Page 35 of Come Back to Me

“What’s going on?” Parker cries. “I can’t hear anything!”

Wafting a hand at Zee’s tablet, which is leaning on a chair so Parker can watch her shop, satisfaction fills me when Colt picks up. “Tee? What’s wrong?”

“Tell the woman who’s too good for you that she could show up to an event in sackcloth and you’d still think she was the sexiest bitch in the room.”

“What?”

“Colton! Tell her!”

“Umm, baby, you there?”

“Yeah,” Zee murmurs, her voice tiny.

“Sweetheart, you have to know that you’ll steal my breath in whatever you pick. Is that why you’ve been stalling on shopping?”

“No, that’s because shopping stresses her out, but I’m here to make sure her blood sugar levels are A-OK,” I declare. “Tell her that she doesn’t have to wear designer dresses to fit in.”

(Come on, Colt. I know there’s a brain in there some-damn-where!)

“You don’t have to wear designer dresses to fit in,” he repeats. “Wear whatever the hell you want.”

I click my fingers and mock-whisper, “Ask if he has diamonds.”

“Diamonds? Sure, I have diamonds.”

“There!” I beam at her. “We can dress you in shit you’ll look snatched in, shit that’ll make people think you’re not Hera, and we can jazz it up with twenty-million-dollar diamonds.”

“Why are you comparing my wife to Hera? Wait! Does that mean you compared me to Zeus?”

Zee bursts out laughing. “Colton! That was not the take-back you were supposed to offer from this conversation.”

“But, sweetheart, Zeus?! Seriously. That’s Clyde. Not me.”

“I told her that. Now, you go back to doing whatever it is you’re doing, and I’ll get some clothes so you can drape me in diamonds that you can fuck me out of.” Then, like a girl boss, she purrs, “Later, cowboy,” and cuts the call.

I hold out my hand for her to fist bump. “Truly, you’re a goddess.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“Duh, of course I do,” she says while bumping my fist.

“If you insist, but next time, don’t use the wedding ring hand.” I wiggle my fingers. “That rock hurts.”

She peers at her engagement ring. “Sorry. I forget it’s there.”

“Considering it’s the size of Ontario, I don’t know how you can.”

I snag her hand to stare at it. Gems aren’t my thing, but I had to look up the stone because Colt didn’t go the usual diamond route so I was curious.

Their beginnings might have been contracted, but the second I saw her engagement ring, I knew there was more to their relationship than met the eye.

A dude who hated his future wife bought her a generic, golf ball-sized diamond.

“You know this is worth half a mil, right?”

Her brow puckers. “What?”

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