It was the moment I'd dreamed about all of my life, especially in the eight months since I'd met and started dating Kade Hamilton.
Except it wasn't.
It wasn't until I'd heard his proposal that I realized I couldn't possibly accept.
I wanted to; I desperately wanted to say yes - I loved him that much - but with the question actually floating out there, I knew I couldn't.
In refusing him, I would be breaking my heart, but it came to me in a lightning bolt of clarity that if I accepted, he'd be breaking my heart over and over and over again. He didn't mean to and he wouldn't mean to - Kade was one of those rare combinations of total alpha and very tender toward me - but he would hurt me, without question.