Page 181 of His Good Girl

That had been the whole story of us, hadn’t it? Callum’s voice, his rules, his confidence, how he could tell me exactly what he wanted and make me melt with the wanting of it. But beneath that, always, when it mattered, there had been my choice.

He had never taken the choice from me.

Not even once.

* * *

That night, I did not wear the pencil skirt, but I brought it.

Jules came over at five with a garment bag, a devastating emergency lipstick, and the expression of a woman who had accepted that her life’s purpose was now ninety percent crisis styling and ten percent eating my snacks.

“You are aware,” she said, watching me stand in front of my closet in my bra and slip, “that defying his outfit instructions on proposal night is either extremely brave or a fast road to being bent over something expensive.”

“I’m bringing the skirt.”

“In a bag.”

“Yes.”

“So, you are arriving in one outfit and carrying the symbol of your surrender like a slutty little flag.”

“That is not what this is.”

“It is exactly what this is, and I support the troops.”

I turned and looked at her. She softened immediately. It still did that to me sometimes, the softness. Since the blackmail, since the confession, since the long ugly work of forgiving someone who had hurt me while being hurt herself, Jules and I had become more careful with each other, but also closer.

“You okay?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good. Honest answer.”

“I think he’s going to ask me to marry him.”

“I think he is too.”

My stomach swooped so hard I had to grip the closet door.

Jules crossed the room and took both my hands. “And?”

“And I want him to.”

Her smile trembled. It made mine tremble too.

“And that scares me,” I admitted.

“Of course it does.”

“I’m twenty-five.”

“Yes.”

“He’s Callum Rowe.”

“Also yes.”

“This started with me asking him for a job.”