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“That’s not true. You have the job offer from the university in the research department.”
I nodded. “And I think I’ll take it, honestly. I know Leeds University headhunted me, and the salary is slightly better there, but I don’t want to move. It seems like such a hassle.”
“Besides, you know Cambridge and all the faculty members. You might as well stay where you’re comfortable.”
“Exactly.” I sighed. “But they’re going to ask me what to call myself.”
“Just use your new title professionally,” he suggested. “You considered that already, and it makes sense.”
“I suppose, but it just seems like such a faff. Like, what, I’m Lady Grace everywhere except at work? I’m never going to learn to respond to Dr Montgomery-Brown.”
“Just cut your losses and tell everyone to call you Lady Kinkirk. Save on the paperwork,” he joked.
I sat back and looked at him. “Why not?”
William paused, and a tiny smile crept onto his face. “What?”
“Why not?” I repeated. “I mean, I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
He just looked at me, smiling.
“Unless that wasn’t actually what you were saying, in which case, never mind.”
He reached up and cupped my face. “I wanted to see how you’d react to it. Six months ago, you told me to piss off when I said it as a joke.”
“That sounds like me.”
He chuckled. “This isn’t exactly how I imagined proposing to you going, given that the ring I have is under your bed and not in my pocket.”
“What’s an engagement ring doing under my bed? Oh, God, you were going to propose during sex, weren’t you?”
“No. Actually, I was showing Amber, and you came up and I had to hide it, so…”
Someone cleared their throat from the doorway of the pub, and we looked up.
Amber was there. “I, uh, here.” She scurried over and put a small box in William’s hand. “I stole it earlier. I had a feeling about today.”
I looked at William, then at her. “I’m not going to ask.”
She shook her head and ran back to the doorway, then turned around and held up her thumbs while grinning. “I won’t tell anyone, don’t worry.”
That didn’t inspire confidence in me at all.
William looked at the box then at me. “Well, I guess I’m doing this properly after all.”
I couldn’t stop the grin that spread across my face as he stood in front of me and got down on one knee.
“Doctor Lady Grace Montgomery-Brown,” he said, trying not to laugh.
I bit down on my lower lip. “That’s ridiculous.”
He nodded. “I have loved you since the day you threw your cheap coffee all over me and I coerced you into giving me your number, only to take you to Scotland in a hare-brained scheme to get out of an arranged date. As you can see, that’s worked out very well for us both.”
I couldn’t stop smiling.
“I told you then that I’d marry you, and now I’m going to hope you’ll prove me right. Grace, you are the love of my life, and there’s nobody who compares to you in this entire world. Will you marry me?” He opened the box, and I gasped.
I would know that pear-shaped diamond anywhere.
