Love Began with the First Meeting
Chapter 1018 Extra Story 156 Of Aaron The End

Today, he had asked her the same question again. Then he gave her the answer to the question she had been dreading over for the past several days.

"Ximena..." Aaron chuckled to himself, "This place is going to be named 'Love Coast' because this is where Brian and Molly got married and this place will also be remembered as the place where I proposed to you. Molly once told me that if a man took a woman to see firefly squids, the woman had to marry him!" Aaron didn't leave anything to chance. At the end of his wits, he even went as far as changing the temperature of the seawater to attract the firefly squids to come to shore, so he could make sure she wouldn't refuse his proposal. "Ximena Mo, will you marry me?" he asked with a palpitating heart.

Ximena was at a loss for words. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears that were begging to be released.

Aaron had finally perfected what he was going to say, and he was waiting on pins and needles for a chance to put all his worries to rest. He loved Ximena for being different from most women. The long years of hardship she had endured in life had made her a strong and resilient person. However, only those who knew her well would know that under all that hard exterior was also a heart that was fragile enough to be broken with just one touch.

"Ximena, you're not going to say no, right? Tell me that you won't do that to me." Aaron turned to an imploring tone, trying every trick that Molly had taught him, even though he wasn't sure of their effects. "If you don't say yes, tomorrow I will be the laughing stock in all of QY Island. Perhaps even in the entire world!"

"Huh?" Ximena didn't know what he meant by that. Puzzled, she just looked at him with blurry eyes.

Aaron looked around and all of a sudden deep rumbling noises cut the silence in half in almost an instant. Ximena turned her head to follow the noise only to replace no less than one hundred people come out into the open, with cameras in their hands. What a bustling scene! Flashing cameras, bright cell phone screens, and even glow-sticks!

"What's going on?" Ximena looked at the crowd in puzzlement. Finding herself completely baffled, she had forgotten what Aaron had said a moment ago. Before long, her blurry eyes caught glimpse of a familiar group of people standing in the crowd. The group consisted of Freya; the butler and servants of the manor; designers and her colleagues from "Only Memory". Amongst them stood also a few people she didn't even know.

"Don't tell me that you've called all the employees of the Leng's Corporations here!"

"I have!" Aaron said. "They will compensated with over-time pay for coming here..." Ximena was stunned speechless by his words. Seeing the expression on her face, Aaron said sternly, "So, if you don't say 'yes' today, even if the people in QY Island won't dare talk about me in public, I'm afraid that I will still be the laughing stock of the whole world."

Molly had told him that the most effective way to win a woman's heart was to cajole her. If that didn't work, he'd better apply force as a last resort. Her suggestion was to try and move Ximena with romantic gestures at first and then put the pressure on her. If that failed, he should forcibly put the ring on her finger and pull her inside a room to kiss her a few hundred times, if it came to that, until she'd say "yes".

Aaron remembered feeling amused by look of shock in Brian's face when Molly had given him the relationship advise.

"Are you really going to refuse me?" Aaron urged, resorting to keep persisting until she'd cave in. Not to mention, the fact that he risked losing face after he had called so many people to bear witness to his proposal. But, Aaron didn't mind going further.

"Marry him—" somebody from the crowd shouted in a loud voice. In an instant, the same words came out of different mouths. Soon those individual voices combined into one loud sound that became harder to ignore with each passing second. "Marry him... Marry him... Marry him... Marry him... Marry him..."

"Ximena, marry him..." The chorus calling for Ximena to marry him became deafening. Ximena's heart beat louder than crashing beats to the continuous persuasion. As she stood there motionless, unable to will her lips to move, Aaron took advantage of the opportunity to slip the ring into her finger.

"Hurray!" The crowd burst into a loud triumphant cheer. Immediately, the bright flashing lights of cameras blinded the lovers. "Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her-" It seemed as though the crowd weren't quite pleased just yet.

Looking at Ximena innocently, Aaron said with a seemingly helpless expression on his face, "I had to do that. I couldn't disappoint so many people at once!"

"You are setting me up!" The playful and coquettish tone in Ximena's voice showed her fragile happiness and the sensuality of her love. Suffice it to say, she wasn't really annoyed.

"I had to take action because your heart gave me the answer through your eyes," Aaron said with a faint smile. "Ximena, I know you want to marry me from the bottom of your heart!"

"You think very highly of yourself, don't you?"

"Yeah!"

"Admit it! You did that on purpose..."

"Okay! Sure, it was intentional."

"You......" Before she knew it, Aaron cut her pretentious speech short with a passionate kiss. The blue glow from the firefly squids, the blinking stars above and the continuous flashing of camera lights, all bore witness to the love between the two lovers, who had loved each other for many years now but hadn't committed themselves to each other until now. "Aaron, this is the happiest moment of my life. I am glad to have finally gathered the courage to confess my feelings to my Mr. Right. Thanks for tolerating my bad habits and for loving me for who I am!"

"I promise that I will be with you through thick and thin. I love you, Ximena, and I will keep loving you until my last breath!"

All of a sudden, fireworks exploded above, vivid colors igniting the otherwise black sky, immortalizing their vows to each other. Aaron was less interested in the display than in watching Ximena's expressions and how they lit up her face just as she smiled, like a perfect real life photograph.

'Ximena, I love you. I will love with all my heart. Now I have only one wish in my life. I pray that I don't die before you because I don't want you to feel sad for me. If possible, I would rather take all the sadness and loneliness that belong to us upon myself!'