Juggling Briefcase & Baby

CHAPTER TEN

‘I THINK that’s everything.’ Lex set down the high chair and the changing mat. The hallway of Romy’s tiny flat was crammed with bags and baby equipment.

It had been a long day. They had both gone to the signing ceremony, and had smiled and smiled for the inevitable photographs. Then they had said goodbye to Willie Grant, who told them to get in touch when they’d come to their senses. And after that there had been nothing to do but to collect up all Romy’s stuff from the flat, and Lex had driven them home.

Except it didn’t feel like home any more. The flat was cold and poky and dreary and Romy’s throat was so tight she could hardly speak. Any moment now, she was going to have to say goodbye to Lex, and she didn’t know how she was going to bear it.

He looked all wrong in this shabby flat.

Freya was sitting on the floor of the living room, puzzled by suddenly finding herself somewhere new. She looked around doubtfully as if not at all sure what she was doing there. Romy knew how she felt.

‘Will I see you before you go?’ Lex asked at last, and she drew a breath to steady herself.

‘I think it’s probably easier if we don’t.’

His eyes shuttered. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

The silence was excruciating.

‘Well.’ Romy lifted her hands and let them drop. ‘I…er…I should probably give Freya her tea.’

‘Yes. I’ll go.’

Lex squatted down next to Freya and smoothed down the absurd quiff of hair. She looked up at him with those round, astounded eyes, her face dissolving into a smile, and the cold stone where Lex’s heart had once been splintered into shards. ‘Be good,’ he said, and straightened before his voice could crack.

Romy was waiting by the door. Her dark eyes were shimmering with unshed tears.

‘I don’t know how to say goodbye,’ she confessed.

‘Then don’t,’ said Lex. He put his hands on her arms and wondered if this was the last time he would see her for another twelve years. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I’ve always loved you.’

‘And I love you.’ Romy was desperately blinking back the tears, but it was a losing battle. ‘I do,’ she insisted as if he hadn’t believed her. ‘I just wish…’

She wished it were enough, but it wasn’t.

‘I know,’ said Lex, and, because there wasn’t any other way to say goodbye, he smoothed his hands up over her shoulders and up her throat to cradle her jaw. ‘I just wish too,’ he said, and kissed her.

Romy leant into him, slipping her arms around his waist to hold him close, and they kissed, a fierce, desperate kiss that said everything words couldn’t.

This will be the last time, Romy thought, even as her senses spun. The last time I touch him. The last time he kisses me. The last time I feel as if I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.

Even as she tried to hold onto the sensation, Lex was giving her one last, longing kiss and dropping his hands. He stepped back and reached for the door. Opened it.

Romy was standing exactly where he had left her, her mouth pressed in a straight line to stop it shaking, and her eyes dark and dazed.

Unable to resist one last touch, Lex wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. ‘Goodbye, Romy,’ he said gently, and then he was gone.

The phone was ringing as Romy manoeuvred the pushchair into the narrow cottage hall and shut the door behind her. Keys still clenched between her teeth, she ran into the kitchen to grab the cordless phone, only just remembering to spit out the keys in time.

‘Hello?’ she said breathlessly.

‘Romy? It’s Mum. I’m afraid I’ve got some sad news.’

Gerald Gibson was dead. ‘Another stroke,’ Molly told Romy. ‘A merciful release in some ways, but of course Faith is devastated. He wasn’t an easy man, but she adored him and she feels so alone now. She’s got Lex and Phin, I know, but it’s not the same. She and Gerald loved each other so much, I often thought those boys missed out.’

The funeral was to be the following Friday. ‘You should be there for Faith,’ her mother said. ‘She’s your godmother. And Phin was always a good friend to you, wasn’t he?’

And Lex, Romy wanted to cry. Lex mattered most of all.

She had been in Somerset for seven weeks, and everything had fallen into place as if it were meant to be. She had found a little cottage in the same village as Jenny. It was a bit like living in a doll’s house, with tiny rooms and a handkerchief garden, but it was enough for Freya. If Romy sometimes felt as if she couldn’t breathe, and thought longingly of Lex’s spacious apartment, well, that was a price of independence and she was happy to pay it.

