Finally, I heard the door shut downstairs. No, slam. It slammed shut.

I slipped on Dylan’s thick flannel robe and gently padded down the main staircase. As I descended towards the foyer, I heard something else slam in the kitchen, and I turned to look down the hallway. Dylan’s arms were braced on the marble island top, and a newspaper was on the surface in front of him. All the lights were off, apart from the one above the stove, lighting his features.

“Fuck!” he practically shouted, and then I noticed the crystal tumbler of brown liquid gripped in his hand. His voice was so loud and stern I jumped back a little, my arm hitting the bannister in the process, and I gripped my elbow to dull the pain.

Dylan caught my movement and looked up at me.

“Damsel,” he said, sounding sad, off, like maybe this wasn’t his first drink of the night.

“Hey,” I said, sidling up next to him. “You’re home late.”

He exhaled, like he was bracing himself, and slid the Evening Standard towards me. On the front page, in full color, was a set of three photos.

In the center was Dylan emerging from a small jewelry store, and there was snow on the ground. It had only snowed like that once over the winter, back in December. To the right of it, there was a picture of me, standing alone on a street corner. It had been taken a couple of weeks prior. I was looking at my phone and had a distracted look on my face. I had no idea what I must have been thinking in that photo, but I conceded that I looked stressed at best. And to the left was a picture of Dylan standing next to some freakishly tall brunette at a party, wearing that ocean-blue tie I’d picked out. The headline read, “Dashing Dylan Can’t Decide?”

The caption hinted that the jeweler’s apprentice had told sources that, indeed, Dylan had picked up an engagement ring that day.

I found myself exhaling too, and actually laughing a little. These misinformed mishaps on the part of the press used to stress me out, make me question everything. Now they felt inconvenient and offensive more than anything, but not threatening. I pushed the paper away, towards the far end of the island, and pulled the robe tighter. Dylan looked at me with his brow furrowed.

“The little git’s been sacked.” Dylan’s voice was harsh.

“Who?” I asked, confused.

“The jeweler’s apprentice. When I went to pick up your ring, the owner of the shop assured me of his discretion. He’s been handling our watches and jewelry for decades, and I had a voicemail from him this evening to apologize. And to tell me he’d sacked the little bastard.”

I sighed. I honestly didn’t care about the jeweler—it just seemed like the kind of thing that was bound to happen.

“So you do have a ring?” I was trying to make a joke, to get him smiling, but his lips didn’t curve away from their hard line. I sighed, resigned to the mood he was in. “Who is she?” I asked, pointing at the picture of the girl.

“You can’t tell me you actually believe this rubbish?” Dylan had the nerve to sound pissed. As though I had done something wrong here. It wasn’t like I thought he had done anything wrong.

“Dylan, no. Of course not. I trust you. I was just curious. If half of London thinks you’re just as likely to be engaged to her,” I said, pointing at the couture-clad femme fatale, “I just kind of want to know who she is.” I didn’t like how this was moving into fight territory. I moved closer and linked my arm in his, trying to pull him towards me.

“Lady Beatrice Pollard.” He threw back another sip of whisky. His arms were locked on the island, and I felt as though no matter what I did, I couldn’t get him to relax and look at me, talk to me. “You shouldn’t have to put up with this shite.” His upper lip was rigid—it was an expression I’d seen before, when he was lost to whatever stress-induced place he was in. There was no way this was just about the newspaper—we dealt with crap like that all the time and it never put him in that foul of a mood. He must have had a terrible day. I had just the thing to turn the evening around.

“Well,” I said, standing a little taller, moving against the island so I could see his face. So he could see mine. I wanted him to see how sincere I was. I touched his arm, rubbing his skin with my thumb. “Baby, I think maybe it’s time we just come out with it. I want to get engaged, you know, for real.” I smiled at him, waiting for the relieved excited smile I’d been anticipating. There was a beat. Then another. No wide eyes. No big smile. All I got was silence. Why wasn’t he responding?

“Dylan, this past week Hannah asked me to extend the New York trip for six months. She wanted me to run her business there while it gets off the ground.”

His eyebrows raised a bit at this. “What did you say?”

“No. I said no. And you know why? Because I realized this is where I belong. It made me realize that I don’t want to wait anymore.” I stood on my tiptoes, grabbed his lapels, and tried to pull him towards me. “I want to be here with you, starting our life together. I’m ready, knighty. I want to get married. I want it all.”

Dylan took another swig of his whisky. “Maybe you should go.”

“What?” I asked, furrowing my brow. There was no way I’d heard him properly.

“It would probably be good for you to go.”

My heels landed on the floor. I took a step back, and my heart slammed into my chest. “What are you saying?”

“We can’t go public with our engagement right now. We can’t get married yet.” How could he be saying this?

