"Salmon. Roasted vegetables. That quinoa you like."
Pierce Harrison was, by any objective measure, a catch. Thirty-five. Finance. Good-looking in that clean-cut, gym-membership, tailored-suit way that photographed well at charitygalas. Kind eyes. Nice smile. A 401(k) that would make my mother weep with joy.
We'd been dating for two years. He had a drawer in my apartment. I had a key to his.
It should have been enough.
Dinner was pleasant. It was always pleasant.
Pierce talked about his quarterly reports, a deal he was closing, and the vacation he wanted to take in December. I talked about the new case—serial arson, complicated, going to require long hours.
His smile flickered.
"That sounds dangerous."
"It's journalism, Pierce. It's all a little dangerous."
"I just worry about you." He reached across the table, covered my hand with his. "You know that."
I did know that. Pierce worried about everything—my hours, my sources, the neighborhoods I went into chasing stories. He worried when I was late, when I forgot to text, and when I came home smelling like smoke from a ride-along.
His worry was constant. Comprehensive. Suffocating in a way I'd never figured out how to name.
"I know," I said.
We finished dinner. Cleared the plates.
The comfortable rhythm of two people who'd learned each other's patterns. Who could move around a kitchen without colliding. Who knew how to fill silence without saying anything that mattered.
Pierce was loading the dishwasher when he said, casually, "I've been thinking."
Something in his tone made me go still.
"About us. About the future." He straightened, turned to face me, and I saw it—the careful rehearsal behind his eyes, the wayhe'd been working up to this all night. "I think we should get married."
The words hung in the air between us.
I should have been happy. This was what people did—dated, got engaged, built lives together. Pierce was offering stability. Partnership. A future with someone solid and reliable, someone who would be there every morning with salmon and quinoa and genuine concern for my well-being.
So why did it feel like a door closing?
Because he's not?—
I shut that thought down. Hard.
"Pierce..."
"When we get married," he continued, and something aboutwheninstead ofifmade my chest tighten, "you won't have to work anymore."
For a moment, I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.
"Excuse me?"
"You won't have to work." He said it like he was offering a gift. Like this was something I should want. "I make enough for both of us. You can focus on other things. The house. Starting a family."
He smiled. "You wouldn't have to chase these dangerous stories anymore."
I stared at him.
