I Asked Him to Ask Me Again
Chapter 11 - I Asked Him to Ask Me Again
Two years passed after the first proposal.
Not because I was waiting for a perfect Sebastian.
There was no such person.
He still interrupted.
Still hated slow meetings.
Still believed half of Chicago drove badly.
Still had an instinct to solve first and ask second.
The difference was that instinct no longer automatically became action.
That mattered.
My career changed too.
I became manager of employee-relations compliance.
Six people reported to me.
The first month, one analyst missed a filing deadline.
My immediate reaction:
Why didn’t you tell me sooner?
She froze.
I heard myself.
Stopped.
“Let me start over.”
I took a breath.
“Thank you for telling me. Show me what happened.”
We fixed it.
No client lost rights.
Then I went home and told Sebastian.
He nodded thoughtfully.
I pointed.
“Do not grade me.”
He raised both hands.
“I was going to say I do the same thing.”
“Worse.”
“Probably.”
We laughed.
Then Ethan.
My brother’s life stabilized.
He sold the too-expensive house.
Not because I told him to.
He and his wife decided.
Moved somewhere smaller.
Paid me back part of the mortgage gift.
I told him to keep the rest only after he asked whether I meant it.
Consent can look absurdly formal when families first learn it.
Then Beatrice got sick.
Not dramatically.
Breast cancer.
Early stage.
Treatment.
She told Sebastian herself.
He immediately began listing doctors.
She interrupted.
“I have an oncologist.”
He stopped.
“What do you need?”
“Dinner Thursday.”
That was all.
He brought dinner.
No second opinion team.
No private hospital wing.
Beatrice later told me:
“He is exhausting when trained.”
She recovered after surgery and treatment.
No miracle language.
No lesson about cancer.
Just life.
Then Maria died.
Seventy-one.
Stroke.
Sudden.
That hurt in a way scandal never had.
She had retired only four years earlier.
She left no secret archive.
Thank God.
Her daughter found one note taped inside a cookbook:
If Sebastian ever brings back the talking robot, haunt him.
We laughed at the funeral.
Then cried.
Sebastian asked whether I wanted him beside me during burial.
“Yes.”
He stood there.
No speech.
That was enough.
Then one Sunday morning, we were making breakfast in my apartment.
He burned toast.
I told him.
He argued it was “dark.”
I looked at him.
At the man he had been.
At the man he still was.
At the ordinary kitchen.
No witnesses.
No need to certify anything.
I said:
“Do you still have the ring?”
He went still.
“Tessa.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Ask me again.”
He stared.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He did not run for the ring immediately.
Good.
He asked:
“What changed?”
“Nothing dramatic.”
“That sounds suspicious.”
I smiled.
“I stopped feeling like the answer was about your story.”
He understood.
Then he went to his apartment.
Returned forty minutes later with the same ring.
No larger stone.
No replacement.
“Tessa Ward, will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
Then:
“I keep Ward.”
“I know.”
“Separate lawyers.”
“Yes.”
“No Vale company role for me.”
“Yes.”
“No automatic security detail.”
“Yes.”
He waited this time.
“Unless there is a documented immediate threat and we review it together as soon as possible.”
“Yes.”
“No NDA covering crimes, abuse, safety, regulators, testimony, workplace complaints, or government cooperation.”
“Yes.”
“No donations to my employer without full related-party disclosure before anyone votes.”
He smiled.
“That one feels personal.”
“It is.”
“Yes.”
The prenup took four months.
My lawyer, Camille Foster, did not care how romantic we felt.
She asked:
“What happens if you separate after twelve years?”
Housing.
Joint property.
Insurance.
Retirement.
Security.
Privacy.
Records.
No financial punishment for leaving.
No claim on my employment.
No requirement that I accept Vale counsel for personal disputes.
Sebastian’s lawyer objected to pieces.
Mine objected to his.
They negotiated.
Nobody called disagreement betrayal.
That may have been the healthiest part.
Camille also insisted we discuss practical things neither of us wanted attached to romance.
What happens if I stop working for health reasons?
What happens if Sebastian becomes incapacitated?
Who can access medical records?
Who can make financial decisions?
Could Vale security enter my separate property without consent?
No, except immediate documented emergency.
Could I use Vale counsel automatically?
Only if I chose them independently after disclosure of conflict.
What happens to joint property if one of us dies?
Estate lawyers.
Separate from the prenup.
Boring.
Necessary.
At one meeting Sebastian tried to answer for me.
Camille stopped him.
“She has a mouth.”
He leaned back.
“Understood.”
I liked her immediately.
Later, in the elevator, Sebastian said:
“I hate your lawyer.”
“She is excellent.”
“I know.”
That was exactly why.
Then one provision Sebastian requested himself.
Any spouse may report suspected wrongdoing involving the other to counsel, regulators, law enforcement, or appropriate workplace authorities without prior notice and without violating marital confidentiality agreements.
I stared at him.
“You wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I never want love turned into a private reporting line.”
I kept it.
Then the wedding question.
Small.
No Vale hotel.
No corporate ballroom.
No synthetic announcements.
Beatrice asked:
“Can I give a toast?”
Sebastian said:
“That depends.”
She stared.
He corrected quickly.
“Yes.”
I laughed.
Then she said:
“I promise not to imitate your voice.”
That almost got her disinvited.
Almost.
Before the wedding, I visited Maria’s grave alone.
Not because I needed permission from the dead.
Because she had been the first employee in that mansion to say out loud that staff had never been shown the synthetic-voice policy.
A small fact.
A decisive one.
I left no flowers.
Maria hated cut flowers because “people pay money to watch plants die in vases.”
I brought coffee.
Set the paper cup beside the stone for ten minutes.
Then drank it myself because she would have called waste sinful.
On the drive home I realized I was calm.
No sign.
No blessing.
May you like
No fear that marrying Sebastian erased the person I had been before him.
That was when I knew the answer was still yes.
