Ray scowls. “You’re mine. Only person who should be seeing into your soul is me.”

I slide my arms around his waist and pull him close. “Yes, I am yours. All yours. Only yours. Forever yours.”

“Good.” He kisses my forehead and then pulls an open bag of potato chips from the pocket of his leather jacket. “Got you something.”

“That’s very sweet.” I take the bag from his hand. “I know how hard this must have been for you. After all, they are filled with salt and bad fats.”

Ray shakes his head. “You got no idea. Eat them.”

Laughter bubbles in my chest. He seems so earnest, I hate to turn him down.

“I still have a bag of chips in my purse.”

“No. These. Eat them.”

I glance down at the bag in my hand. “Why? I thought you didn’t want me eating unhealthy food.”

Ray heaves a sigh. “Please. For me.”

“Okay.” I pull out a chip and eat it slowly, my cheeks heating under Ray’s intense scrutiny. “That was delicious. Thank you.”

He waves at the bag. “More.”

“Are they poison?” I lower the bag and frown. “Are you trying to get rid of me? Is that why you’re pressuring me to eat them?”

“Siahhhh.” He draws out my name, his voice a plea I can’t ignore. I put my hand in the bag and grasp something that is definitely not a chip.

“What’s this?” I hold up a ring bearing an oval-shaped diamond surrounded in a lattice of tiny diamonds that twinkle—nothing ostentatious but quietly different. Like me.

Ray beams, puffing out his chest like he’s just won the underground championship belt. Although now that he’s formally joined the Redemption team, it might one day be the state title.

“Ray Black.” I grab a tissue from Rose’s desk and clean off the ring. “Are you proposing to me?”

“Man loves a woman, wants to spend the rest of his life with her, raise a family together, he asks her to marry him.”

“It’s beautiful.”

A smile spreads across his face. “Does that mean yes? ’Cause my mom said I’d better make an honest woman of you or she’d whup my ass.”

I wrap my arms around his neck. “I didn’t know CIA agents were afraid of their moms.”

“Don’t know anything about CIA agents,” he says. “But I am afraid of my mom.”

“Well then, I’d better say yes.” I lean up and kiss his cheek. “If anyone’s ass is getting a whupping, it had better be mine, and I know just where I want it to happen.”

“Naughty girl,” he says.

“The naughtiest.”

Ray’s lips brush over mine. “My beautiful girl.”

“Yours.”

His smile lights my heart and truly sets me free.