Chapter 21 #2
Dinner was at Marcel’s. We were led not to the table in the back, but to a private dining room, which was when my pulse began to misbehave.
The room was small and elegant, with paneled walls, a fireplace that glowed soft and gold, a round table set for two, and a bank of tall windows looking out over the city.
There were candles, but not too many. There were also flowers on the table, white and simple.
I hung the garment bag over a chair like a third guest with secrets.
Callum pulled out my chair, then sat across from me.
“You’re nervous,” he observed with a tiny smirk.
“An absurd accusation.”
“Benjamin told me that you almost walked into a glass wall today.”
“I was testing company infrastructure.”
“Benjamin also said you smiled afterward like someone trying to charm a security camera.”
“Benjamin is a slanderous little crow.”
“He is. He was also correct.”
I took a sip of water. “You told me you were going to ask me something.”
“I did.”
“And then you told me to wear a pencil skirt.”
“I did that too.”
“That’s a lot to put in a text.”
“I considered adding please.”
“You decided against it?”
“I know what you like.”
My face warmed. His eyes darkened in answer, but his smile stayed gentle.
The waiter came in then, saving me or ruining the moment depending on how much courage I had decided I was capable of.
We ordered, or rather Callum ordered after asking whether I trusted him.
I said yes because I did, because I had learned the difference between being managed and being known.
Wine arrived. Then bread. Then a lobster slathered in butter that melted on my tongue and was so ridiculously good that I nearly moaned out loud. Okay, I moaned. Out loud.
We talked about work. Hartwell had entered the phase where the public renderings were out, the mayor had taken credit for the courage she had displayed only after three lawyers, two arrests, and Dana’s reporter friend made it fashionable, and the city had begun pretending it had always supported the project with clear moral conviction.
Callum laughed more that night than he had at our first dinner.
By the time dessert menus arrived, I was starting to think this was just a normal dinner, but Callum did not open his dessert menu.
Instead, he looked at me across the table and said, “Avery.”
Everything in me went quiet.
“Yes?”
“I asked you to wear the pencil skirt because the first time you wore it, you were answering a question I was too afraid to ask properly.”
I swallowed hard.
“You put on that skirt,” he said, “and told me, without words, that you wanted more. I have thought about that every day since.”
My hands curled in my lap as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and my heart stopped beating.
Then, because I was apparently still myself even during life-altering moments, I said, “If that is a dessert menu supplement, I’m going to need a minute.”
His mouth twitched. Then he took out a small black box and set it on the table between us.
I had imagined this moment privately, embarrassingly, a thousand possible versions of this moment once Jules had planted it in my head with all the subtlety of a marching band.
I had imagined crying immediately. Laughing.
Saying yes before he finished. Feeling swept away, which was the phrase women in books used when men did things with rings and candlelight and enough money to make logistics disappear.
Instead, I felt absolutely present. I felt the chair beneath me. The cool stem of my wineglass between my fingers. The silk of my dress against my thighs. The weight of every choice that had led us here. I thought of it all as Callum opened the box.
The ring was not enormous.
That surprised me, and then immediately did not. It was beautiful in the way his office was beautiful: restrained enough to look simple until you understood what simplicity cost. An oval diamond set low in platinum, flanked by two small, tapered diamonds.
I covered my mouth with one hand.
Callum rose, came around the table and knelt beside my chair.
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
He looked at me, and the man who had built towers and made entire rooms behave was suddenly just a man kneeling on one knee with his heart in his eyes.
“I love you.”
His words broke something open in me.
He had said them before, privately, in bed, in the kitchen, once in an elevator when he thought I was asleep against his shoulder and I had not reacted because I had wanted to hear what his voice sounded like when it believed no one was listening.
This was different. This was spoken directly to me, and I couldn’t help the little gasp that escaped my throat.
“I love you,” he said again, as if the first time had not nearly killed me.
“Not because of your father. Not because I promised him anything. Not because you needed help and I liked being needed. I love you because you are brave in the exact ways you think you’re weakest. Because you make every room you enter brighter.
Because you can be terrified and still stand strong.
Because you see me too clearly and stay with me anyway. ”
My eyes filled.
