The jeweler had slipped discreetly into the back room, and as I held her hand, twisting the ring so the diamond sparkled in the light, she looked up at me, eyes bright.
“I’ll take care of it,” she promised. “So you can give it back—”
I leaned close. “Stop,” I said. “Think married.”
She had to tip back her chin to keep my steady gaze. I was lost in her gray eyes. This already felt so real. Her tongue darted out to moisten parted lips, and a soft exhale fluttered up to me. Very slowly, she raised up on her toes.
Did she want me to kiss her? I had been thinking about the moment our mouths would touch for too long, wanting it too badly.
My phone rang, and she jumped back. It was Aleks, a call I couldn’t ignore. Stepping away so she wouldn’t overhear, I kept my eyes on her as she held her hand out, studying the ring. It was an emergency I had to help out with. Even with the addedstrength of having the Collective as an ally, we were still always going to be under attack by someone.
“I have to deal with this,” I said. “I’ll call you a cab.”
Her guard would be waiting for her at her apartment, so she’d be safe.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.
There wasn’t. She knew nothing about that part of my life, which I hoped wouldn’t be a problem when she found out, though I suspected it would be, and a big one.
It wasn’t going to stop me. Clem was already mine and would stay that way.
Chapter 8 - Clem
The next few days were such a flurry of activity that I barely had time to think about the fantasy shopping spree. Or the diamond ring that now graced my finger, along with a stunning gold wedding band encrusted with even more diamonds. I was supposed to wear them to grow accustomed to them, but I still found my thumb seeking out the big stone. Its weight was oddly comforting, and feeling the cold edges of the sparkling facets reminded me of how far I had come from that night in Vermont.
Everything in my life had changed for the better since then.
Of course, I wouldn’t be keeping the clothes or the rings, and that was fine as long as I had my job. What bothered me enough to have me sometimes drifting off to another world was that almost kiss at the jewelry store.
He didn’t almost kiss you.
Yes, he did. What else could that have been?
His eyes were so intense. They drew me closer, made me rise on my toes, so ready for it.
“Miss Gardner? What do you think?”
The Japanese chef who was cooking the dinner for our meeting with the Koboyashis broke through my embarrassing thoughts. We were having it at Khoroshiy, but brought in a specialty chef to really pull out all the stops, though Rurik’s cousin’s wife would be doing one of her famous desserts for the American touch.
“It’s delicious,” I said, turning to Miko, who worked on the advertising team and whose parents were from Kyoto. “What do you think?”
“Perfection,” she sighed. “I loved all of it.”
I approved the test menu, and after Miko went back to the office, I went into the private dining room where we’d be hosting the Koboyashis, just Rurik and me and the older couple who held our fates in their hands. Well, they were older than me, closer to Rurik’s age.
As I sat down and went over my list, my thumb nudged the ring again. It really was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. There was no insisting on a smaller one or something with a plain band. It was like Rurik could tell exactly which one I liked the best. As if he really wanted to buy me my dream engagement ring. And he did look like he wanted to kiss me.
But did I want to kiss him back?
Certainly not. Not at all. The warm glow I kept feeling was my confidence being restored to me, the joy of being appreciated instead of denigrated. I could finally breathe again.
A big hand squeezed my shoulder. “Looks like it belongs,” Rurik said. The second time I’d been caught unawares while senselessly daydreaming, my cheeks flamed, and I gasped, pretending I wasn’t admiring the ring.
Then I gasped again when I saw my boss had a shiner. What the hell? My upstanding, straight-laced, book-loving boss was in a fight? By the state of his knuckles on his right hand, it looked like he gave as good as he got, too.
“What happened to your eye?” I shrieked, jumping up to reach for the puffy purple bruise that extended down his cheekbone.
He neatly dodged my probing fingers, the same as he dodged the question.