“Solid wifely question,” he praised with a wink. “And good. Maria couldn’t find much to nitpick about, so that’s always positive.”

She watched him closely. “And your dad? What did he think?”

Clarke shrugged. “Hard to read. He didn’t seem displeased by my team’s suggestions, so that’s a start.”

“He’ll come around, you know. He’s just making you earn your stripes before he hands over the company reins.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re good at your job,” she said, squeezing his hands. “And more important to me, it’s obvious that you love it. Something, by the way, I never thought possible back when you wanted to be a safari tour guide as a kid.”

“I maintain that that was a solid career track.”

“Yes, but it’s mostly honeymooners,” she teased. “Whomever would you sleep with?”

His grin slipped slightly. “Is that all you think I care about?”

She looked surprised at his tone. “No. Of course not. I mean, I don’t know. You said yourself today you’d never thought about your wedding. I guess I realized I’ve never been able to picture you getting married either.”

Clarke started to withdraw his hands, but Audrey tightened her grip.

“Hold on,” she protested. “I didn’t mean to say that you wouldn’t make a great husband. I mean that you’ve never shown interest in a long-term relationship. Outside of Elizabeth.”

He heard the question in her voice, but he didn’t answer it.

“Did you mean what you told the wedding planner?” he asked. “Is the spectacle your dream wedding?”

She hesitated, clearly tempted to press him to talk about his ex, but instead she smiled and shrugged. “Yeah. I don’t know how you’re surprised. I mean, you saw my wedding scrapbooks when I was twelve.”

“Saw? You once made me spend an entire afternoon gluing pictures of wedding cakes into a spiral notebook.”

“An even exchange for me passing that note to Steffi Miller at ballet class.”

“That took you five seconds. Those damn cake pictures took hours.”

“I seem to remember that the result of that note passing was you and Steffi making out in Bryant Park. I got exactly nothing out of those wedding notebooks.”

“Not true. You just started your wedding planning really, really early. Now you have a head start.”

“Yeah, for a wedding that won’t be happening.”

“Well, I mean, no, not yours and mine. But your real wedding.”

Even as he said it, the thought felt strange. Objectively, he’d always known Audrey would likely get married someday just as sure as he’d known that he likely would not. But now he realized just what Audrey’s inevitable marriage would mean. No more dinners like this one, just the two of them. No more being each other’s last-minute dates to events and fund-raisers. No more casual Friday nights binging on The Fast and the Furious.