His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 297: To the Stars and Back

** Harper **

Harper couldn’t believe her eyes. She couldn’t believe her ears. She couldn’t believe any of the things happening right at this moment.

Because one second she was making a wish upon a shooting star, and the next ... a scene that could only exist in her dreams was suddenly in front of her, more magically and more beautifully than she could ever even imagine.

Was she fantasizing it? Was this real??

"O-Oh my God, Eli ..." Harper stammered, not knowing what to say at all. The only thing she managed to do instinctively was to pull Eli back up to his feet. "Y-You are talking like I’m an angel. That’s ... that’s so ..."

"Accurate." Eli chuckled, his free hand gripping hers tightly. "You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, love. Angel is only one word that comes close to describing the way I feel about you every day." freeweɓnøvel.com

Harper would have thought those words were too exaggeratedly saccharine and cheesy, if not for the break in his voice that told her how true every syllable was. He meant everything he said, and that fact alone was making her vision turn so blurry that—

Wait, was she crying? Since when had her eyes gotten so wet that she had to blink to refocus on the man in front of her?

"Gosh, you probably shouldn’t be enabling my ego like this." She wiped off her tears with the back of her hand, feeling a little embarrassed. "I ... I really can’t believe ..."

She took a second to calm herself before she could speak again. And that was when she remembered what she had wanted to say in the middle of his speech. "Though there is one thing I have to correct you on, Eli. You were wrong about what you said about yourself."

The look on Eli’s face changed a little, as if he was — surprised? nervous? frightened? — by what she was saying. But he didn’t interrupt her, only holding her hand tighter as he waited for her to continue.

"You are not someone who doesn’t know how to love or care. You never were." Looking deep into his eyes, she let him know that she meant what she said from the bottom of her heart as well. "If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have kept your distance from me at the very beginning, and you wouldn’t have tried to warn me over and over again that you weren’t good for me. Not to mention how you always put my needs before your own every time you can, how you always know exactly what I’m thinking without me saying a word ... You’ve always understood me and cared about me, and I want you to know that I’m not taking any of it for granted."

He blinked, though he didn’t say anything in reply. His expression still seemed ... a little intense.

"So please don’t ever say or think again that you aren’t the perfect husband material, or that you don’t deserve someone." Harper reached up and let her palm cup his cheek, trying to soothe that uncertain tension in his eyes. "You are perfect, in all the ways that I see, and have been that way all along. I should be the one to say how lucky I am to have you, to see my sweetest dream come true after trying to leave it behind for so many years."

He smiled, but once again, that smile didn’t seem to reach his eyes. He paused for a moment before finally taking a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was trembling so audibly that even the timber came out strange.

"Does that mean—" He paused again, hesitating. "You ... haven’t said—"

His eyes flitted to his hand that wasn’t holding hers. Harper followed his gaze ... and she finally remembered the engagement ring box that was still waiting there, open and being ignored.

... !!!!!!

"Oh my God on my God. Yes! I’m sorry! Yes!!" Harper gasped, wishing madly that she could undo the past couple of minutes and get that most important word out sooner. "Yes!! A thousand times yes!!!"

Oh for the love of all that was holy, how could she have forgotten?! How could she have somehow gotten so distracted by correcting him that she forgot to answer his question? Who in this whole world did that when their boyfriend was literally on one knee?!

Eli let out a sigh so hard at her words that she could feel the tension change through his hands, like a tremendous weight was finally washing through his body and almost making his knees buckle. "God. I-I thought there might be a but coming." He let out a long exhale, tilting his head back, and for a split second, Harper saw a faint sparkle glittering at the top of his cheeks ... as if his lashes were wet.

The sight instantly made her own eyes misty again, for more than one reason this time.

"Gosh. I am so so so sorry. I’m an idiot. I—" Harper slammed her arms around him, squeezing him in such a tight hug that his sigh turned into a breathless chuckle. "I love you, Eli. I love you to the stars and back. No chance in a hundred lifetimes that I wouldn’t say yes! Yes yes yes!"

He laughed, hugging her back, and when she pulled back to kiss him, she could only wish that her idiocy didn’t ruin this perfect moment. A perfect promise of a lifetime made under the shooting stars, at the top of the world.

"Well, on the bright side, I now know that I have a strong heart able to handle any dramatic situations in the future." Eli joked considerately when they finally broke away. "May I?"

He picked up the ring from its box, holding her hand.

This time, Harper nodded without a single second of delay. He slid the ring onto her finger, and it glided snugly over her knuckles, settling perfectly into the spot where it belonged.