He shrugs, and I watch his shoulders move under the linen. “But I’ll love having you there.”
God, he says things like that so casually.
Like he’s commenting on the weather instead of making me swoon.
“You just want someone to handle the Q and A when the journalists get aggressive,” I counter.
“That, too.” He grins. “You’re very good at making people regret their line of questioning.”
“It’s a gift.” I reach for my wine glass. “Also a professional requirement. Corporate litigation is basically just organized combat you know. With better suits.”
Corin laughs.
Six months ago I told him that I rarely saw him laugh. Now I see it all the time.
I did that.
I helped him find that.
The thought makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.
I notice my legal pad sitting on the chair beside me. The edges are curled from the humidity, and the margins crowded with my shorthand notes. It followed me from Manhattan to Eleuthera to the clinic to this cottage, and now it sits here like a record of everything that’s changed.
Material evidence of personal growth.
The court would be impressed.
“We did it,” I say quietly.
Corin looks at me in that way he has of making me feel seen down to the very core of who I am.
“We’redoingit,” he corrects. “Present tense.”
I smile. “I like that better.”
My throat feels tight, but it’s the good kind of tight. The kind that comes from being so full of something you can barely contain it.
And in this case, that something islove.
Then Corin does something unexpected.
He pushes back from the table and drops to one knee.
For a second I just stare at him, my brain short-circuiting completely.
What is he doing?
Why is he on the ground?
Did he drop something?
Oh.
OH.
He pulls a small box from his pocket. He opens it.
Inside is a ring.
