There are a lot of things they don't tell you about love, and even more things they never warn you about proposing. For example, no one ever talks about how a proposal will quietly hijack your brain until it's the only thing you can think about while you're supposed to be running a global media empire, negotiating international contracts, and pretending you don't get butterflies every time your phone buzzes.
I woke up that Monday with a single, terrifying, exhilarating thought: I was going to ask Elara to marry me. That, in itself, felt momentous enough to warrant a brass band or at least some discreet confetti, but the world was inconveniently indifferent to my private revelation. The only thing waiting for me in my inbox was another series of emails from Felix about some client meltdown in Berlin and a reminder from my mother that "pearls are always appropriate."
Which, frankly, was less helpful than I'd hoped.
