"A Mile In Your Shoes..."

"Crash..."

"Why have you brought me here!" His eyes were like round saucers, they shifted from one area to the next. He was scared, worried, panicked.

"Look at me. Look at me. Focus on my face." I tried to hold him still, his breathing coming in gasps.

The area where his nightmares began still haunted him. He tried to flee from the wide open space. Fragments of the crash no longer visible, but still embeded in his memory.

"I want to go home! Get me out of here!"

"You need to calm down. I need to ask you a question."

"Ask me anything... anywhere... not here!"

"It has to be here. In this place... where your life as Allie ended, and your life with me as Rex began."

He stood still, his eyes focusing on me in fear, in doubt, in anger.

"You knew!"

"I have. For a while now."

"And you said nothing? You made me believe my old life was lost and forgotten? When all along you were toying with me. My conscience plagued me on a daily basis, trying to find a way to tell you all that I was not the person you thought me to be. It killed me everyday to want to truly be a part of your lives, as Allie... not as someone who I knew absolutely nothing about!"

"You are part of our lives. I care not of your past. You could be Allie or Rex and I would still want you to be with me. To choose me. To stay with me."

"The burnt jacket... it was you, wasn't it?"

"Yes." I felt a slap on my left cheek, I staggered backwards a foot away from him, my face stung, and my eyes immediately teared up.

"How dare you play with my emotions!"

"I had to be sure. I didn't know how to ask you without risking the chance of you fleeing away from us in fear."

"I don't believe you. You would say, and do everything to manipulate me. To make me do the things you want me to. Louis would never..."

"You know nothing of my brother!"

"I know enough!"

"Please, stop. Stop. I brought you here because I need to ask you something."

"I am not interested! I am leaving. I shall leave the very minute you..."

"You can't! You'll ruin my family."

"What are you talking about?"

"Think how the media will lap up this story. A well respected family... played a fool by an outsider. A reporter who wanted a juicy scoop to benefit his tabloid. Is that what you want? Is that how you'll repay Lilian and I? The very same people who took you in, nursed you back to health... cared for you?"

His eyes began to water. He knew... he understood how everything depended on him now.

"Stay. Please. We can work this out. We have to work this out."

"You lied to me."

"As have you. And yet... I forgive you."

"Why?"

"Because I love you. Because I need you. Because without you... all this will fall apart. The campaign, the Blackrock reputation, it will have a devasting effect on us Allie. Stay. Please. As Rex. I beg you."

"You would choose me despite the fact that I am not your brother's husband?"

"That is exactly why I choose you... because you are not my brother's husband."

"Harold Monroe. What about him?"

"He can never know. No one can ever know. You are Rex. Aside from the two of us... no one else must know."

"I don't know."

"Do you think you can live apart from Lilian and I now? Can you really walk away from the Blackrocks? From... me?"

He looked into my eyes, his focus zeroing in on my pleading stare.

"No. I cannot."

I knelt, before him, humbling myself as I fished out a red velvet box from my breast pocket.

"Then marry me. Marry the man who would choose to stay despite the lie, despite the deceit... because he loves you so much. Choose me. Become my husband, Allie."

He sobbed, covering his eyes, for a few minutes we stayed that way. Him covering his face, crying. While I knelt on the dirt patiently, with my arms extended to offer him the ring that would irrevocably tie him to me.

"Yes." I heard him whisper.

He removed his hands to show me his tear streaked face, fear and worry clearly etched in his expression. But it also held something more... love. And I was pleased.

"We can make this work. We will make this work. You have me, I will protect you. I will take good care of you. I will..." I placed the ring securely on his finger, "forever love you."

I stood up, to kiss him lovingly on his lips... knowing fully well that my plans have worked. I have secured my family's reputation, the danger has been overcome. I have trapped him to ensure my reputation, my position, and... my heart.