Michael lived nearby, but not too close, and he and Kate had taken Freya for the afternoon a few times now. She hadn’t spent the night with them yet, but Romy had no doubt that would come. Michael was making the effort to get to know his daughter, and that could only be a good thing. He had offered Romy financial support, but she had suggested that he invest the money for Freya instead. A relationship between Freya and her father was one thing. Accepting money was quite another. Money would be a tie. Romy wasn’t ready for that.

She had found a job. Only part-time for now, but it was a start. People in the village were friendly. They could live cheaply. She ought to be happy, Romy reminded herself. She had everything she needed.

Except Lex.

Time and again, Romy assured herself that she had made the right decision. She and Freya couldn’t have stayed in the apartment. They would have driven Lex mad. Much better to have made the break now, before either of them had a chance to be hurt.

It didn’t feel better though. There was a dull ache inside her, all the time, like a weight pressing on her heart, and misery clogged her throat so that speaking was an effort and even swallowing hurt.

In spite of the claustrophobically cluttered rooms in the cottage, it felt as if something was missing, and it took Romy a little time to accept that she was constantly looking round, hoping to see Lex. She wanted to see him peering over the top of his reading glasses or tugging at the knot of his tie. She wanted to see the stern mouth relaxing into a smile as he picked up Freya, or holding the tiny hands between his large ones as he helped her to play the piano.

Always in the past Romy had been able to move on without a backward glance, but this time it was different. She missed London more than she thought she would. She had always liked wild, exotic places, but now she missed the buzz of work and the banter with her colleagues. She missed standing at Lex’s window and looking down at the great city spread out below.

She missed Lex most of all.

Freya missed him, too, Romy was sure. She couldn’t say so, but she was lacklustre and fretful. Romy knew exactly how she felt. For the first time in her life, she was lonely. Oh, Freya was there, and she could always pop round to see Jenny, but it wasn’t the same as living with Lex. There was no one to tell when Freya learnt another word, no one to laugh when she put her pants on her head. No one to say hello to in the morning. No one to make her heart leap at the sound of the key in the door.

She wanted to tell him when Freya took her first step. She’d told her mother, she’d told Jenny, she’d even told Michael, but the person she really wanted to tell was Lex. She even picked up the phone and got as far as dialling his mobile before she cut the connection.

What was the point of calling him?

She would hear his voice and he would hear hers, but wouldn’t that just make it worse? And after Lex had said, ‘Great news,’ or whatever you said when a baby took their first step, what then? What would there be left to talk about? She and Lex couldn’t be friends-they were too close for that-but they couldn’t be lovers either. She should leave him to get on with his life, and get on with her own.

But now the father Lex had tried so hard to please was dead, and Romy wished desperately that she could have been there for him when he needed her.

Except Lex hadn’t wanted her there, she reminded herself. If he had, he would have phoned and told her himself, instead of letting her hear it from her mother. Perhaps, like her, he had decided that in the end it would just make it harder. So Romy didn’t ring him either, but wrote a short note that said everything that was proper about his father and nothing at all about what she really wanted to say.

That Friday she left Freya with Michael, and made her way to Gloucestershire. The funeral was to be held in the village where Lex’s parents had lived for forty years. A car was beyond Romy’s budget, so it was a complicated journey involving buses, trains and taxis, and she only just made it to the church in time for the service.

Her mother, so long a friend to Faith Gibson, was sitting behind the family. Romy slipped into the end of the pew, exchanging a glance of apology for her lateness with her mother.

In front of her, Faith sat between her two sons. Summer was there, too, sitting next to Phin. They were a family, and yet Lex looked alone. He was staring straight ahead. Something about the rigid set of his shoulders, the careful way he held his head, twisted Romy’s heart. He was suffering, and there was nothing she could do to help.

The organ struck up, and the priest was moving to address the congregation. Romy saw Lex brace himself, and without giving herself time to think she got up and slid into the pew in front. He shouldn’t have to be on his own, not today.

She caught Lex unawares. The vicar had already begun the service, so there was no chance to talk, but Romy saw the startled look in his eyes change to a fierce gladness, and when she took his hand his fingers closed around hers hard. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t look at her again, but he held her hand tightly all through the service, only letting her go when he got up to give the eulogy.

After the service, Romy stepped back, still without a word, and let Lex take his mother to the graveside, while her own mother eyed her speculatively.