“Dylan? I don’t—what do you mean?” I tried to remain calm. It was late. He was mad, about what I still didn’t know, and probably drunk. I was tired. We probably shouldn’t be talking about this now, but we already were, and I needed to know what the hell was going on before I got on a plane in eight hours. He was supposed to be jumping for joy. He’d been begging me to say yes just yesterday. I took a deep breath, stood up, and went to the fridge for the wine. It was abundantly clear that this wasn’t going to be the excited we’re-doing-this conversation that ended in orgasms and disheveled sheets.

“Damsel, you should go for the six months—it’s a great opportunity, and I won’t be responsible for you giving it up.” He ran his hand through his hair, took another swig of his drink, and landed his hands back on the island in front of him. “And I’m not throwing you into this life, opening you up to all the pressures of being with me. Not when I haven’t got everything sorted myself. I need to get this MI6 nonsense behind me. I’ve got to get the board of bloody Hale Shipping off my back. And I’ve got to get Humboldt back in my name, before I can properly attend to a wedding, to guarding you against the unpleasantness that is my life, and from the absolutely heinous reality of socializing with this lot.” He gestured to the picture of Beatrice again and huffed, “So, no. We’re not announcing our engagement until I can figure out a way to shield you from all that, until I know this shite won’t touch you.” He stared at me, as though that were it, as though that made any sense at all, as though the conversation were anywhere close to over.

“Are you finished?” I asked him, feeling the anger in my voice and having a sip of my wine.

He nodded, wary. And he should have looked wary. My fury was rising, and I was barely keeping it in check. I felt my shoulders stiffen, and I found myself standing on the other side of the island, my own hands braced on the cold marble, mirroring his position opposite me.

“Dylan, do you realize how crazy you sound? First of all, I’m not giving up opportunities. I’ve opened a store. In London. The next step for me isn’t going back to New York and doing it again. The next step for me is something bigger. I don’t know what it is, but I want to figure it out here with you. I want my next career move to be something that will work for our life, for our married life. And do you honestly think that Humboldt and your mom aren’t things I’m thinking about and dealing with now? The only thing that would change if the world knew we were engaged is that we wouldn’t have to put up with this crap anymore.” It was my turn to gesture towards the newspaper. I’d only meant to point to it, but somehow I’d ended up shoving it halfway across the island. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, you are engaged. To me.” I pointed to my bare chest, and Dylan’s eyes went wide. He looked from the paper to me, finally taking in that I was getting pissed. Really pissed. He stood a little taller, running his hands through his hair, tilting his head to the ceiling, rolling his shoulders, searching for answers. His collar undone, his jacket hanging lose, he looked frustrated, angry, lost. His exhale practically echoed across the room.

“Lydia, you have to trust me—”

I groaned, practically growled, in frustration. “No! No more ‘trust me’ crap. Dylan I do trust you—this isn’t what that’s about.”

“So it’s about a big fancy wedding then, is it?” He was willfully misunderstanding me. He knew I didn’t give a fuck about that shit. Leaning over the island, bracing himself on locked arms, looking right at me, his face was hard and cold, like he wanted to keep fighting, even if it was about all the wrong things. “You want the more flattering kind of paparazzi attention now? Is that it? Think once we’re engaged the press will all of a sudden treat you like a darling? Well, don’t—”

“Fuck. You.” I’d never said that to him. To anyone. But it was exactly what I felt in that moment.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You know damn well I don’t give a shit about that stuff. I don’t know why you’re pushing me away, Dylan, but I’m ready. I want to do this. With you.” I gestured between us emphatically, and he stood there, his hands hanging at his sides, looking at me, half desperate, half mad, I wasn’t even sure anymore. “I don’t want to stand to the side anymore while you handle things alone. I hate that in the privacy of our home, I’m with you, I’m there, I’m part of our team, but once we step out that door, in the eyes of the entire country, you’re on your own. I’m here, Dylan. I know that once we get engaged there is going to be more—there’ll be expectations. Expectations we’ve avoided while we’ve kept our engagement a secret. I get that—that’s why we were keeping it a secret. But I want to be in it together. Fully. You’ve been patient. You’ve waited for months for me to be ready to dive in. Well, I’m ready. So why are you fighting me? Why are we going to keep inviting this crap”—I pointed at the paper again and said it forcefully, more forcefully than it had even come out in my mind—“into our lives when we don’t have to? I want the world to look at you and see the invincible team we are. Because we are. Together we can figure out the life we want. We can do anything. But the longer we let this go, the more we’re going to allow them to break us down.”

I was so frustrated. I needed him to hear me. I stood there, his robe falling open around my shoulders, my hair hanging loosely, and I willed my expression to say what my words were failing to communicate.

