Page 183 of His Good Girl

“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 beingknown. 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.