"Jonathan, where are we going?" Jennifer asked. Max was chauffeuring them tonight. The three of them had dinner at a little Italian place nearby to Jennifer's apartment and now they were heading up Madison Avenue. She couldn't imagine what they were doing going uptown.

"I've arranged for a surprise for us," he answered.

"For us? You mean it's a surprise for you too?" she teased.

He clarified, "It's a surprise for you, but it's going to be a lot of fun for the both of us."

Jennifer grinned. "Oh I can't wait!" She really did love surprises. And with Jonathan's sweet nature, his imaginative mind, and his unlimited resources, any surprise from him was certainly going to be wonderful.

But she could have never imagined what it was he'd arranged when Max parked the car in front of the Metropolitan Museum.

"What are we doing at the Met? It closed hours ago," she said.

Max came to open Jennifer's door, just as Jonathan leaned over to her to say, "Not for us, it didn't."

He took her arm, wrapping her hand around his bicep as he led her up the stone steps to the entrance. She gazed up in awe. She'd been to the Met plenty of times. But she'd never entered it at night.

A security guard waved at them and held the door open. "Enjoy, Mr. Hart," the man said, gesturing for them to go through.

"Jonathan, what's going on?"

"It took a little doing, but we have two hours with the whole of the Met all to ourselves. They've got their security people monitoring us on the cameras, of course. But that's it. Anywhere you want to go, anything you want to see, it's all for us," he told her.

She was dumbfounded. "How did you…?"

Jonathan just shrugged. He had a very satisfied grin on his face. "Do you like it, darling?"

Jennifer didn't even have words. "I…yes," she laughed. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. "You're just the best thing in the world, you know that? Oh, I love you so much, it's gonna make me sick!"

He laughed in response, giving her a squeeze and a kiss on the neck, just above where her scarf hid the hickey he'd left on her last night. "Don't get sick over anything. You've gotta show me around the museum," he said.

Feeling giddy as can be, Jennifer took his hand and practically ran through the marble halls of the Met. She took him first to the European paintings gallery, going through from Italian Renaissance to the Dutch Masters to the French Impressionists. She'd seen all of these before, and the ones where she knew something about the artist or the time period, she was sure to point it out for Jonathan.

Plenty of men—including plenty that Jennifer had dated—would be bored stiff in a museum. And to have Jennifer talking a mile a minute about the art would make any man exhausted and annoyed. But Jonathan Hart wasn't just any man. He was perfect, and he had a curious mind. He was eager to learn about art and almost anything, it seemed.

"Did you go to college?" Jennifer asked suddenly. "We've talked about where I went to school, but we haven't talked about where you went to school."

"I did. After I got out of the Navy, I went to university to study business and engineering. That's how I got the idea about transistors. The rest is history," he answered simply.

"No art history classes?"

"Not one. I should have, looking back. It would've impressed the girls to be able to take them on dates at a museum and show off a little something."

"Oh I'm sure you showed off plenty," she laughed.

"I did that with physical pursuits rather than intellectual," he told her.

Jennifer raised her brow and snorted with laughter. She knew better than anyone how good his physical pursuits were.

He sighed in feigned frustration. "Sports and dancing being the physical pursuits," he explained.

"And the other?"

Jonathan looked away from her, hiding his slight blush. "Yeah, and the other."

"Well, I studied enough art and history and classics for both of us. Do you want to see the Egyptian wing next?"

He stopped her. "Hang on, don't they have some Van Gogh here? You love Van Gogh."

She gazed up at him with adoration and awe. He remembered. "Well, my favorite painting of his isn't on display. I think it's in a private collection. But some of his other works are here." Jennifer took his hand and led him through to another room and then another until they found some magnificent Van Gogh works.

Jonathan stood in front of the Cypress Trees to gaze at it. Jennifer stood beside him at first and then took a step in front of him so her body leaned against his left arm. He got the hint and curled his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her right shoulder.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she sighed happily, taking in the majesty of those colors and brushstrokes.

"It is. And so are you," he said softly in her ear. He kissed the side of her neck again.

They stood like that for a little while, holding each other in the quiet of the empty museum.

Jennifer tilted her head back to catch his lips. "Thank you, darling," she murmured against his mouth.

Jonathan knew he was in danger of getting too carried away, so he forced himself to pull away from her, taking her hand in his. "Did you want to see the Egyptian exhibit?"