“Lydia,” he sighed in a cold way, sounding frustrated himself, and put his hands in his pockets. “You don’t understand. We get married now, before I’ve figured this out, and I’m walking right into my father’s life. Overwhelmed by the duty of being duke and the rest of it, and I won’t risk becoming the man he was, one who threw his wife under the bus to make it happen and let that life ruin him, ruin her.”

“You’re not your father!” I practically groaned the words. We’d been here before. I knew he knew he could be a better duke than his father had been—he already was.

His head snapped up and his narrowed eyes said I’d never understand. “You’re right, and I never will be.”

“And I’m not your mother!” I looked at him, placed my hand against my chest, pleading, trying one last time to cut through whatever was eating him. “Can’t you see that? You told me once that we could do this our way. That as a team, we could take this on, that you wanted to be duke with me by your side. Has that changed? What happened to make you so skittish all of a sudden?”

“Christ.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Of course nothing’s changed. But now isn’t the right time. There’s too much…I just need to get this all sorted…once we announce our engagement, the floodgates will be open—”

“They’re already open!” I screamed, hitting the marble countertop with my hand. “You think photos of me looking pathetic on the sidewalk, like some kind of naïve thing, are nothing? Because, they’re not. I know it’s not true, you know, but do you think it’s easy to walk down the street with everyone out there thinking I’m some kind of sad desperate girl clinging to you? You think it’s any easier helping you run Humboldt in secret than it would be to help you run it in public? You think any of this is easy now?”

“Baby—”

“Dylan, are we engaged or not?”

“Damsel, don’t play that card. Of course we’re bloody well engaged. You know that’s not what this is about.”

“Do I? I don’t get it, Dylan. I’ve proven that I’m there, a thousand percent, when it comes to Humboldt. And I’ve told you I’m ready to take on the press. Even if I’m not eager for WedDyLy or whatever the press will call it, I’d rather the coverage be true, which is easier to handle than the lies. So, what? Do you think I can’t handle it? You think I’m not ready to be a duchess? Did you ever?”

“Lydia. Stop being ridiculous.” His lips drew into a hard line. He was mad. Well, I was furious. I knew he wanted to marry me. I didn’t doubt that. But I knew that didn’t mean he was going to, and I was starting to believe he really didn’t think I could handle anything.

“Dylan. Look, I love that you’re protective. Or sometimes I do—I mean, sure, it’s sexy. It’s sweet that you want to give me this perfect easy life, but that’s not life, Dylan. I don’t want to be some quiet, kept woman, unaware of her husband’s struggles. Fuck, I’m not unaware of your struggles. I’m living them right alongside you. Only instead of you owning that, instead of being able to proudly stand beside you and call them our struggles, I’ve been in the shadows, which was fine before. It was what we wanted, what I wanted, but I don’t want that anymore. And you know what? I’m kicking ass at my own life too. We’re already doing this together, and doing it well. So let’s really do it, Dylan.” I sighed, frustrated, knowing I wasn’t getting anywhere. “It’s like you want control over how all of this will play out, you want this pretty little risk-free version of life—”

“Goddamn right, I do.”

“Well it doesn’t exist, Dylan. That’s not life. We’re living life now, already, so why the hell can’t we do it married?”

He pushed away from the island and his hands went flying into the air.

“Bloody hell! You’re the one who wanted this engagement to be a secret!”

“And you didn’t! And I don’t anymore!”

“Well, you were right to want it to be a secret—I’m not going to drag you into this! I’m not!”

I stared at him. At his mussed hair. At the empty glass. At his loosened collar. And I realized this fight was over.

“Then I guess we’re done here.” I tightened my robe once again, noticing it had fallen loose at my chest, and stepped backwards, away from the island.

“What do you mean?” His eyes were narrowed.

“I mean, I have nothing else to say.” I knew my expression must have looked void, empty. And it wasn’t what I felt—I felt full, hot, powerless, and powerful in the same moment. Desperate and resigned. “I know what I want, Dylan. And you’re not willing to give it to me. And as someone who loves you, loves you with everything, you can’t imagine how painful it is to look at you, all of you, and see you holding up an epic stop sign that says ‘no trespassing.’”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means, how stupid am I that after everything, I’m right back where I started? Trying to convince you that we’re worth fighting for. Maybe you’re right, Dylan. Maybe it’s time for me to go.”

He stared at me, his expression morphing into one of desperation, but he said nothing. I looked at him, waiting, and with every passing second, the waiting turned into sadness. Why did it seem like I always found myself back at this same place?

I turned around and headed towards the stairs. My flight to New York was in less than eight hours, and instead of celebrating that we were going to make our engagement public, I wasn’t even sure we were engaged anymore. I wished with everything that he’d say something, anything. That he’d call my name, say damsel, say stop, say he was sorry, snap the fuck out of it. But I was halfway up the stairs and all there was was silence.