Chapter 19 - THE PROPOSAL THAT WAS NOT A PROPOSAL
Three years passed.
Lily turned six.
Rosa completed her degree.
Her research team received approval for its first clinical partnership.
Ethan remained unmarried.
Tabloids repeatedly claimed he and Rosa had reunited.
They had not.
They had become close.
That was different.
One evening, after Lily’s piano recital, Ethan invited Rosa into the empty parlor.
A small velvet box rested on the piano.
Rosa stopped.
“No.”
Ethan laughed.
“It is not a ring.”
Inside was Rosa’s original Columbia identification card.
Charles had kept it inside the foundation archive.
Ethan had placed it in a simple silver frame.
“I thought you might want this returned.”
Rosa touched the faded photograph.
She was twenty-four in the image.
Tired.
Ambitious.
Unaware of everything ahead.
“Thank you.”
Ethan sat at the piano.
“I am not asking you to marry me.”
“That is an unusual beginning.”
“I am asking whether you would consider dinner.”
“We have dinner with Lily every Thursday.”
“Dinner without Lily.”
Rosa looked toward him.
“As a date?”
“Yes.”
“You disappeared after our last series of dates.”
“I remember.”
“You signed away my scholarship without reading the page.”
“I remember that too.”
“You spent years treating questions as threats.”
“Yes.”
“Why would I say yes?”
“Because I will still be here if you say no.”
Rosa studied him.
That was the answer she needed.
Not confidence.
Not a promise that he had become perfect.
The certainty that her refusal would not make him vanish.
“One dinner,” she said.
Ethan smiled.
“One dinner.”
From behind the hallway curtain, Lily shouted,
“I knew it.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“You were supposed to be upstairs.”
“I was listening.”
Ethan looked at Rosa.
“She gets that from you.”
May you like
Rosa shook her head.
“She gets it from the piano.”