“I am not asking for a quiet woman to stand behind me,” he continued. “I am not asking for someone to make my life simpler. God knows you have never made anything simpler.”
A laugh broke through my tears and his smile softened.
“I am asking for you, Avery,” he said. “The woman who walked into my office with a crooked badge and a questionable resume and somehow took apart everything I thought I had settled. The woman who makes me better by refusing to let me become noble in ways that cost other people too much. The woman I want beside me for the rest of my life.”
He took the ring from the box.
“Avery Hale,” he said, his voice rough now, “will you marry me?”
For once in my life, I did not have a joke ready.
I looked at him. At the ring. At his hands. At the man who had given me doors, choices, rules, praise, pleasure, consequences, work, scandal, safety, and a love that did not ask me to become smaller so it could fit around me.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His eyes closed for a moment and then he slid the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly. Callum lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles.
I should have been dignified.
I burst into tears.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured, rising enough to pull me into his arms.
“I’m fine,” I sobbed into his shoulder.
“You are absolutely not.”
“I’m happy.”
“I know.”
Callum drew back enough to look at me. “What is it?”
“I need a minute.”
His expression changed immediately, concern sharpening through tenderness. “Avery?”
“No, not that kind of minute.” I wiped under my eyes carefully. “A different minute.” I stood, my legs still shaking, and reached for the garment bag. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
The bathroom attached to the private dining room was absurd.
Marble, brass, flattering light, enough space to hold a minor diplomatic summit.
I hung the red dress carefully on the back of the door because I was newly engaged, not feral, then changed into the black pencil skirt and ivory blouse with hands that shook less than I expected.
The skirt fit smoothly over my hips, tight through the thighs, and tighter at the knee.
I tucked in the blouse, left two buttons undone, slipped on a pair of red stilettos, and looked at myself in the mirror.
I took a deep breath and then opened the door. Callum was standing near the fireplace when I came out. He turned and every part of him went still. His gaze moved over my whole body once, slow enough now that there was no pretending he was being polite.
“There,” I said, voice unsteady but presumably mine. “Now I’m wearing it. My answer is the same now as it was then.”
His jaw flexed.
I smiled. “You’re welcome.”
“Come here.”
I did not move right away and his eyes narrowed.
“Careful,” he warned in a low rumble.
I lifted my hand, letting the ring catch the candlelight. “You just proposed to me. I feel like I have room for a little attitude.”
His expression darkened and my core fluttered with desire.
“Do you?”
“Yes?”
The door opened and waiter stepped inside carrying a silver tray with the chocolate tart. He froze in the doorway. Callum did not even look at him.
“Leave it,” he ordered.
The waiter set the tray down with the care of a man suddenly aware he had walked into the third act of someone else’s life.
“Sir, would you like—”
“No.” Callum’s gaze stayed on me. “Go.”
The waiter blinked. “Of course.”
“We are not to be disturbed.”
The waiter vanished with the speed of a man who valued both employment and survival. For three seconds, the room was quiet.
Then I tutted him, “That was very bossy.”
“I am very engaged.”
I laughed, and it came out breathless. “That’s not a category.”
“It is now.”
He crossed the room toward me, unhurried and inexorable, the way he had moved that first morning in his office. I stood my ground because that was what had changed. Callum stopped in front of me and touched the ring with one finger.
“My fiancée,” he said.
The word moved through me with a palpable sensation.
“Yes.”
“My wife, soon.”
“Yes.”
“My equal,” he said.
I swallowed, then his hand slid to my waist.
“And still,” he murmured, lowering his mouth toward mine, “my good girl.”
I shivered.
“There she is,” he purred.
“You’re very smug.”
“I’m very correct.”
“You’re also not allowed to tear this one off,” I said quickly, because his hand had found the waistband of the skirt and history had given me very reasonable concerns.
“I’ll be careful.”
That should not have sounded filthy, but it absolutely did.
He kissed me then, and the kiss took my breath away. His mouth moved over mine, devouring me gently as he lifted me onto the edge of the table with one strong, smooth motion. I laughed against his mouth because the absurdity of it hit me all at once.
“What?” he asked.
“We are in a very expensive restaurant.”
“We are in a very private room.”
“There is a tart.”