From marriage to motherhood

In an excerpt from her new book, Closer Together, the prime minister's former wife tells how her love story with Justin began

- Sophie Grégoire Trudeau

Justin and I had known each other as kids, but we reconnected when I was in my late 20s. There was a sense of tender familiarity in the air at the first rehearsal of the fundraising event we'd been asked to co-host. The night of the event, the vibe was definitely fun, outgoing, flirtatious, but that's as far as it went. I wrote him an email the next day, saying it was great to have met again and to wish him the best of luck on his other projects. When it went unanswered, I was disappointed. We bumped into each other on the street later that year and he asked for my number. I declined, telling him that if he really wanted it, he could find it. And so, when the phone rang one day when I was having lunch at a local café, I was a bit taken aback.

To make a long story short, we went for dinner in Montreal, and then ice cream, and then karaoke, and then back to his place. Right before he was going to drive me home in his rusty Bronco truck (which used to belong to his beloved late brother and smelled like mothballs), the conversation turned to deeper topics, and he looked at me with such intense presence that I knew something special was going on. He said, "I'm 31 years old. I've been waiting for you for 31 years. Should we skip the girlfriend phase and start with fiancée?" The rest, as they say, is history.