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He smiled. Not the restrained smile he showed the rest of the world. The real one.

“It was my mother’s,” he said, turning the ring once between his fingers before he slipped it onto mine. “She always said it should go to someone who understood that the most beautiful things are the ones you have to look closely to see.”

He slid it on slowly, almost reverently, then rose to his feet.

He looked at my hand, as though convincing himself it was real. His forehead rested briefly against mine as he closed his eyes, the smallest breath of laughter escaping him, as if he still couldn’t quite believe I’d said yes.

Then he lifted one hand to my face. His fingertips brushed my cheek with the same tenderness they always had before settling lightly beneath my jaw.

When he kissed me, it wasn’t rushed. It was certain. The kind of kiss that belongs not to beginnings, but to promises already made. Warm applause rose from the stage below. I had completely forgotten we weren’t alone. One of the violinists began playing softly. Another joined a moment later, then the cello, until the orchestra had found its way into something warm and entirely their own. Alexander laced his fingers through mine.

This time, the sapphire caught the light between our fingers.

* * *

We walked back to the penthouse in the comfortable silence that had always existed between us.

Nothing had changed, and everything had. The familiar corridors of Blackwood Hall, the soft music still drifting faintly in my mind, Winston waiting patiently behind the apartment door. All of it belonged to the same evening, and yet the world seemed to have rearranged itself somewhere between entering the opera house and leaving it.

When I looked at Alexander, he was already smiling. I leaned into him as he unlocked the penthouse door and stood back to let me enter first. Winston greeted us with immediate enthusiasm before disappearing toward the sitting room. I followed him.

A silver champagne bucket waited beside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I looked back at Alexander. One eyebrow rose.

He smiled. “I was optimistic.”

I laughed. He removed the bottle from the ice, eased the cork free with practiced care, and poured two glasses before handing one to me. He lifted his glass.

“To us.”

I touched my glass lightly against his. “To us.”

We both took a sip and set our glasses down. Neither of us was interested in champagne.

This time he kissed me like he’d been thinking about it all night. His hand fisted in the fabric at my waist, pulling me hard against him. I kissed him back just as fiercely. When he drew back, his breath had gone ragged, his hand warm against the small of my back.

“I’ve wanted to do this since the moment you said yes,” he said. “You’re going to be my wife.”

“You’re going to be my husband,” I said. Saying it aloud made me laugh.

“My most cherished role.” He kissed me again, telling me between kisses that he had been waiting for me for years, that he would love me through eternity, that he would protect me always. “All I ask of you is to let me.”

“I will.”

He took my hand and led me toward the bedroom, the city glittering beyond the glass. His hands found the zipper of my dress at the same moment I reached for his belt buckle. The sapphire flashed between us as I pulled him closer.

Later, I lay with my head resting against his shoulder, watching the lights outside.

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up.”

He turned his head just enough to look at me. “You won’t.”

“No?” I asked.

He brushed a strand of hair away from my face before kissing my forehead. “This is your life now.”

I lay for another moment, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my cheek. “I love my life.”