Chapter 31: Ask Me Properly

He asked in front of everyone, which was the only way I would have believed it.

It was the Saturday evening reception at Larkin, the last night of the first show.

The gallery was full, with two hundred guests and a row of photographers by the door.

Ansel was by the bar telling a collector that all his best work was done under duress.

The old teacher and his wife stood in front of the terrace painting, holding hands.

Lachlan's mother sat on a bench in the corner, in gray silk, with her back very straight.

Rory ran between the legs of the crowd with his loupe, inspecting the hems of the guests' trousers.

At eight o'clock, a spoon rang on a glass.

I turned.

Lachlan stood in the middle of my floor with a small black box in one hand.

The room fell quiet in a wave.

"Excuse me," he said. "This will take a minute."

He cleared his throat.

"I had a speech. I wrote it six times. I've thrown it away."

Somebody laughed nervously.

"I was never good at asking," he said. "I was good at telling."

He looked at me.

"I told my wife she would leave with nothing. She built something worth more than my whole house."

He walked toward me.

"Five weeks ago, I signed away control of my family's company."

He did not blink.

"It cost me about two hundred million dollars."

He stopped in front of me.

"I'm telling you that so you know what it is not. It is not a price. I'm not buying you."

"Lachlan," I said.

"Let me finish. I have wanted to do this wrong for months."

He went down on one knee on the white gallery floor.

The photographers' cameras clicked, and he did not look at them.

He did not look at anyone but me.

"I have no right to ask you for anything," he said. "I'm asking anyway."

He opened the box.

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