Because she was always going to be the one he asked.
The restaurant was suspended above the city like a secret. A rooftop terrace, glass-walled and candlelit, its edges disappearing into the skyline. The kind of place you didn’t find by accident. You were brought here—by reservation, by name, by design.
Of course he’d booked it out.
There were only six tables on the entire terrace. Each placed with deliberate distance, each turned slightly toward the city as if to suggest privacy without isolation.
And then there were the details.
A set of low blooms at the center of their table. Apricot, not red, understated and intentional.
The candles weren’t scented. The playlist wasn’t obvious. There were no fairy lights. No rose petals or spectacle.
Just elegance, stripped down to its sharpest point. Gage’s kind of romance.
There was a half-finished glass of wine by her hand. Her plate had been cleared without her noticing. Somewhere behind her, a waiter moved like a ghost.
She should’ve been soaking in the atmosphere. The moment.
Instead, she’d been memorizing Gage. The way the soft amber light caught the line of his Adam’s apple. His fingers, long and elegant, curled around the wineglass. Fingernails, cut short and squared. A tiny freckle near his wrist that she sometimes brushed with her thumb when they held hands.
Her pulse was climbing as the minutes wore on.
Because she knew.
Not the exact second. Not the choreography. But the shape of the moment that had been forming for months.
London was happening.
He’d never asked if she wanted to go. Just whether she would.
And now he needed her answer as a promise.
“You know what I want for us.”
The moment was playing out, and Bea could feel it tilting, slipping, moving toward something inevitable.
He reached into his jacket.
Her heartbeat roared in her ears.
A velvet box appeared in his hand. He set it on the table.
Then, without a word, he flipped it open.
Bea forgot to breathe. The ring caught the candlelight, refracting through the flawless cut. Platinum. Elegant. Understated. A piece of permanence, designed to last.
Designed to hold the weight of a lifetime.
There was no speech. No carefully crafted declaration. The ring was the symbol.
A place beside him. A path already carved. All she had to do was reach for it.
Her hands gripped each other in her lap, even as her heart pulled forward and her mind screamed,Say yes.
She didn’t move.
Bea, you can still say yes. Say it now.