‘Is there something I should know?’ she asked after the burial was over and they were walking slowly to the Gibsons’ house behind the family. It was an inappropriately beautiful day, and the village was so small no one had thought to get in a car to drive the short distance from the church to the house.

Romy flushed under her mother’s scrutiny. She had acted on impulse, and she was glad that she had, but to her mother it must have looked odd the way she had pushed into the family pew.

‘I didn’t want Lex to be on his own.’

Incredibly, neither her mother nor Faith Gibson seemed to have heard anything about the time she and Freya had spent with Lex. Summer had certainly known that they were living together, which meant that Phin must have known too, but evidently he hadn’t passed the news on around the family. Romy wondered whether this was tact on his part, or if Lex had asked him not to say anything.

As far as Romy’s mother knew, Lex was no more than a family friend to Romy. Someone you bumped into at weddings and funerals like this. She knew nothing about that crazy week in Paris all those years ago. She had no idea that Lex knew Freya or that he made her daughter’s heart turn over just by walking into the room.

But Romy had had enough pretending, she realised. ‘I’m in love with Lex,’ she told her mother abruptly, and it was a huge relief just to say the words.

Molly’s eyes rounded and for a moment she looked exactly like Freya. ‘With Lex? But how…? When…?’ She shook her head to clear it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ And then, unable to help herself, ‘Does Faith know?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘But, darling, this is wonderful news!’ In deference to the other mourners, Molly kept her voice down, but she couldn’t resist giving Romy a hug. ‘Why the big secret? And why move to Somerset? I thought you wanted to get back together with Freya’s father!’

‘No.’ Romy’s steps slowed. She was remembering all the reasons why going to Somerset had seemed such a good idea. Was still a sensible idea. ‘I just wanted to get away from Lex. I don’t want to love him, Mum. You know what Lex is like. We’re too different. Anyway,’ she said, ‘we agreed it wouldn’t work.’

‘Ah.’ Her mother’s gaze rested thoughtfully on Romy’s face. ‘Does Lex love you?’

‘I think he loves me, yes.’ Romy sighed. ‘That isn’t the problem,’ she said, just as she had to Willie Grant. ‘What if love isn’t enough? What if it doesn’t last? You and Dad loved each other, and look what happened to you!’

‘Oh, Romy,’ said her mother a little helplessly. ‘Yes, I loved your father, but it wasn’t all perfect. It takes two to make a marriage, and two to let a relationship break down. I know how much it hurt you when he left, but I’m not sure it would have been better for you if he’d stayed. Would you really have wanted to have grown up in a home where the adults resent each other, knowing that you were the only reason they stayed together? I don’t think so.’

Romy stopped at that and stared at her mother. ‘Are you saying you think it was a good thing that he left us?’

‘No, never that. Not knowing what it did to you. But it wasn’t actually the end of the world, was it?’ Molly took her daughter’s arm and made her keep walking. ‘I was very unhappy for a time, but then I met Keith, and I’m happier being married to him than I ever was with your father. I don’t have any regrets about marrying Tony, though. We had you, didn’t we? How could either of us regret that? And now I can remember the good times.’

She smiled at her daughter. ‘There are no guarantees when it comes to love, Romy. Maybe it won’t work out with Lex, but maybe it will, and if you never take the risk, you’ll never know how happy you could be.’

Lex’s jaw felt rigid but he kept a smile in place as he went to greet his godmother. He had always been fond of Molly, who had luminous dark eyes just like her daughter’s, but he had been avoiding her, just as he had been avoiding thinking about Romy, who stood now by her mother’s side.

He had been feeling so alone in the church, and then suddenly Romy had been there. The feel of her hand in his had been so comforting that Lex had almost convinced himself that he had made it up. His mother had been too bound up in her own grief to notice anything, and Romy had slipped away when they followed the coffin out to the graveside. It was almost as if she had never been there at all.

But he had seen her as soon as she came into the house with Molly, and he had spent the afternoon torn between joy at her presence and despair that he was going to have to get used to her not being there all over again. He hadn’t talked to her. He didn’t know what he would say. The only thing he could think of to say was, ‘Come back, I miss you,’ but what was the point? Romy had made her choice, and he had to live with it. Better not to say anything at all.

