“You could still tutor him remotely.” Gage placed his forearms against the table.
“But I’d be gone. I’d miss his last year of high school.” The part where he needed her most. When he’d asked her to stand by him for officer track.
Gage said nothing. Didn’t offer comfort or corrections. He understood there was a cost. And after saying it all out loud, so did she.
“I’ve worked so hard to belong here, Gage,” Bea murmured, fingernails digging into her palms. “To make this place mine, not just yours. Something that isn’t borrowed or temporary.” Her voice dropped lower. “You’re asking me to start again.”
Not as a student. As a version of myself I haven’t met yet.
The restaurant buzzed softly around them, clinking glasses and low conversations. Their table felt like a separate world.
“I know.” Then, quieter but firm, he said, “But not for nothing. I’m asking you to build something bigger. With me.”
She took a shaky breath.
“You wouldn’t be alone,” he added.
“I’d have you,” she agreed. “When you’re home.”
“I’ll be working a lot. Especially at the start,” he acknowledged.
“Late nights. Dinners. Business trips. Meetings I can’t come to.”
“You’d have a driver. Security. A home. A school. Anything you need,” he countered. He didn’t reach for her hand. As if he didn’t want to pressure her more than she already was. “I can’t promise it’ll be easy, but you’d never be just a shadow in my world.”
She believed him. That was the maddening part. Her brain was buzzing with logistics and questions and fears, but her heart was already halfway packed.
Bea leaned back in her chair. “You’re asking me to follow you into the life that’s waiting foryou.”
“We’ll make it ours.”
She wanted that too. She’d needed to hear him say it, that there was a place for her.
She looked down at her plate. The sea bass had gone cold. The future was on the table. And it had arrived before dessert.
“I’m not saying no,” she said gently. “But I need time.”
He nodded. Picked his cutlery back up. “I’ll give you as long as I can.”
GAGE
Gage stood in the dark, sleeves rolled, shirt collar undone, the city glowing faintly beneath him. He’d always liked this view.
He didn’t need to replay the conversation. It was still in his body. The sound of her voice. The curve of her hand against her water glass.
He’d expected this part. He just hadn’t imagined what it would look like onher.
He hadn’t told her last year because it was too soon. Had waited until the London deal was signed before broaching it so he knew he had things in order first.
That was what he’d told himself.
But maybe it hadn’t just been about timing.
Maybe, beneath all his planning, he’d sensed from the start that Bea wouldn’t come easily. The only thing he’d ever really wanted for himselfdidn’t fit neatly inside his future.
He wouldn’t undo his choices. Not even now. Because somewhere deep down, he’d always understood: if he lost her, there wouldn’t be a second draft.
He turned from the window and sat on the edge of the low leather bench, elbows on his knees. He must have assumed, in some inherited way, that the woman he married would know the role. Accept it without reservation. Be born into it, or bred for it.
