Chapter 24 - The Question Everyone Asks

Callum knew the question was coming before the reporter raised her hand.

The foundation event had been painless for forty-three minutes, which meant they had been living on borrowed time.

Ailsa stood beside him beneath the lights of the small stage, one hand resting around his forearm. She had put it there when they walked out together and had not moved it, even after the photographs were finished.

That detail had become harder not to notice.

The moderator smiled toward the front row. "One last question."

A woman from a lifestyle magazine stood.

"Everyone has heard how private the engagement was, and you have both said there is no date yet. But surely the obvious question is: when is the wedding?"

Callum could answer in six words.

We're enjoying the engagement for now.

Safe. Conventional. Empty enough to survive inspection.

He had heard variations of it from public couples for years. Nobody would object. Nobody would ask whether Ailsa Fraser had spent most of her adult life saying she did not intend to marry.

The moderator turned to him first.

Callum felt Ailsa's fingers tighten around his arm.

Not a warning.

A reminder that the answer concerned her too.

He could make the room easy for both of them by giving it what it expected.

Instead, he turned his head toward her.

"Ailsa?"

The room shifted.

She did not remove her hand.

For half a second, she seemed surprised that he had left the answer open. Then her expression settled into the composed look he had learned not to mistake for comfort.

"We don't have a wedding date," she said.

The reporter smiled. "Not even a season?"

"No."

A few people laughed.

The reporter did not sit down.

"Callum Sinclair is one of Edinburgh's most eligible men. You have an engagement ring on your hand. People are going to assume a wedding is the point."

Ailsa glanced at the ring.

Callum waited.

She could have softened it. Someday. Eventually. When things calm down.

Any of those would have protected the cover.

All of them would have made her lie to him in a way their contract had never required.

Ailsa lifted her gaze.

"People can assume what they like. I don't make marriage promises because other people find them reassuring."

The laughter disappeared.

Callum felt attention sharpen across the room.

The reporter blinked. "Are you saying you don't intend to marry him?"

His communications director, somewhere offstage, was probably experiencing organ failure.

Ailsa's hand remained on his arm.

That mattered more than the silence.

"I've never treated marriage as proof that a relationship is serious," she said. "Callum knew that before we became engaged."

The answer was true enough to be dangerous.

The reporter looked delighted.

"So this engagement may never become a marriage?"

Ailsa could have let go of him then.

She did the opposite.

Her fingers slid down his sleeve until her hand found his.

Callum opened his palm.

She laced their fingers together.

Deliberately.

"No wedding date is not the same thing as no relationship," she said. "I'm standing here with him because I chose to be. I'm not going to make a promise about a ceremony just to make that choice easier for strangers to understand."

Something in Callum's chest went very still.

The room had asked her whether refusing marriage meant refusing him.

She had answered no without surrendering anything else.

The moderator glanced toward Callum.

"And you're comfortable with that?"

Another easy answer presented itself.

Of course. We're in no rush.

He discarded it.

"Ailsa has never hidden her position from me."

Callum kept his eyes on the reporter.

"I knew it when I asked her to be part of my life. I'm not going to stand here and pretend she owes me a different answer because people prefer a traditional one."

Then someone near the back applauded.

Another person joined.

The moderator smiled, visibly relieved to have been handed a way out that did not involve explaining the collapse of a billionaire engagement onstage.

"So the official answer is: no date, no panic?"

Ailsa's thumb moved once over the side of Callum's hand.

He looked at her.

Her mouth curved.

"No panic," she said.

The audience laughed.

The tension broke.

The moderator thanked them. Applause rose, lighter now, and the event moved on to closing remarks.

Callum barely heard them.

Ailsa still had his hand.

She did not need it for balance. The cameras had already captured enough. No one could accuse them of looking distant after the answer she had just given.

Still, she kept contact until they stepped offstage.

His communications director met them behind the curtain.

For several seconds, she simply stared.

Ailsa said, "You look unwell."

"I had a statement prepared."

"That was your first mistake."

"It said you were enjoying the engagement," Callum said.

"We are."

Callum turned toward her.

Ailsa caught the look and added, "Operationally."

His communications director shut her eyes.

"The clips are already moving. Some people are calling it refreshing. Some are calling it a commitment crisis. One outlet has used the phrase anti-wedding fiancée."

"Better than gold digger," Ailsa said.

His communications director looked at him.

"You backed her."

"Yes."

"You could have given the standard answer," Callum said.

"Yes."

"And saved us approximately fourteen new questions," Callum said.

"Probably."

Ailsa's hand was still in his.

He realized it at the same moment she did.

Neither moved immediately.

"I am going to check the press room," his communications director said, with the strained dignity of someone refusing to comment on her employer's personal life. "Try not to create another headline before I come back."

She left.

Ailsa finally let go.

The loss of contact registered with unreasonable clarity.

Callum put both hands in his pockets.

"You didn't have to make it that explicit."

She looked at him. "Would you rather I had said soon?"

"No."

"Next year?"

"No," Callum said.

"When the flowers are in season?"

"I don't know when flowers are in season."

That got a laugh from her.

Then she sobered.

"You really don't mind that I said it like that?"

There were several answers available to him, and for once none of the easy ones appealed.

"I mind that the question keeps being treated like a debt you owe because I'm standing beside you."

Her expression changed.

Callum continued before he could reconsider.

"I don't mind that you answered honestly," Callum said.

"Even when honesty makes the engagement harder to sell?"

"You're still wearing the ring."

Ailsa looked down at it.

"And you were holding my hand while you told a room full of people you wouldn't promise me a wedding."

Her eyes returned to his.

"I noticed."

"So did I."

The space between them shifted.

Not the charged near-contact from yesterday in Exit's meeting room.

Something quieter.

More difficult.

A staff member appeared at the far end of the corridor and told them the rear exit was clear.

Their car waited below.

They walked downstairs side by side.

Ailsa did not take his arm.

Callum did not offer it.

The car door closed behind them.

Silence replaced the event.

For the first time all evening, no one was watching.

Ailsa turned toward him.

Callum had the sudden, exact memory of her stopping less than an inch from his mouth the day before.

There were no reporters here to challenge them.

No contract requirement.

No useful explanation waiting afterward.

Ailsa looked at him for a long moment.

Then she said, "Thank you for letting me answer."

Callum did not move.

"You're welcome."

The city began to slide past the windows.

Neither of them looked away.