So Lex moved through the afternoon like an automaton, talking to guests, agreeing that they would all miss his father, not letting himself think. Especially not letting himself notice Romy, slender and vibrant in the dark suit she had used to wear to work. Today she had substituted a dark purple top for her usual brightly coloured blouses, but she still looked more vivid than anyone else in the room.

She was a flame, constantly catching at the edge of his vision. It didn’t matter that she was only talking quietly to other guests. She spoke to his mother, to Phin and Summer. She did nothing to draw attention to herself at all, but Lex was intensely aware of her all the same. She might as well have been the only other person in the room.

Now Lex kissed Molly’s cheek, and let himself look properly at Romy at last. She looked gravely back at him, her eyes dark and warm, and as his gaze met hers there was such a rightness to it, as if everything were suddenly falling into place, that Lex was sure that everyone in the room must surely hear the click of connection.

His jaw was clenched so tightly he could feel the tendons standing out in his neck. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.

There, he hadn’t seized her in his arms. He hadn’t humiliated himself by begging her to come home. It wasn’t much of a victory, but Lex felt as if he had negotiated a long and arduous obstacle course.

‘Faith looks all in,’ said Molly, apparently not noticing the way her daughter and Lex were staring desperately at each other.

With difficulty, he dragged his eyes from Romy’s. ‘Yes. Yes, she is. Phin and Summer are going to take her home with them.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m going back to London too.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yes,’ said Lex, unable to keep the bleakness from his voice. ‘On my own.’

There was a pause. ‘I think I’ll go and say goodbye to Faith,’ said Molly.

Lex was left alone with Romy. The moment he had longed for. The moment he had dreaded.

Romy drew a breath. ‘Can I come with you?’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘To London.’

The dark eyes were drawing him in. Lex could feel himself slipping. Any moment now and he would be falling again, tumbling wildly out of control once more. He made himself look away.

‘I think I need to be on my own,’ he said.

Romy put her hand on his arm. ‘No, you need someone with you,’ she told him gently.

‘Romy, I can’t…’ Lex broke off, groped for control. ‘I can’t say goodbye again.’

‘We’re not going to say goodbye.’

Mutely, he shook his head, and Romy shattered what was left of his defences by stepping closer so that his senses reeled with her nearness, with the warmth of her hand, the piercing familiarity of her fragrance.

‘Lex, you buried your father today,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve been strong for your mother, but you need to grieve for yourself. Now let me be strong for you. Let me drive you. You don’t have to do everything on your own.’

The longing to be with her, to put off the moment when he had to watch her leave, was too much. Strong? He had never been strong where she was concerned. Lex did his best to resist the temptation, but then handed over his car keys. It felt deeply symbolic. He wanted to say, ‘Be careful, that’s my heart I’m giving you there.’

He didn’t, of course, but Romy smiled reassuringly at him anyway. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m a careful driver.’

Lex was used to being driven. He often sat in the back of limousines, but this was different. He was sitting in the passenger seat of his own car, and Romy was at the wheel, and he was very aware of having ceded control. It felt dangerous. And it felt like letting go.

Letting go of responsibility.

Letting go of the pretence that he could be happy without Romy.

Letting the jumble of feelings overwhelm him. Guilt and grief and resentment for his father. Love and loneliness and joy and despair and desire and everything else that Romy made him feel, everything he had been trying not to feel for so long.

Tears were unmanly. Gerald Gibson had taught his son that long ago, and Lex hadn’t cried since he was a very small boy. He didn’t cry now, but inside he could feel himself crumbling. He stared straight ahead, his face set like stone, his mouth pressed into a rigid line, and his throat too tight to speak.

To his intense relief, Romy didn’t try to make conversation. She just drove him back to the apartment, unlocked the door with the key he handed over without a word, and poured him a great slug of the whisky he had bought for Willie Grant a lifetime ago, all without a word.

Lex sat on the sofa, head bent, the glass clasped between his knees. He swirled the whisky, letting the warm, peaty smell of it calm him before he drank, and its mellowness settled steadyingly in his stomach.

Romy sat quietly beside him, her hand on his back infinitely comforting.

