Chapter 42 #2
“You look beautiful,” I tell her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I look like I just had sex in my office,” she retorts, but there’s no real annoyance in her voice. She checks her reflection in the small mirror she keeps in her desk drawer, dabbing at her smudged lipstick.
“You’re welcome.” I grin, zipping up my pants and re-buckling my belt. “Want me to stay for round two after your call?”
She shoots me that look—half-exasperation, half-fondness. “Some of us have actual work to do, bestseller.”
“Writing is actual work,” I protest, gathering the now-forgotten lunch containers. “Speaking of which, I should get back to it. I promised Tab to meet her at my publisher’s office.”
Minji nods, already slipping back into her professional persona as she checks her notes for the upcoming call. The transformation is fascinating, watching her compartmentalize, tuck away the woman who was moaning my name moments ago, and become the formidable attorney her clients depend on.
I lean across the desk to kiss her one last time, savoring the taste of her on my lips. “Dinner tonight? I’ll cook.”
“Your place or mine?” she asks, her focus already shifting to her computer screen.
“Mine. I changed the shower head.”
That earns me a smile. “Really?”
“Detachable.”
“Oh.” She blushes.
“Oh indeed.” I head for the door, pausing with my hand on the knob. “Hey, Honeybee?”
She looks up, eyebrow raised in question.
“I love you.”
Her expression softens, that rare, unguarded look that still makes my heart skip. “I love you, too.”
I blow her a kiss and head out, nodding at Eliza, who smirks at me as I pass her desk.
I’m sure everyone here knows what happens when I bring lunch, but they all like Minji too much to say anything.
It was pretty obvious when her office got soundproof walls and a new door seven months ago.
The elevator ride to the lobby feels like a victory lap.
Every time I leave Minji’s office after one of our ‘lunch meetings,’ I can’t wipe the stupid grin off my face.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Singleton,” the security guard at the front desk says.
“Afternoon, Hector. Beautiful day, isn’t it?” I reply, probably radiating post-coital energy like a human lighthouse.
“Nothing but sunshine and rainbows.” He smiles.
I check my watch—forty-five minutes until my meeting with Tab at the publisher’s office. That’s just enough time to get a real lunch, since mine got… repurposed.
I pass a bookstore and spot a poster for Love and Lawsuits. I can’t help but smile. Who would have guessed that a passion project would lead me back to the woman I fell for in college, all these years later?
I duck into a deli and grab a sandwich, my phone buzzing with a text from Tab.
Tab
Running 15 minutes late. Traffic nightmare. Bring coffee if you value my sanity.
I type back a quick acknowledgment and order her usual, triple shot with almond milk and too much cinnamon. While waiting, I pull out my phone again to check the time and see my lock screen—Minji and I in Seoul, standing beneath cherry blossoms, all smiles.
Coffee in hand, I head toward the publisher’s office, weaving through the crowded sidewalk.
My mind drifts to the small velvet box hidden in my sock drawer at home.
For three months, it’s been sitting there, waiting for the perfect moment.
I’ve rehearsed a dozen different proposals in my head, each one discarded for being too cliché, too grand, or not grand enough for a woman like Minji.
“Excuse me,” a businesswoman mutters as she brushes past me, jolting me back to reality. I’ve stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk like a tourist.
I know Minji loves me. But marriage is something else.
She’s spent her career helping people end theirs, so she knows better than anyone how wrong it can go.
Every day, she sees the fallout from broken promises and vows.
Yet I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.
I want to be her husband. I want her to be my wife.
I want to build something permanent with her, something that defies all the statistics she can quote from memory.
I check my watch again and quicken my pace. Tab will murder me if I’m late with her coffee. As I approach the publisher’s building, my phone rings—Minji’s ringtone, the theme from Law & Order (her idea of a joke). I nearly drop the coffee in my rush to answer.
“Hey, everything okay?” I ask, pressing the phone to my ear. “I thought you had a call?”
“I did, it was quick. I’m just missing you.”
“Damn, I should’ve stayed longer if I knew that call was going to be that quick. But if you can leave early, just go to my place. After I meet with Tab, I’ll head straight home and we can head to your place from there.”
“Mmm, that sounds perfect.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “My last client just canceled. I might actually leave on time for once.”
“A miracle. Should I alert the media?”
She laughs, that genuine sound that still makes my chest tighten. “Very funny. Just for that, I’m stealing your favorite sweatshirt again.”
“It looks better on you anyway. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Soon,” she echoes, and then adds, more softly, “I love you.”
I’m grinning like an idiot as I pocket my phone and push through the revolving door of the publishing house. Even after a year together, those three words from her still feel like winning the lottery.