‘Which one do you like?’ he asked lightly over her shoulder.
She jumped, startled, glanced up at him, then looked quickly away again, blushing as if he’d caught her doing something truly sinful. ‘The diamond cluster with the emerald centre,’ she answered huskily.
Husky was back, he noticed, and husky he liked. Reaching down, he took her bags from her then placed a free hand to the small of her back. ‘Let’s go and try it,’ he murmured softly.
‘What—? But we can’t do that!’
She was shocked, she was poleaxed—he even liked that. The lead weights dropped away from his body; he sent her a wry grin that made her eyes dilate. ‘Of course we can,’ he disagreed. ‘It’s tradition.’
Tradition, Eve repeated and felt her mind start turning somersaults, as the hand on her back firmly guided her into the shop. Ethan placed her bags on the floor at his feet, kept her close and calmly asked for the tray of rings. It arrived in front of them, sparkling beneath the lights. Long, lean, tanned male fingers plucked the diamond and emerald cluster off its velvet bed. While the assistant smiled the smile used for lovers, Ethan lifted up her left hand and gently slid the ring onto her finger.
‘What do you think?’ he prompted softly.
Eve wasn’t thinking anything, she discovered. ‘It fits,’ was all she could manage to come up with to say.
‘But do you like it?’ he persisted.
‘Yes,’ she answered, so gruffly she didn’t know her own voice.
‘Good. So do I,’ Ethan said. ‘We’ll take it,’ he told the smiling sales assistant.
‘But—look at the price!’ she gasped as the assistant went away with Ethan’s credit card.
‘A lady doesn’t check the price,’ he told her dryly.
‘But I can’t let you buy something that expensive! Can you afford it? We shouldn’t even be doing it.’ Eve was beginning to panic in earnest now, Ethan noted, feeling his few minutes of pure romanticism turned to ashes as she spoke. ‘W-we told Grandpa we were going to keep all of this a secret.’
‘There will be nothing secret about us living together in Spain, Eve,’ he dryly pointed out, and earned a startled look from those eyes for saying that. Yes, he thought grimly, take a moment to consider that part about us living together, Eve. ‘But if you really don’t want the ring—’
‘No—Yes, I want it!’
‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘A sham is not a good sham without all the right props to go with it.’
Eve’s heart sank to her shoes as reality came rushing in. Here she was thinking—while he was only thinking—a sham. She swallowed on the thickness of her own stupidity. ‘Then we’ll go halves on the cost,’ she decided.
If she said it to hit back at him then she certainly succeeded, Eve noted, as he stiffened. ‘You really do think that because I can’t match your grandfather’s billions I must be as poor as a church mouse, don’t you.’
Eve gave a noncommittal shrug for an answer. ‘I just don’t want you to be out of pocket just because I dumped myself on you like this.’
‘Well, think of how much relief you will feel on the day you throw it back at me.’
The assistant arrived back to finish the sale then. Maybe it had been a timely interruption, Eve thought, as she watched him sign the sale slip and receive back his passport and credit card, because the sardonic tilt to his tone when he’d made that last remark had been aimed to cut her down to size. When, in actual fact, she suspected they both knew it was Ethan Hayes who’d taken the blow to his ego.
But the ring had suddenly lost value, its sparkle no longer seemed so fine. Their flight was called, and in the time it took them to gather up their belongings the whole incident was pushed away out of sight, even as the ring winked on her finger every time she moved her hand.
The plane was full, but first-class was quiet, with new state-of-the-art seating that offered just about every comfort that might be required. As they settled themselves in for the long journey, Eve unearthed Tigger from her hand luggage and sat him on the arm between their two seats.
You were my favourite birthday present, she told the stuffed tiger—not counting Grandpa’s present, of course, she then added loyally, which she intended to open when she wasn’t feeling so miffed at Ethan Hayes. As for you, she looked down at the ring sparkling like a demon on her finger, you’re just a prop, which means you are as worthless as paste.
Within an hour of taking off, Ethan was deep into a stack of printed literature he’d managed to get someone in Nassau to pull off his website. Eve wasn’t talking. Now he was glad he hadn’t confided in her that the ring was the very one he’d picked out himself only minutes before she’d picked it out. Silly stuff like that provoked curious questions. Questions provoked answers he didn’t want to give. It had been a stupid gesture anyway. He wished he hadn’t done it. Now the damn ring kept on sparkling at him every time she turned a page of the magazine she’d brought with her onto the plane.
‘Would you like a refill for that, Mr Hayes?’ the flight attendant asked him. Glancing up at the woman he saw the look in her eyes was offering a whole lot more than a second cup of coffee.
Spice of life, he mocked grimly and refused the offer. As she went to move away
