Caroline knew of Jonathan before she ever met him. It was 2013 and she had already reached a conclusion about him: High maintenance American.

Jonathan, who lives in North Carolina, had been tapped by his company to spend 6 months on assignment in London. Caroline works in HR and was handling the details of his  secondment. The requests – she would say ‘demands’ – kept coming.

Finally, in February 2014 they met in person. Jonathan thought she was cute, but he had a strict rule. No dating at work. “The odds of it not working out are so much greater than of it working out,” was his logic. Nope, not worth it. Especially someone in HR!

Fast forward to June 2014. There was a Friday night work social and someone upset Caroline (the details are hazy now). Jonathan was standing nearby and Caroline turned to him and said, “Talk to me.” So they did. For hours. And when a smaller group moved to Cafe Sol in Clapham, Jonathan and Caroline went, too. It was there that Caroline first expressed her interest in Jonathan.

He left.

She says that there was a Jonathan-shaped hole in the wall. Jonathan says he just had a moment of clarity: No dating at work!

Monday came and neither of them spoke about it. At least not to each other. Jonathan mentioned to a colleague – OK, maybe a couple (a few?) of them – that he was interested in Caroline. But no dating at work! They told him to get over it. And at another work social a few weeks later, they conspired to bring Caroline and Jonathan together.

It’s a long story, but the relevant point is this: Their plan worked.

Jonathan and Caroline had their first date on July 27, 2014 in Little Venice. For the next two months, until the end of Jonathan’s secondment, they were together constantly on the evenings and weekends. Taking in Shakespeare at the Globe. Visiting Greenwich. Cycling through Hyde Park. When Jonathan was evicted from his flat on his birthday, it was Caroline who rescued him. (Long story.)

They committed to keep working to build a relationship even after Jonathan returned to the U.S. in late September. Jonathan, though, wondered if it would be like a summer camp romance, fading as each of them went back to their own lives an ocean apart.

It didn’t. With a little help, Caroline and Jonathan kept finding ways to meet up. In London. New York. Rome. Raleigh. Paris. Padstow. Miami. Hawaii.  Facetime and Whatsapp filled in when they were apart. Make no mistake – it was not easy. Distance is tough. Really tough. And there were times it felt like a hair’s breadth from the end.

Love, though, is a formidable force. And family and friends make for a strong support.

Still, Caroline and Jonathan longed to experience the mundane moments of the every day, without a clock ticking down to the next flight. In early 2016, Caroline decided to take a 10-week sabbatical from work and moved to North Carolina. Life was easy. And normal.

Until March. Jonathan decided to take up mountain biking again to counter the effects of a stressful project at work. He went to a local shop to try out a bike he liked. While on a small test track in the back, he had a fall. Within an hour, he passed out.

Jonathan was taken by ambulance to the hospital and diagnosed with a ruptured spleen. It was a serious injury that required immediate surgery. He was in the hospital for 6 days and out of work for 4 weeks. Caroline would not leave his side.

And Jonathan realized he always wanted her there. Not just then. But always.

So in August, four months after Caroline went back to London, he made a surprise trip over for her birthday. That same night on the River Thames in front of Big Ben, Jonathan asked Caroline to marry him.

She said yes.

And that’s where this next chapter begins.