Seven Proposals Too Late

Guilt flickered across Isabella McCarthy's face. "Gabriel, I'm sorry. I know I've put you through a lot. But Owen's parents died saving my life. I can't just abandon him."

She lifted the engagement ring between them. "Give me your hand. I managed to get the marriage paperwork this time. Say yes, and we can go straight to city hall. Once we're legally married, Owen will have to accept it."

Her eyes shone with desperate hope. Gabriel Hart couldn't make himself raise his hand.

This was the seventh proposal.

The first time Owen had ruined one, Gabriel had been devastated. After the second, he'd asked how much longer they had to wait. By the third and fourth, he'd stopped asking. Now, faced with a seventh diamond ring, he couldn't even summon the strength to accept.

He looked at the glittering stone and remembered when everything had been different.

Back then, he was an orphan attending Halbrook University on financial aid. He wore plain white shirts, smiled easily, and was known as one of the most handsome men on campus.

Isabella came from one of Ashford City's wealthiest families. Brilliant, beautiful, and raised among the city's elite, she had so many admirers that, rumor had it, they could have lined up around the campus five times.

When she first saw Gabriel in the library, she'd spent two hours staring at him. Then she'd broken the library's silence to demand his number. Her persistence got them both thrown out.

No one thought a privileged heiress and a scholarship kid belonged together. Gabriel hadn't believed it either. He rejected her without hesitation, which only made her chase him harder.

Everything changed when a fire broke out at the group home where he'd grown up. Isabella ran inside without a second thought and pulled him out. After that, Gabriel finally let himself love her.

She shielded him from gossip and gave him a tenderness she showed no one else. Whenever he bought someone a present, she'd make sure he received one too. "You shouldn't have to watch everyone else open gifts while you get nothing," she'd say.

When she learned he loved breakfast from a little shop across town, a woman who hated mornings started getting up before dawn. When he casually lamented that stray cats suffered through northern winters, she paid to relocate dozens of them to warmer shelters.

She loved him so extravagantly that Gabriel remained certain they would last, even with Owen Pierce, her clingy childhood friend, always hovering nearby.

Then Isabella attended a business event on her father's behalf. On the highway, a multi-car collision nearly killed her. Owen's parents, Daniel and Laura Pierce, shielded her from the worst of the crash. Neither survived.

Owen was orphaned. Afterward, his grief turned volatile. He repeatedly threatened to end his life, sometimes standing on rooftops and crying, "You all think I'm a burden. I'm going to join Mom and Dad. They were the only people who ever loved me."

Consumed by guilt, Isabella gave him whatever he wanted.

Their dates vanished. Whole nights and days disappeared while she comforted Owen. She let him cling to her, demand her attention, and taunt Gabriel openly. Once Owen calmed down, he would sob out an apology.

"I'm sorry. I know you've both been good to me. I don't know what comes over me."

Only then would Isabella return to Gabriel, full of apologies of her own.

The pattern repeated for five years.

A furious pounding shook the door.

Isabella stiffened. Nobody needed to say the name. Owen was here.

The diamond ring slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. She reached toward Gabriel's shoulder, then withdrew her hand.

"I guess this proposal doesn't count either. I'm sorry, Gabriel. You'll have to wait a little longer."

"It's fine." His mouth twisted into something that wasn't a smile. "You'd better open the door before he hurts himself again."

Remembering the last time Owen had smashed his head against a wall, Isabella hurried away.

Gabriel remained standing, back rigid, refusing to turn around.

As the door opened, Owen threw himself into Isabella's arms. His eyes were already wet.

"Bella, were you proposing to Gabriel? I wasn't trying to stop you. I'm just not ready for him to become family. I only need a little more time." His voice broke. "Do you think I'm a burden now? Are you going to leave me?"

Isabella's hands twitched at her sides, but she didn't push him away.

She never did. Her guilt always became indulgence, and her indulgence always became surrender.

"Owen, don't think like that. I'll never see you as a burden. I'll never abandon you."

Their voices faded down the hall. Gabriel's straight back finally sagged.

Once again, what Owen's parents had done for Isabella outweighed everything Gabriel felt. Gabriel would always be the one sacrificed.

He took out his phone. His finger trembled as he called the first number in his contacts.

Victoria McCarthy.

Isabella's family had never approved of him. The difference in their backgrounds had been reason enough. Since the crash, her mother had called constantly, sometimes visiting in person, alternating threats and generous offers to make him leave.

Gabriel used to dread those calls.

He didn't anymore.

"I'm willing to leave Isabella," he said when she answered, his voice frighteningly steady. "But I have one condition. Send me somewhere she'll never be able to find me."