Epilogue #2
“You may suggest three. I choose who we meet.”
“Do you want an antique stone?”
“Possibly. Something with a prior life that can be reset without pretending its history disappeared.”
His mouth changed.
“That sounds like us.”
“It sounds like a stone. Do not make the ring responsible for our emotional architecture.”
“Yes.”
“You may say that one. I have just agreed to marry you.”
He kissed me again, less carefully and with enough joy to make the empty box unnecessary.
At seven thirty, we arrived at the Crown Room for what Gideon had described as a cooperative closing dinner.
The deception had been limited to the guest list and approved by Rachel, Maeve, Isla, Simone, and Lila. I reserved judgment on whether coordinated affection constituted a boundary violation until after champagne.
Damon stood first when we entered.
He saw my face, then Gideon’s, then my bare left hand.
“You proposed without a ring,” he said.
“I asked before selecting one,” Gideon replied.
Damon looked offended on behalf of luxury.
Isla kissed my cheek. “Ignore him. He believes emotional growth should retain room service.”
Simone embraced me next. Conrad offered Gideon his hand and said, “Congratulations,” with the solemnity of a merger that had survived review. Elliot lifted his glass from the darkest chair. Willa watched all of us with a reporter’s attention she pretended belonged to dinner.
Maeve ran from Rachel’s side and stopped one step before reaching me.
“Can I hug you about this?”
“Yes.”
She wrapped both arms around my waist.
“Do I have to wear a dress?”
“No wedding plan exists.”
“Good. I want voting rights before fabric.”
Rachel hugged me after her.
“Congratulations,” she said quietly. “We will discuss calendars when you are sober.”
“That may be the most loving thing anyone says tonight.”
Damon ordered a bottle of champagne old enough to have acquired its own reputation. Gideon looked at me before the cork was touched.
“Do you want a toast?” he asked.
“One. No speeches that convert me into a lesson.”
“That restriction eliminates most of Conrad’s prepared remarks,” Damon said.
Conrad looked at him. “I prepared nothing.”
“Exactly. Chilling.”
The champagne arrived in crystal coupes. Maeve received sparkling cider in matching glass and inspected it for evidence of unequal treatment.
“Can I tell people the box was empty?” she asked.
“You may tell people after Audrey and I decide who we are telling,” Gideon said.
Maeve considered the limit. “Can I tell my teacher if she promises not to put it in the parent newsletter?”
Rachel took a drink. “That sentence contains three separate reasons the answer is no.”
I touched Maeve’s hand. “You can tell her after we choose the ring. Tonight belongs to this table.”
She accepted the compromise and immediately began sketching ring designs on the back of a menu.
The first included a hinged compartment for pencils.
The second could project stars. Gideon studied both with the attention he gave development plans until I reminded him that no jeweler had been selected and no engineering team was required.
He put the menu down.
“Thank you,” I said.
“The star projection remains conceptually strong.”
“You may preserve the concept in silence.”
Simone lifted her glass before the room could become an unauthorized design review.
“To the space left for the answer,” she said.
Isla touched her coupe to mine. “To a real yes with an easy no still inside it.”
Rachel added, “To shared calendars.”
Maeve raised her cider. “To voting before fabric.”
The men followed a beat later, which was how I preferred the order.
Gideon did not offer a final statement. He looked at me and waited.
“To asking before the plan becomes expensive,” I said.
His glass met mine.
Dinner resumed without becoming a strategy session.
For nearly an hour, the engagement was allowed to be only joy.
We ate tiny winter pears poached in wine, argued about whether an empty box qualified as minimalist design, and made no decisions about venues, dates, guest counts, homes, press statements, or which family traditions deserved survival.
The absence of a completed plan did not feel like danger.
It felt like room.
Dinner had reached the first course when Luca Beaumont arrived.
He wore a black dinner jacket, no apology, and the expression of a man whose evening had already refused to follow instructions. He kissed my hand, congratulated Gideon, and took the empty chair beside Willa.
As he sat, a folded document shifted inside his jacket pocket.
Heavy cream paper.
Gold edge.
A visible line of black type beneath the fold.
MARRIAGE AGREEMENT.
Gideon saw it at the same moment I did.
“Luca,” he said.
Luca placed one hand over the pocket.
“This is unrelated to your engagement.”
“Is a woman aware that document exists?” I asked.
He reached for the champagne.
“Not yet.”
Every man at the table became still.
Every woman looked at him.
Luca examined the room and recognized, too late, that five names on a blacklist had created an audience uniquely qualified to identify the beginning of a mistake.
“It is only a proposal,” he said.
I looked at Gideon.
He looked back at me.
Ten years earlier, he would have believed preparation was not action.
Now he turned to his friend.
“Ask before you finish the plan,” he said.
Luca’s smile disappeared.
In my empty ring box, there was room for every choice still ahead.