Chapter 52.

**Tessa’s POV.**

“What the hell do you mean by that?”, Gabriel was up on his feet in a second, he walked over to where Drew was a pulled him up by the collar,

“I mean, I told you that you weren’t going to like it”, he said, trying to struggle out of Gabriel’s death grip, “But the good news is, they were never involved romantically, they didn’t even have a ceremony, all they did was go to court, a priest wasn’t even involved”, I should’ve helped Drew but I was too numb to move an inch.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

This swear word was on repeat in my head as I thought of how my mother had finally managed to ruin my already fucked up life. I felt a tear roll down my cheek and I buried my head in my hands to let out the rest of the tears that accompanied it.

I was dating my step-brother and had kissed the other two- I was such a horrible person. Just when I thought I could be happy with the man I loved, the world found a way to be cruel to me and crash right under my feet leaving me to float in the nothingness of my life. This, this was my reality, this was how it felt like to be Tessa Romano; constantly in pain and having my world turn upside down before it could be upright from the last time, nothing good could ever last for me and it led me to think that maybe, just maybe mother was right when she said I was a troubled person.

“Babe”, I felt myself being pulled into a hug by his warm body, “Please stop crying, please. I promise you; we would get through this together, nothing is going to come between us, not even this slight mishap, okay?”, he pressed a kiss to my temple, “I am in love with you Tessa and nothing is ever going to change that- I promise”, but I just couldn’t stop the tears that flowed out of my eyes, all the pain I had gone through for years on end had finally decided to show themselves by reminding me of how my life had constantly been flushed down the drain like shit.

Shit- that was the true definition of my life.

“Baby, please say something”, I could hear the pleading in his voice and it forced me to lift my head up,

“We are related”, that was the only thing that left my mouth, the solid bronze truth that was hard to swallow and hard to take in.

“Yes, we are related Tessa, but not by blood so it doesn’t mean anything”, he was trying so desperately to reason with me, “Fuck, its even possibly that they said they were married just to fuck with our minds, what reason did they have to get married? None. But I could give you a thousand reasons as to why we should get married”, if he had been looking for a way to make me talk, he had definitely found it,

“What?”, surprise took over my body as he got down on one knee in front of me, “What are you doing?”,

“Marry me Tessa, make me the happiest step-brother on earth-”, I let out a loud groan and he knew why, “Too soon?”, he had that beautiful smile that I could never get tired of on his face, “Sorry. Make me the happiest man on earth by marrying me”,

“But we’re so young, our life has barely started…”, I was in shock, I didn’t know what to say but my brain and my heart were chanting ‘yes!’,

“And yet, I’m sure that I want to spend every single day of it with you”, tears filled my eyes once again for the fiftieth time that day, “I want to wake up and fall asleep with you, I want to share your good days with you, as well as your bad days. I want to be the only man in your life that can genuinely make you happy”, I had to roll my eyes at the last one, he was so protective and selfish in the sense that he wanted me only for himself. “What do you say, Tessie? Marry me?”, shit, how could I say ‘no’ when he called me Tessie?

“Yes”, I nodded my head vigorously, “Yes, I will marry you”, he pulled me down and placed a breathtaking kiss on my lips,

“I fucking love you”, honestly, I had not been expecting this this morning and I was quite sure we were in the same area code on that one because he had just proposed to me without a ring- not that it even mattered anyways, all that mattered right now was that I was engaged to the man I loved at eighteen. For all I know, we could end up having a failed marriage and realize that we never really loved each other but I didn’t think that was possible for us because I know that we are in love- hell, even being stepsiblings could not stop us from loving each other.

For the slightest minute, I had forgotten that we were not alone in the room, “What the fuck did I just witness?”, Alex’s eyes were as wide as saucers as he stared at the both of us,

“I assume it’s called a proposal, stupid”, Kevin retorted and turned back to watch us, there was a look in his eyes that told me that he wasn’t happy about this and that I was in for a very long discussion later on in the day.

“Aren’t you guys a tad bit young to be getting married?”, Alex asked warily,

“We will get through it together”, Gabriel said, intertwining our hands, “Besides, we don’t have to get married now, we can get married whenever we like, it’s just soothing to know that she has agreed to be mine for the rest of our lives”, he smiled down at me and placed a chaste kiss on the top of my head, “Nothing is going to stop us from being together, absolutely nothing”.

He sat back down on the chair, dragging me unto his lap and burying his head in my neck, “Thank you”, he muttered into my ear and I nodded my head, unable to speak.

Drew cleared his throat, dragging our attention towards him, “Well, that took a quick turn now, didn’t it?”, none of us answered so he continued, “Since none of you allowed me to land before I even took off, you were not able to hear the rest of it”, we all looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say what he wanted to say, “Andrew O’Connell has requested for a divorce and she has agreed to sign it”, at his words, I felt my body become lighter, it was as if I was floating on air,

“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”, Gabriel asked angrily, it made me question whether he was regretting his decision of proposing to me,

“I was going to but none of you allowed me to finish”, Drew shrugged,

“Well it doesn’t matter now. It turned out to be a good thing at the end of the day”, his hand went to my waist and he pulled me impossibly closer to him- there was no way he was regretting it, I wouldn’t even let him.