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I glance at the rings that are left.

One is a simple platinum band with a massive diamond. Tacky.

The next is probably the most boring ring I’ve ever seen. One big round stone, framed on either side by two smaller circles. Snooze.

Then there’s a very sharp-looking one with a marquis diamond and slice-looking diamonds framing it on either side. Next to those are small squares. I feel like I could scratch myself seven ways from Sunday while wearing it. The dagger diamonds. That’s what I’d call that one.

There’s a very nice blue-center-stone ring with whitecushion-cut diamonds on either side. It looks like something my new sister-in-law Elizabeth would choose.

But the last ring, the one kind of shoved over on the end, is by far the strangest. I pick it up. It has a massive champagne-colored diamond in the center, and it’s a large emerald shape. The prongs holding the golden stone are yellow gold, but next to it, pressed seamlessly against it on either side are two more diamonds cut in triangles, with the point dripping down on either side toward the finger. They’re both flawless to the naked eye.

“I like this one,” I say. “It’s stunning in its own, unique way.”

“Are you picking it because of the song?” Jake asks. “Or because you like it?”

“I think I like it because it fits the song—a song I wrote. A song I love. A song that speaks to who I am.” I shrug. “Does it matter? Won’t that make the marketing easier?”

“Actually,” Easton says, strolling through the door at the back of the room. “That diamond has a name. It’s called the Verona diamond.”

“The—what?”

“It’s rare, a flawless champagne diamond, and it’s brilliant—reflecting double the light that most diamonds would reflect. The second I saw it, I thought of you.”

I blink. “What are you doing here?”

“Me?” Easton bites his lip. “You haven’t guessed?”

“You’re the investor,” Octavia says.

He shrugs. “They didn’t need me, in fact. Jake brought me in just in case the other investors wanted to back out.”

“Because of my face,” Octavia says.

“No,” Jake says. “Because of their own idiocy.”

She sighs.

“But they didn’t,” Easton says. “I had to badger them into cutting me in on the deal. Peachtree complained and harangued, but finally, they took some of my money so I could be a part of things.”

“And so you could. . .” Jake snaps his mouth shut.

“So I could propose to the woman of my dreams,” Easton says. “I know we’ve barely known each other for more than two months.”

“Well, I knew you for a year and change before that,” I say.

“But next week is Thanksgiving, and our first date was in September,” Easton says. “Some people would say this is crazy.”

“Not me,” Octavia whispers. “I think it’s beautiful.”

It’s nice to know that she approves, at least, and clearly Jake does.

“What did she say?” a small muffled voice asks. “I can’t hear. Turn the screen.”

“What was that?” I ask.

“Dude, I said you had to bequiet,”Jake says. “You guys never keep your promises.” But when he swivels his phone around, Mom and Dad, Emerson and Elizabeth, Ardath, and even Killian are all on a zoom. They wave.

When I squint, I realize Grandma and Grandpa Fansee are also there, and so is Barbara. They’re absurd.

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