Merger By Matrimony

‘So if I asked you to marry me, your answer would be…?’

‘Yes! Yes, a thousand times over! Yes, yes, yes!’

There was much fumbling, then a small box was retrieved from a trouser pocket. The look in her eyes, eyes that could still turn his bones to water, made the unaccustomed and arduous hike through jewellery shops worth every minute of exhaustion.

‘My mother is going to be so pleased,’ he murmured with blushing pleasure.

‘Only your mother?’

‘Pleased doesn’t begin to tell you what I feel now. I’m walking on cloud nine. But…’

‘No buts.’ She slipped the ring onto her finger and held it up to the light, letting herself be dazzled by the solitaire glow from the diamond.

‘Panama is completely different from London,’ he said gravely.

‘One city is much the same as another when you’re with someone you love,’ she answered in as grave a voice as his. And she meant every word of it. She closed her eyes and sighed with happiness as he leaned across the small table in the restaurant to place a kiss on her mouth, a kiss that was as tender as it was laden with the heady promise of the life stretching out before them.

Everything was so different and so good. She was even beginning to learn French, to be as bilingual as he was.

‘And,’ he said, sitting back and leaning with his elbows resting on the table, ‘how do you feel about starting a family? I have to admit that when we went to see Destiny and Callum and their baby, I felt a little envious.’

‘I know. Little Rosie’s perfect, isn’t she? Those green, green eyes and black, black hair.’ She smiled at the memory of her one-time fiancé and his fierce devotion to the two women in his life. Destiny and baby Rose. He had barely been able to tear his proud eyes away from the two of them.

‘Yes, my darling Henri,’ Stephanie said dreamily, ‘I think starting a family would be a very good idea indeed…’