‘He never said well done.’ The words burst out of him without warning. ‘Not once. But do you know what he did? He left me a controlling share in Gibson & Grieve. I had to listen to some lawyer tell me that my father thought I’d done well. That I’d shown I was worthy. He said he was confident that he was leaving the company in capable hands,’ said Lex bitterly.

Romy’s throat ached for him. ‘He was proud of you.’

‘It’s too late for him to tell me now! Why couldn’t he…?’ He broke off, too angry and frustrated to speak.

‘Why couldn’t he tell you?’ she finished for him. ‘Perhaps he was afraid to, Lex. Perhaps, deep down, he was afraid that if he gave you the approval you craved, you wouldn’t need him any more.’

She rubbed his back, very gently. ‘I think you and I need to forgive our fathers,’ she said. ‘I certainly need to forgive mine. I loved him so much, but I wanted him to be somebody he couldn’t be. I didn’t understand that he was just a man, wrestling with his own fears.’

Lex said nothing, but she knew he was listening. ‘And your father,’ she went on, ‘he didn’t know how to be a man who could admit weakness. I think he didn’t know how to tell you how important you were to him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love you. He just couldn’t say it. But he did the best he could, and maybe my father did the best he could, too.’

Lex took a slug of whisky, felt it burn down his throat. ‘I thought you would never forgive your father.’

‘I thought so, too. It was only when I talked to my mother today, and she made me think. And watching you bury your father, I was imagining how I would feel if it was my father who had died.’ Romy swallowed. ‘He’s the only father I’ve got. Perhaps I should just accept him for what he is.’

‘He hurt you.’ Lex looked up at her, pale eyes fierce. ‘He left you.’

‘He left my mother, not me,’ said Romy. ‘I think the truth is that I left him when I refused to see him. I thought that he had chosen his other child over me, but now I think that he chose happiness over duty. Perhaps I need to learn from that. Perhaps we both do.’

‘Learn? Learn what?’

‘We could learn to be happy,’ she said.

‘Happy?’ Lex stared into his glass and thought of the long, lonely weeks since she’d been gone. The wasteland he had trudged through every day. He thought of the years he had spent trying to forget her, the years he would have to spend forgetting her all over again. ‘Happy? Hah!’

‘I thought I could make myself happy,’ said Romy as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I was afraid to rely on anyone else for happiness. I thought all I needed was to be able to provide for Freya and keep her from being hurt, and I can do that now, but I’m not happy.’ She took her hand from his back. ‘I can’t be happy without you, Lex.’

He did look up at that, his eyes narrowed in sudden attention.

‘I don’t know if this is the time for it,’ she said, ‘but there’s something I want to ask you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Will you marry me?’

Lex straightened abruptly, sloshing whisky. ‘What?’

Romy’s heart was knocking against her ribs but she made herself look levelly back at him. ‘Will you marry me?’ she said again. ‘I’ll understand if you say no,’ she said, when he just stared at her. ‘I probably deserve it. I had a chance to marry you and I turned it down. We could have had the last twelve years together, but I was too afraid that it would all go wrong.’

Lex put his glass on the table, very carefully, and turned to look at Romy. She was twisting the bangles around her wrist, her eyes huge and dark. ‘What’s changed? Why aren’t you afraid now?’

‘I am afraid,’ she said. ‘But I’m more afraid of spending the rest of my life regretting that I was too much of a coward to take a chance at happiness. I’m afraid of spending the rest of my life missing you, the way I’ve missed you the last few weeks. I’m afraid of never really being happy again without you.’

‘Romy…’

‘I’m afraid that it might not work,’ she said again, ‘but I want to take the risk, if you will.’

Lex was looking stunned and Romy took her bottom lip between her teeth, all at once regretting the words that had come tumbling out of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said remorsefully. ‘I shouldn’t be talking like this, not today. Today should be about your father, not about me. Oh, Lex, I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘What was I thinking?’

‘Perhaps,’ Lex said slowly, ‘you were thinking that this is exactly the day we should be talking like this. Perhaps it takes death to make us realise how we want to live.’

Might it be all right after all? Romy took a breath and let it out very carefully. ‘I don’t want to live without ever seeing my father again,’ she said. ‘But most of all, I don’t want to live without you, Lex.’

‘Romy,’ he said again, laying a hand against her cheek. ‘Romy, what if I can’t make you happy? You’re so…alive. You need warmth and laughter and love.’

