"I was going to say surprisingly romantic," she said.
"I'll accept surprisingly romantic," he said.
She kissed him. The real kind. When she broke apart she was laughing, slightly, the warm kind.
"The dinner," he said. "I had a plan. The terrace, the good bottle—"
"Better than this?" she said.
"I had notes," he said.
"You had notes for the proposal."
"Four points," he said. "They were good points."
"I'm sure they were," she said. "But this was right. Wednesday morning, correspondence, Isolde has food on her face, and you said the right thing."
He looked at Isolde. She did indeed have food on her face. She appeared entirely unbothered.
"Wednesday morning," he said.
"Put that in your notes," she said.
He looked at her — his person, at his desk, in the October light, with the ring
