The checkered floor had been replaced.
The corner booth had not.
She stood beside it longer than she intended.
Vincent remained several feet behind her.
‘You don’t have to sit there.’
‘I know.’
Chloe touched the edge of the table.
‘I spent months remembering this place as the worst night of my life.’
Vincent said nothing.
She turned toward him.
‘But it wasn’t only that.’
‘What else was it?’
‘The night I found out what I do when somebody needs help.’
Vincent’s expression softened.
‘You already knew.
You were studying to become a nurse.’
‘That isn’t the same as running toward a gun.’
‘No,’ he said quietly.
‘It isn’t.’
They sat in Isabella’s booth.
Chloe ordered veal piccata with extra lemon.
Vincent laughed for the first time she could remember hearing it.
Months earlier, Chloe would have found that frightening.
Now it sounded unexpectedly human.
After dinner, Vincent placed a small velvet box on the table.
Chloe stared at it.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘You haven’t opened it.’
‘I know what shape that box is.’
Vincent slid it toward her.
‘Open it before you reject me.’
Inside wasn’t an engagement ring.
It was his gold Rossi signet ring.
The same one he’d placed beside her hand while she bled on the floor.
Chloe looked up.
‘I thought you said I didn’t have to wear this.’
‘You don’t.’
‘Then why give it to me?’
‘Because the first time I put it beside you, I decided what it meant without asking.’
He leaned back.
‘This time I’m asking.’
Chloe’s heartbeat changed.
Vincent continued.
‘The story started as protection.
I told people you were my wife because I needed every enemy I had to believe touching you meant touching me.’
‘I remember.’
‘I also remember you telling me I had no right to decide your life.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘I know.’
He met her eyes.
‘So I’m not deciding anything tonight.’
From his coat he removed a second, smaller box.
This one actually held a ring.
Vincent didn’t kneel immediately.
He waited.
Chloe looked from the ring to him.