‘You love me, don’t you?’

He half smiled. ‘Yes, I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you,’ he said, unable to stop his fingers slipping under her hair to the nape of her neck. ‘Loving you isn’t the problem. You were the one who said that. But love wasn’t enough before. We’re still different people. I’d like to think I can change to be more like you, but what if I can only be like my father?’

‘You’re not your father,’ said Romy, ‘ and you’re not my father either. You’re you, and I love you the way you are. You don’t have to change. You just have to be brave enough to love me and believe that I love you too, just as I need to be brave enough to trust that you won’t leave me and Freya. Love isn’t enough,’ she said. ‘We need courage, too, just like Willie said.’

Lex’s hand was warm at the nape of her neck. ‘Then we’ll be brave together,’ he said and drew her towards him.

It was a gentle kiss at first, like a first kiss, as if he couldn’t quite believe that she was there, that she was real. Then it was tender and it was sweet, and the world shifted and righted itself at last.

They kissed and kissed in a torrent of relief, sinking down into the soft cushions until the sweetness grew hard and hungry, but when they broke for breath the world was still right. This, this, was right. Romy was lying tucked into him, her arms round him, her face pressed into his throat. Lex could feel her lovely mouth curved into a smile against his skin and the tight band that had been clamped around his chest for so long unlocked and loosened.

He tried breathing in and out experimentally, and the ease of it made his head reel. Wrapping his arms around Romy, he held her close.

‘Romy, are you sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ she said, tilting her head back to kiss his jaw. ‘Are you?’

‘What about all those practicalities that were such a problem before?’

She wriggled up so that she could look at him properly. ‘I suppose we could always take Willie’s advice and compromise. Maybe you could learn to live in a less than perfectly ordered flat, and maybe I could learn to tidy up more. I don’t think it would be easy, but we could both try.’

‘This flat isn’t suitable for Freya anyway,’ said Lex. ‘Why don’t we buy a house in Somerset?’

‘Somerset’s not very convenient for the office,’ she pointed out.

‘Then we’ll have a house in London as well.’

‘But you like this flat! It’s perfect for you.’

‘It wasn’t perfect when you left. I hated it without you,’ he said. ‘I missed you both so much. Every night I’d sit here with the phone in my hand and think about calling you and begging you to come back.’

Romy pulled away slightly, wondering what she would have done if he had called. ‘But you never rang?’

‘I thought you’d say no. I thought you wanted Freya to get to know her father, and I thought that was the right thing to do. Michael’s her father, not me.’ Lex hesitated. ‘You said it, Romy. You said your father was the only one you’d ever have.’

‘But that was me,’ she said. ‘There was no one else for me. Being a parent is about more than biology,’ she told him. ‘I hope Michael will always be part of her life, and if he is Freya is going to be lucky. She’ll have two fathers, and I hope she’ll love you both, but you’re the one who’s going to teach her to play the piano and comfort her at night when she’s teething…oh, and change her nappies, of course!’

Lex laughed at that. ‘When you said I had to be brave, I didn’t think you meant that brave!’

‘Losing your nerve?’ she asked, smiling, and he pulled her against him for a hard kiss.

‘No, I don’t mind what I do, as long as I’m with you. I’ll even change nappies!’

‘Now I know you love me,’ said Romy, kissing him back.

‘Always,’ said Lex.

Pushing herself up so that she could lean over him, Romy rested her hand over his heart. ‘You haven’t given me an answer yet,’ she reminded him. ‘I asked you to marry me. Will you?’ Stupidly, she could hear a hint of anxiety in her voice.

Lex didn’t answer immediately. ‘Are you sure you want to be married, Romy?’ he asked seriously. ‘I know the idea of commitment isn’t easy for you. We can be together without marriage if that’s more comfortable for you.’

‘But that wouldn’t be brave,’ said Romy. ‘I don’t want to keep my options open or to know that I can move on if I need to. Lex. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and trusting you and knowing that every day you’ll come home and love me back. Marriage is a promise. I want to make that promise in front of everybody, and I want to keep it, with you.’

Lex picked up the hand that covered his heart and kissed her palm before he drew her down to him once more. ‘Then since you ask so nicely,’ he said, ‘yes, I will.’