Page 82 of Dial F for Finance

“Yes.”

“So public disclosure is part of your proposal.”

“Being honest is part of it.” He holds my gaze. “But I’m asking, Jen. The choice is yours.”

I press my lips together. The cocktail of panic and longing that’s been fermenting in my chest for the last forty-eight hours begins to spiral so fast I nearly laugh. “You’re not worried about what people will say?”

“Not even a little. Are you?”

“Yes,” I say honestly, because lying is for people who don’t already have lawyers involved.

He smiles, and it warms the space. “Would it help if I told you the only opinions that matter here are ours?”

“No.”

“So you admit you’re afraid of everyone knowing you married me,” he says, devil-smooth.

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what I heard, Pemberton.”

“Your hearing is conveniently selective.”

“I’m only selectively hearing the truth. Which is that you give a shit.”

“Of course I give a shit,” I hiss, too sharp, and now I’ve played myself because the admission slides its way into the air between us, unfixable. “I care what people think, I always have. Why do you think I wear suits and control the narrative and never let anyone see me less than three percent away from perfect? Life is a game, Dominic. If you lose track of appearances, you just lose.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute. The drone of the jet fills up the whole world, relentless. I pick at the inside of his jacket sleeve, forcing the words back in, but he keeps looking at me, willing me toward something bigger and scarier than a gold ring or a new name or even sixty days of his undivided wanting.

It takes two tries to find my voice, and when I do, it’s soft and battery-acid true. “For three years, you’ve had this—” I flick a hand between us, the ring, the air, my whole chest—“you’ve had this thing for me and you made it into a running joke. Except the joke is that it was never one. Everyone thought it was harmless, you chasing the one woman in the building who can walk away from your charm with her dignity and paperwork intact. And for three years I built myself a fortress out of my indifference. Because if people saw how much I wanted, how easily I could be ruined—” my voice breaks a little, but I push through—“they’d never let me up from under it.”

He stands. Walks the two steps to where I’m sitting and kneels down in front of me, so we’re eye-level, and gently peels my hands apart until I have to look at him.

Goddamn this man for always knowing how to get around my defenses.

“Nobody is ruining you, Jenna,” he says quietly. “Least of all me. But I am going to spend every one of those sixty days proving that the rest of your life would be better with me in it.”

I blink fast, try to laugh it off, but my breath stutters instead. He traces one thumb along the inside of my wrist, gentle and almost absent, like he needs to memorize the vein pattern before he can say what comes next.

“You said you care what people think. So think about this: what if the people who matter see you choosing what you want, and all it does is make you more impossible to fuck with? What if the world doesn’t fall down, and you get to be happy and still leave them terrified?”

I want to tell him that isn’t how it works. Wanting people makes you vulnerable. Letting everyone see it gives them something to laugh about when it ends.

But what if it doesn’t make me ridiculous? What if it only ends the running joke?

“You’re really asking me to do this,” I whisper. Wear the ring. Walk into Mercer. Let our friends see exactly how badly I want the man they watched me turn down for three years.

Dominic’s face softens. “I’m asking you to choose what you want where people can see it.” His hand stays warm around my wrist. “But I’m not going to make you.”

The ring is bright on the table, simple and deliberate, and I realize my thumb is already tracing the circle of it like I can’t help myself. Want is terrifying. Want is everything they tell you to never admit, not if you don’t want it used against you. But look at me now. Want all over my face, my nerves stripped bare.

I take a deep breath and slip it on. It’s heavier than I remember, and the fit is still perfect. He watches me do it, and when the gold closes around my finger, his whole body unclenches with a satisfaction that I feel in my own bones.

“There,” I tell him, voice barely steady but still mine. “You win.”

His eyes flash. “No, Pemberton. We win.”

I reach out and touch the side of his face.