She grinned and nodded excitedly. Jennifer pulled him through the halls once more, and he was more than happy to follow wherever she led.

When they reached the artifacts of Ancient Egypt, Jennifer launched into another delightfully long-winded explanation of the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms and Upper versus Lower Egypt and the various pharaohs and the mummification process and the view of the afterlife and all those animal-headed gods. Jonathan could have listened to her for hours and hours.

Eventually, though, she'd talked herself into exhaustion. Her voice was getting hoarse and she was breathing a little too heavily. "Why don't we take a little rest over here?" he suggested.

Jonathan led her to a wooden bench in front of an enormous stone statue of a pharaoh decorated with carved hieroglyphics around the base. Jennifer rested her head on his shoulder. It was getting late, and she was probably tired. But she just gave a happy little sigh. "Isn't it incredible?"

"It really is," he agreed.

They sat there in comfortable silence for a little while, and Jonathan's mind wandered a little bit. He had loved planning this surprise for her, and he had especially loved her reaction. She hadn't stopped smiling or let go of his hand once. Not only was she having a wonderful time, she made sure that he was right there with her. He wouldn't have minded, really, if she wanted to explore and experience things on her own. She was a very independent woman, after all, but it meant the world to him that she wanted to hold his hand and tell him things about all this art she loved and to make sure he was right by her side the whole time.

"Hey I've got a question for you," Jonathan said suddenly.

Jennifer lifted her head and turned to look at him. "Yeah?"

"When would you like to get married?" The question had been on his mind for a while, they just hadn't gotten to it yet. "I mean, I'm perfectly fine with a long engagement, since I know it'll take some time to get settled in LA and for us to get to know each other a little more and get used to the idea. I don't want to rush anything, and I don't need an answer about a wedding date anytime soon if you need some time to think about it."

"I don't want a long engagement," she interrupted. "I told you already, Jonathan, I'd have married you when we were in London if you offered. But after my talk with Aunt Renee and us having dinner with Pa, I think we should have a proper wedding. It's the only wedding I'm ever going to have, so we should have some fun with it, don't you think?"

Visions of Jennifer in a beautiful white gown coming down an aisle with people packed into a huge hall filled his mind, making him smile. "I totally agree."

"So I don't have a date in mind, of course, but I think maybe sometime in the fall?"

Jonathan's visions moved to the slightly crisper wedding of the fall in California, how the sky was blue and the air had a bite in the mornings but the days were still filled with sunshine. Jennifer would be so beautiful with her red hair shining in the sun. "That sounds great."

She nodded. "How about we get to LA and take a look at the calendar then? We'll have an engagement party maybe in a couple weeks? Early August, maybe? And we can certainly have a date set and find a venue and everything. Oh…are you religious?" she asked suddenly.

"I was sort of raised Catholic at the orphanage, since it was run by the local Catholic Church. I haven't been to church in longer than I can remember now. Why, are you religious?"

Jennifer shook her head. "Not in the least. I wasn't sure if you wanted us to get married in a church or something."

"I'm sure we can if you want to, but it's not really important to me if it isn't to you."

She patted his hand affectionately. "No, I don't think that's necessary."

Jonathan wrapped her in his arms, unable to resist. This adorable woman was going to be his wife in just about three months. "You're awfully cute, you know that?"

She smirked, putting her arms around him, too. "Yeah? How cute?"

"Cute enough to eat," he said.

Jennifer giggled.

He leaned in to whisper in her ear, "Or rather to eat out." He nibbled on her earlobe to prove his point.

She gasped, "Jonathan!"

"If it weren't for the security cameras watching us, I'd go down on you right here for all the pharaohs to see."

Jennifer yanked herself away from him. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were dark with lust. "I think it's time for Max to take us back home."

Jonathan certainly agreed, but he wasn't nearly through teasing her. "Are you sure, darling? We are in the Met all by ourselves. Do you want to go see the Asian art?"

She slyly looked up to see the security camera pointed at her face with Jonathan's back to it. She subtly gave back as good as he gave her when she let her hand fall from his shoulder to his lap to innocently brush against him.

His cock twitched at her touch. That minx.

"I don't know," she said, touching him again with slightly more insistence. "What do you think?"

Jonathan grabbed her wrist before she caused him to get hard and embarrass himself in front of the security guards. "Time to go."

He pulled her up and this time he was the one to lead her through the maze of museum galleries. Jennifer's giggles echoed through the empty halls.