Page 58 of On Thin Ice

When I glanced at my reflection again, I realized something was missing—jewelry. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t even care—but my neck and ears, completely exposed thanks to the dress and updo, seemed so naked. I hadn’t brought much jewelry with me and what I had brought would probably look cheap.

Still, I had to try.

Inside the nightstand were the pair of faux pearl studs I’d worn to the college on that fateful day when I’d first met Sinclair. They would have to do. Fitting them in my ears, I walked into the bathroom again to look at myself in the mirror.

Good enough.

Then I sat on the bed, feeling jittery, wondering when Sinclair would arrive and tell me it was time to go. I wasn’t just nervous because I was again going to be a foreigner pretending she belonged…but I was going to meet Sinclair’s father, rotten-to-the-core Augustus Whittier II—and what made me almost scared was wondering if he would know who I was. After all, Sinclair had told his father I’d be working for him, repaying a debt when I first arrived here at the mansion.

But that was two months ago—and Sinclair wouldn’t have necessarily reminded him.

Unless that was the whole point.

I hadn’t gotten that feeling from Sinclair, though. Why would he go to all this trouble to make me feel special and cared for if it was only to deride and mock me?

Leaning over, I decided to grab the final journal out of the bottom drawer to read as a distraction, because I was making myself sick with worry. But then I heard footsteps outside my door.

He was home.

It wasn’t until I answered the knock on my door that I realized he’d been home and had probably arrived while I’d been waiting for the Uber with Emma inside the library.

I took a deep breath, not sure what to expect.

If I’d thought I’d undergone a transformation, perhaps he had too. His black tux made him seem all the more masculine, all the more handsome and put together. He’d allowed a couple days’ worth of whiskers to shadow his cheeks, making him look a little more rugged, a tad more dangerous—and all the more captivating.

Yet I still trusted him.

But it was his eyes and the way they took me in that grabbed me by the heart.

Mine probably told him back that I belonged to him.

“You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on, Annalise.”

Pursing my lips, I fought against two tiny tears that threatened to spill over my perfectly made-up cheeks. Were the foundation and blusher also made to wear for twenty-four hours? I highly doubted it and fought the tears back.

“I feel the same way about you…Cory.”

His smile was subtle as his eyes continued searching mine. Apparently, he had the same thoughts as I about what Emma’s hand had done to me—I simply didn’t look like the same person he’d seen at breakfast. “Take off those earrings. They’re fine, but I have something else for you to wear.”

It was then that I noticed he was holding in his hand a rectangular box. So I pulled the fake pearls out of my ears, placing them on the dresser. Then he opened the hinged lid of the box, setting it next to them as I looked inside.

What I saw nearly took my breath away.

“Gold and diamonds go with everything,” he said, lifting the delicate necklace out of the box.

It was beautiful—diamonds, more than I could count, on a silver necklace that reminded me of icicle lights dangling from a house’s eaves at Christmas.

He’d said gold, and I didn’t disagree with his statement, but that wasn’t what I was seeing. “As does silver.”

He grinned, cocking an eyebrow. “And white gold.”

“Oh.” And here I’d been thinking the silvery tones would match my toenails.

“May I?”

I could barely nod as I turned around, allowing him to place the stunning necklace so that those diamonds graced my bare neck. At first, it felt cool against my skin—and heavy. It was probably the most beautiful piece of jewelry I’d ever seen, with a pear-shaped diamond at the center of the necklace, and all around my neck were little rain drops of diamonds so that I would sparkle from every angle.

I had no doubt that this necklace was probably worth my father’s house in Winchester.

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