The Proposal (The Wedding Date, #2)

by Jasmine Guillory

Serious couples don’t go to brunch; they stay home and cook for each other. Everyone knows that.”

He’d spent almost five years trying to beat back his grief; the idea of welcoming it in felt obscene.

Nik wiped her eyes and nodded. “What if I want to be perfect though?” Dana laughed. “As my mother would say, it’s nice to want things.”

Good God, sometimes it felt like all of society was complicit in trying to make life harder for women.

“Women who know how to fight hold themselves differently. I’ve seen that in the women who’ve taught me, in the women who’ve taken my classes, and especially in myself. You walk into any situation with an attitude that you’ve got this, you can defend yourself, you are strong.

Once I learned to trust myself, my instincts, and my emotions, trusting other people was a lot easier.”

I’ve spent so long being afraid of love, because the last time I was in love, the man I loved only loved one part of me, but not all of me, and I thought love meant having to sacrifice a part of yourself. But then I was with you, and you loved every part of me, even the parts I don’t like. And that scared me more, because I thought there must be some trick and that I couldn’t let myself believe it or I’d fall into the trap. But finally I realized it wasn’t a trap.”