a spoonful and thrusting it in my face.

“Er, no thanks,” I said, pulling away.

“What’s up with you?” he asked after swallowing the mouthful himself. “You usually love seafood, but you haven’t touched it the whole time we’ve been here. You’re missing out! Raw shrimp is actually not bad.”

“I’m just trying to be careful,” I said before clapping my hand over my mouth. Oops. I’d said too much.

“What do you mean? Trying to be…oh. Wait. You’re not…”

I smiled and nodded, watching as his expression changed from confusion to realization in an instant.

“You’re serious. You’re pregnant?”

I nodded again, and he reached over and swept me into his arms, squeezing me in a bear hug. “Fuck yeah!”

“I gather that you’re excited, then?”

“Course I am,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I wanted to wait until the perfect moment,” I said.

He smiled and gestured all around us - at the still water, the trees surrounding the lake, the birds drinking on the edge of the lake.

“This is the perfect moment,” he said. “But you just made it even more perfect. I love you. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do. You’re not so bad yourself.”

I didn’t know everything that there was to know in the world, but one thing I was definitely certain of was his love for me and any future children of ours.

Since I’d had the miscarriage a few years back, Drew and I had realized how much we wanted kids at some point, and when I’d graduated and sold my book to the publisher, I’d gone off the pill. We hadn’t realized it would only take such a short period of time to get me pregnant…it must have only been three or four weeks. I couldn’t wait to be a mom to his baby, and I knew Drew couldn’t wait to be a dad.

“You know, now that you’re pregnant, it’s lucky that I have this.”

“Huh?”

I looked over as Drew foraged in his camera bag, and I gasped as he pulled out a massive diamond ring. Tears of joy sprung to my eyes as I immediately realized what it was, and he rearranged himself so that he was crouching down on one knee.

“Sophie Anne Ramirez…” he began. The tears were running down my face in earnest now, and I didn’t even let him finish before nodding.

“Yes! Yes!” I said.

“Let me finish,” he said, before taking a deep breath. “We used to be friends as kids, and I loved you then. Then we got together again, an event which was brought about by a stupid dare from your friends for you to talk to me, and I fell in love with you all over again.”

I laughed at the reminder of how we’d first come into contact with each other again after years apart, and he slid the ring onto my left hand ring finger before continuing with a smile and a wink.

“Marry me, Sophie. Go on, I dare you.”

THE END

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