Chapter 195 - Proposal

They had only been at the venue for a short while longer before he glanced at his watch and noticed what time it was. There was another appointment that they needed to be heading to. One that Lena didn't yet know about. He responded to the text message that was on his phone before turning his attention to the princess. 

"Ryan, are you going to be okay to continue figuring everything out on your own while we leave here?" Samuel asked the chef who waved them off. 

"I'll be fine. I'm sure that Clive will have no problem coming back to pick me up when I'm finished. There's still a lot here that I need to figure out with the size of this place." Ryan replied, not even glancing over at them. 

"Where are we suddenly going now? I thought that you would want to spend some more time looking around?" The princess asked rather confused to why the other was suddenly wanting to leave even though they had only been there for maybe an hour. 

"Because we have another engagement that we need to leave for.. Something your father asked about us doing after this." Samuel replied, not offering any other explanation before he motioned with his hand for the Princess to come with him. He thanked Ryan for coming with him before he left the venue. 

Lena was fixing the back of Samuel's head with a very suspicious look as to what exactly he was planning, but he chose to ignore it as he opened the car door for her to get inside. Clive had the car already started and was just waiting for them to get inside before he took off. 

He didn't pay Lena much attention as he chose to text on his phone instead. This whole surprise thing was starting to get a little overwhelming for the princess. She wasn't that big on surprises, but the ones that her fiancé had been doing had mostly been small scale and harmless. This though, it somehow felt like it was going to be something much larger than it had been before. 

She was also suspicious as to why he would invoke her father's name. She knew that if there was something that Zane wanted from her, he would've contacted her himself. Did that mean he was in on it? 

She glanced at Samuel only to see the small smile that on his face as he looked at his phone. He seemed pleased with whatever was going on. 

"Are you going to give me any indication as to what I should expect?" The princess asked after he looked up from his phone to see where they were at. 

"Nope. You'll only have to wait a few minutes anyways to see where exactly we are going anyways." She huffed in response to this but didn't say anything else to him as he gave her one of his knowing smiles. 

"Just as long as it isn't anything too big." She told him as she glanced out the window. This was a less familiar area of Jersey for so she wasn't quite sure where exactly they were heading. 

The drive lasted about forty-five minutes before they stopped in front of a rather fancy looking restaurant. Lena immediately didn't like the idea of whatever Samuel was planning. With everything that had been going on, she hadn't been thrilled at all over the idea of being in such crowded places. 

"Don't be so tense about it, your father is already waiting inside for us." Samuel told her as they stepped out of the car, he came around to the other side so that he could take her hand. 

"You can trust me to not do something too crazy." He told her as he offered her a reassuring smile. It did little to take the suspicious look that was on her face off. 

"I trust you to not to do certain things, but what you consider to be crazy and what I consider to be crazy are two different things." She replied. She followed inside nonetheless. She didn't think that he was lying about the fact that her father was waiting for them inside and wanted to at least know what he wanted to call them out to such a high-end restaurant for. 

When she did step inside however, what she saw wasn't what she was expecting, nor was it what Samuel had said. Though, he it was actually part of what he had been holding back from telling her. 

It wasn't just her father who was waiting for them inside. Leo was there as well as Julian and his two daughters and wife, even Jovani was there. Why, she wasn't quite certain but that was probably the only face she wasn't thrilled to see there. There were a few other family members as well that weren't normally at the estate. 

Samuel didn't even have to give a name for the waiter to come over and lead them over to the table where the rest of the family was. 

"What exactly is this about?" The princess asked as she took a seat in the chair that Samuel had pulled out for her. 

"Well it's your whole family as you can see and and we're obviously getting ready to have dinner." Samuel replied as he took a seat in the chair that was to her right. The waiters had taken the trouble to put a few of the tables together for the occasions considering the number of people from the family who had come together. 

Lena also took notice almost immediately that everything was rather quiet inside and that it was actually only her family who was inside. Did they shut the whole thing down so that they could enjoy dinner without worrying about anyone else invading their space? What exactly was all this about? 

"I thought for certain that you would be happy to see us. You know I only have a few days left before I will be having to leave again." Leo told her in a mock offended tone of voice. Lena was too confused however with everything that was going on to give him her typical glare that she would fix him with when he was being overly dramatic. 

"I can see that everyone is here, but what exactly is going on?" She asked she looked over at everyone to see some kind of indication of what exactly was going. 

"It's like Samuel said, we came here to eat dinner. Nothing else." her father replied as he motioned for the waiter to come over so that they could get their order taken. 

"There's only a few days left before the engagement takes place and we haven't taken time to have dinner like this." He continued before turning his attention to the waiter to give him everyone's order. 

It was a rather large one so everyone already knew to expect that there would be some delays before the food would come out. 

She got the feeling though that there was something more than just them coming together to eat dinner. Even though no one was giving an indication of what exactly it was, she could feel that the energy in the room was different from when her family had gathered together in the past. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Jovani was there as well. He did have quite a large smirk on his face as well while he talked with this cousin. Samuel still was holding her hand and that made her feel oddly calmer but she wasn't sure why. 

When it was taking longer than she had expected for the food to come out, she excused herself from the table in order to go to the restroom and get some fresh air. The odd tension around the table was making her feel stuff and uncomfortable even though there didn't seem to be anything serious going on. 

When she came back out though, she didn't feel any better, everyone was looking at her oddly. It wasn't until she came back to the table and had taken her seat that she realized Samuel was now missing. Where had he gone to now. She had a moment of slight panic when the lights in the restaurant suddenly dimmed unexpectedly. 

When they came back up Samuel was kneeling in front of her with a bouquet of Crocus in his hand. He had even changed his outfit? What exactly was this about. 

"Dear princess, I know that we have only known each other for a short time and things have been rather like a roller coaster for us. Throughout all of this however, there have been some rather interesting and positive moments with you." Lena felt rather stiff as Samuel continued, taking her left hand in his own as he moved the bouquet to see the small ring that was placed in the middle of that. 

"Even though our official engagement is a few days away, would you give me the honor ahead of that date of saying yes to marrying me in the future?"