Page 73 of Marry Me, Right Now

She seemed to unclench slightly once I actually sat down and appeared comfortable. “If you need anything at all, Ma’am, just hit the red button on the desk phone and one of us will be here in a flash.”

I noticed that she was staring at my hand, and I glanced down, actually having forgotten that I was now sporting a big sparkling rock.

“I’m so sorry to stare, Mrs. Stoneburrowes, but the girls here at the office were all a little curious about your ring.”

“Oh,” I said with a laugh, “Here, you can report back to them if you like.” I held up my hand, and she came close to peer into the gleaming pink stone.

“Wow,” she said softly, turning from a corporate receptionist into a regular girl for a moment. “You went for color instead of size. That’s classy. An extremely elegant choice. It’s just breathtaking.”

I couldn’t help but grin at her enthusiasm. “Thanks. We just walked in and picked something that felt right.”

Her eyes softened and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s not my place, but he has seemed happier in just the past few weeks than I’ve ever seen him. He seemed so intense and stressed right before your engagement. I guess he was nervous.”

Her obvious crush on Jacob was rather adorable. “Yeah, I’m going to work on getting him to relax a little more.”

She nodded, then turned to leave. “Don’t forget to buzz if you need anything at all. He should probably be less than ten minutes.”

“Thank you very much,” I said, and she disappeared.

Looking around this ridiculously ostentatious office, I realized I didn’t really know what Jacob’s company really did. It had something to do with business and finance, but those worlds meant nothing to me, so I didn’t pay attention.

I called up his company’s website on my phone. I was likely a bad wife for not showing more interest in his work, but on the other hand, the past couple of weeks had been a whirlwind of planning and craziness.

I didn’t understand anything about investments, partially because it didn’t interest me in the slightest. It was like my brain was Teflon coated so the information slid right off. But there was a blurb about Jacob taking over and increasing profits far more than they expected. He apparently had a style of moving money around according to certain timings that bigwig experts all said were positively inspired.

It didn’t surprise me that Jacob was smart, but he also seemed to listen with an open mind. He didn’t allow his preconceived notions to color his opinion until he had all of the information and had already begun processing it.

Something else was floating around in the back of my mind. Color over size, the receptionist had commented on my ring. I had picked the pink diamond because it seemed friendlier, and less intense than the white diamonds. I didn’t tell Jacob, but I also thought it might be a lot cheaper. I vaguely remember reading something about colored diamonds not being white because of impurities.

Punching a search into my phone, I quickly found out that vivid pink diamonds were fifteen to twenty times more expensive than white diamonds. Also, nobody knows why they’re pink, since there are no impurities whatsoever.

It was suddenly difficult to breathe. I had no idea.

JAC OB

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MIA’S VISIT

It was a breath of fresh air to escape a boring meeting and find Mia in my office. “Hey, what’s up?”

“I just popped in to say hello, but...” She seemed genuinely frantic, and her eyes were welling with tears. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“What’s wrong? Baby, don’t cry.” My arms wrapped around her automatically.

“How much was it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This ring.” She waved her hand in front of me.

“I can’t tell you the cost of your engagement ring. It’s not right.”

“But this isn’t a real–”

I cut her off with a swift kiss, then whispered in her ear, “Not here.”

Mia looked so absolutely distressed that I felt I had to get her out of the office immediately. “Will you come with me? We can either go home or out to lunch, but let’s get out of here.”

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