Romantic Evening.

Laura sang softly to herself as she put the finishing touches to the table. and lit the candles. He would be back at any moment, she could have set her watch by him.

Sure enough, he came in and left jacket and briefcase exactly where he always did. He looked at the candles, then headed into the kitchen. "Could be a fuse has gone." he said.

"No." said Laura, "I just thought it would be nice. The lights are fine."

He came back and kissed her cheek. "Sweet thought, but I have a lot of paperwork to do. I'll take my food with me, assuming you haven't ruined it again." He smiled at what he thought was a joke, but she didn't find it funny. "Oh, I thought we should talk about getting married."

"Married?" she said, not having suspected he had given it a moment's thought.

"Yes," he said, "Makes sense. Tidier on all the accounting and legal stuff."

"Tidier? You want to marry me because it's tidier?" she said.

"Don't say it like that! I want to marry you because I love you. It just happens it would also make sound financial sense. Obviously, we need to choose our time carefully."

"Wilson, you haven't even proposed!" she said, wondering if it was somehow unreasonable of her to be angry.

"What, down on one knee? Laura, we don't need that stuff. That's for kids. We're mature adults making a rational decision to place our continued cohabitation on a legal footing. Hearts and flowers are all very well, but what you want is long-term security. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

She gave him his food, served up her own and then sat alone at the table, gazing disconsolately at her plate. It wasn't that she'd expected some huge romantic gesture, a room full of flowers or even a single red rose. She just wished that he didn't see her as just another part of his life to be organised as he saw fit. It didn't occur to him that she might not want to get married right away or even that she might need him to ask.

She pushed the plate aside and sat back, closing her eyes, wishing she could summon into being a man who was romantic and tender and much less uptight and who didn't make her feel as if she wanted to run wild, just to make him see who she was. Not that he would see. He saw any little flash of her real nature as merely another bitter disappointment on the road to making her the perfect executive's wife.

That was the sad truth. She disappointed him, he disappointed her and she knew it would always be like that, but perfect relationships only happened in movies. No handsome hero would leap in to rescue her. The best that she could hope for was that, eventually, Wilson would discover a hitherto well-hidden romantic side.

The End.