Claire’s POV
I was still as a statue, entirely frozen in shock, gaping at Gideon like he was a stranger I had never seen before – or like he had grown a second head off of his shoulder.
He couldn’t be… proposing? I hadn’t even thought through whether I wanted to date or not! Or live together! And now he was jumping straight to the engagement.
Yet, even as my head was all tangled up in knots, my heart was soaring. The mating bond between us was thrumming, happy and fulfilled.
I’d never been so confused in my entire life.
“I love you, Claire,” he said. “There’s no one else in the entire world that I could ever see standing beside me. If it’s not you, it’s no one.”
“You don’t mean that…”
“I do,” he said. “I don’t mean to pressure you with this. I wouldn’t have brought it up at all if t
