Chapter 22: Ask Me

I crossed forty feet of boardwalk in front of forty thousand people and put my hand over his pocket.

"Don't," I said, very low.

"Kate."

"Not here."

His eyes dropped to my hand. His voice was careful.

"Lucy said you'd say yes."

"Lucy doesn't know what I'm going to say."

"Then what are you going to say?"

"I'll tell you when you ask me properly."

I kept my hand where it was.

"Not with a crowd you picked. Not today, with my father's note still burning."

Lucy's phone was pointed at us from ten feet away. I turned my head and looked at it.

"Lucy," I said. "Off."

She groaned and lowered it.

I took Malachi's wrist and walked him through the bar and out the back door into the alley, where the delivery crates were.

It smelled like fryer oil and the sea.

"Tell me the plan," I said.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Tonight. The ballroom at the Gilt. Four hundred of the staff and the families. A band. I was going to ask you in the middle of a song."

"In front of four hundred people."

"They're ours. They stood up for us."

"You didn't ask if I wanted them there."

"It was a surprise."

"Malachi." I made my voice gentle. "A week ago you swore nothing about me without me."

He flinched.

"You decided the room," I said. "You decided the song. You decided who got to watch me answer."

I held his eyes.

"You never asked how I'd feel with four hundred people looking at me."

"I wanted everyone to see you chosen," he said. His voice cracked. "The way he made them see you rejected."

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