‘I don’t think there’s any mud where any of these are going.’
‘No,’ she said, suddenly disapproving. ‘They’ll be worn once a year, maybe, twice tops, and the rest of the time they’ll be stuck in a safe. There they’ll just sit until something like the fire happens, and what a waste.’
She had a different perspective, he thought, as he watched her move from jewel to jewel. She was loving looking at these beautiful things, but there was no wistfulness in her eyes at all.
She’d lost everything, and yet she wanted nothing.
‘Look at this,’ she breathed, and he looked more closely and was as stunned as she was.
It was the most amazing ring he’d ever seen. Its centre was a diamond, perfectly cut as a heart, and so large it took his breath away. Every facet glistened and sparkled. On the outer edge of the heart were five rubies, set into white gold to glitter at each extremity. Surrounding them was a ring of smaller diamonds; though, thinking on, they were only small in comparison to the central stone.
The ring was ostentatious and it was ridiculous and it’d take more muscle than most women had in their ring finger to wear it without complaint-but for all that it was quite extraordinarily lovely. And it didn’t even have a price tag.
‘Oh, wow,’ Tori breathed. ‘What a knuckle duster.’ She giggled again-and then she looked sideways at it. ‘You know, it’s like something absolutely exquisite, but blown up,’ she said slowly. ‘A little version would be just perfect, but this… It’s wonderful but it’s crazy.’
‘You’d never want something like this.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Again came that infectious chuckle. ‘What’s not to want? Mind, I’d have to find me a sheikh, and sheikhs are in small supply where I come from.’
‘Do you have any jewellery at all?’ he asked, but almost as the words left his mouth he knew he shouldn’t have asked. She’d been working when the fire came through. Nothing had been saved.
Toby, the erstwhile fiance, had a lot to answer for. Again, Jake found himself dealing with anger.
But the fire was history. Tori had moved on and so should he. And luckily Tori hadn’t heard the question. Her attention was caught yet again.
‘Oh…’
She was peering into a different display section now, where opulence had given way to a far more demure kind of beauty. She seemed totally captivated, not amused this time, but rather stunned.
She was gazing at a Celtic love knot, wrought in gold with silver threads woven through. Compared to the jewellery they’d just looked at, this was tiny, but it was no less beautiful. Slivers of diamond were scattered through the knot, like stones set into rope. It looked rough, almost as though it had been hewn from the earth already formed. It hung on a simple silver chain, and Jake looked at it and then looked at Tori, and her eyes were shining with unshed tears.
‘It’s like my mother’s,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not the same but it’s so close. She wore it always. And it was burned.’ She managed a watery smile. ‘I need to buy it,’ she said simply, and an assistant was sliding it out of the display case before she finished speaking.
Tori reached to touch it with hands that trembled. She ran her fingers across its intricate surface, almost reverently.
‘I’ll take it,’ she said and she hadn’t even looked at the price.
‘Tori…’
She was hardly aware of him. This chain had been a part of her past that was somehow being restored, Jake thought, as he watched her face, and he was feeling just a bit emotional himself. And he knew what he wanted to do. He’d been thinking it ever since he’d walked into the place, and now was the right time.
‘Will you let me?’ he asked, and he laid his hand over hers. ‘It would be my honour and my pleasure-and my pride as well-to buy this for you.’
She turned, puzzled. ‘Why?’
‘You’re the mother of my baby, ’he said simply and surely. In truth there were many emotions at play here, and the fact that Tori was pregnant was only a tiny part of the whole, but it was all he could understand right now.
‘I need to do something to mark this,’ he said softly, though the assistant had melted discreetly away. ‘It’s a piece of jewellery that reminds you of what’s lost. Can it also be something to mark what’s to come?’
She looked up at him then through a mist of tears. She gave a wavering smile-and she sniffed. Oh, for heaven’s sake, he was feeling teary himself. Whoa, that wasn’t going to happen. What was this woman doing to him?
He got practical by handing over a handkerchief. Distracted, she gazed down at it in disbelief. ‘A handkerchief?’
‘What’s wrong with a handkerchief?’
‘Guys do this in romance novels,’ she said faintly. ‘Not in real life. What sort of modern male carries handkerchiefs?’
‘Men who get their laundry done?’ But she wasn’t listening. She was buying time, he thought, fighting to get her emotions in order. She turned her back on him and blew her nose, and when she turned back she had her face straight-or almost. Her eyes were still shimmering.
How had he ever thought she was plain? he wondered. She was quite extraordinarily beautiful.
He wanted her. He wanted her so badly…
‘But I can…I can afford it,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Easily. There’s no need for you to pay.’
‘I know that, but still…will you grant me the honour of buying it for you.’
‘There you go again,’ she said darkly. ‘Romance novels have a lot to answer for. If I didn’t know you made such a lousy five-minute dater I’d suspect you’d been taking chivalry lessons.’
‘No lessons,’ he said. ‘Put it on.’ He lifted it from the velvet and held it out.
Silently she turned so he could fasten it around her neck. He clipped the hook closed, and then, because the temptation was irresistible, he bent and kissed her, lightly on the nape of her neck. Her skin felt smooth and lovely, and for an instant…for just an instant, he felt her lean into him, let herself relax against him, trust him.
‘Jake…’
He wanted to kiss her properly, as he needed to kiss her, as she deserved to be kissed, but her moment of weakness was gone. She tugged away, apparently to look in the mirror, but he knew it was more than that. He’d felt her body stiffen.
He’d felt her fear.
Bad move, he thought. Very bad move, considering what he was thinking.
The assistant had melted away again in the emotional stuff-how did they know to do that?-but as Tori moved to the mirror she materialised again, beaming her approval.
‘Will madam take it?’
‘Madam’s taking it,’ Tori said softly, and a slight tremor ran through her, a tremor she couldn’t disguise. ‘Madam fell in love with romance novels when she was thirteen years old and she knows when she’s hooked.’
‘Does this mean you’ll let me buy it for you?’ Jake asked.
‘Why yes,’ she said softly. ‘Yes, I believe it does.’
They bought Chinese takeaway and took it back to the apartment for dinner because Tori was simply too tired to go on.
Jake usually ate at his kitchen bench. His dining table was covered in journals, half-written papers, important work in progress.
He could sort it and stack it neatly, he thought, but that could take half an hour. Or he could make Tori eat at the kitchen bench.
But if this was the only night he had to persuade her, then he needed to move fast. So he cleared the table by the simple expedient of tipping it lengthways. It worked a treat. Hey, when was the last time he’d seen this table? It had cost him a bomb. It was a great table.
Or maybe not, he conceded, thinking on. The table was of cool-grey lacquer, designed to match the apartment’s cool-grey walls. He remembered Tori’s scathing comments about grey. Hmm.
Tori was looking at the mess as they ate, bemused. ‘It’ll take you days to get that back in order.’
‘I have days.’ He’d have all the time in the world after she went home, he thought.
How to broach it again?
