“You can turn it over. It is in English on the back,” she pleaded and turned my hands.

“Josie,” I read aloud. “Please will you be my stepmother, I love you, Dauphine.” I choked out the last word. “Oh, honey.” Did Xavier know that his daughter had done this? What if he wasn’t quite ready despite our understanding upstairs? I whipped around to look at him. “Oh,” I gasped.

My eyes landed on Xavier, down on one knee, and my hand came up and covered my mouth.

He held out an open box, a crooked smile on his face, and inside was nestled a brilliant single diamond ring.

Next to me Dauphine jumped up and down.

“Joséphine,” Xavier began, his voice rough. He cleared it. “Joséphine, you are the empress of my heart. You own me. I know it’s been fast. But I have never been more sure. You have made me believe in love again, and I cannot imagine a world in which you are not by my side—”

“Et moi,” Dauphine interrupted.

I laughed, tears rolling down my cheeks.

“Desolé, mon chou. Ahem, I cannot imagine a world in which you are not by our side as part of our family.” His blue eyes gazed at me and into me, fathomless and earnest and full of more love and trust and hope than I could ever have thought myself worthy. “I love you, Josephine Marin. We love you. I know it seems fast, but I have never been more sure of anything in my whole life than how I feel about you. Please will you marry me and make my heart whole again and make our family whole again? I promise I will take care of you. You and your mother. We can live here, or there, or anywhere. On a boat, on land, I don’t care as long as we are together. And you can work, or don’t work. Build ugly buildings or save old ones. Whatever makes you happy. But I will always respect the importance of what you choose to do—”

“Yes,” I cried. I grabbed Dauphine into a tight hug, then released her and fell to my knees in front of Xavier. “Yes. Yes. Yes, I will marry you. I don’t care where we live as long as it’s not a boat. But anywhere else, as long as I am with you.” I took his face in my hands and only this close could I see the glistening emotion in his eyes. I wiped my thumbs across his cheekbones and then leaned in to kiss him, crushing the box with the ring between us just so I could hold him.

I heard him snap it closed and his arms came around me and held me tight.

“Hourra! Hourra!” Dauphine squealed, and then burst into tears.

“Oh no.” I reached for her. Xavier and I folded her between us. “It’s okay, darling. Don’t be sad.”