“What?” I took a step forward. “Why? Just let me—”
“Not a chance.” He held the purse out of reach, looking down with a smile. “You’re going to have to wait.”
I surrendered easily enough and followed him to the counter.
“Wait for what?”
He glanced over his shoulder, grinning at my petulant tone.
“For the rest of the apology.”
That was enough to shake me from my intoxicated stupor.
“The rest of the apology?” I stopped dead in my tracks. “Nick, this is so much more than enough. Surely even you can see that.”
“Actually...” he came to a stop in front of the jewels, “it needs one more thing.”
By now, I didn’t even try to fight it. I just stood there quietly as he pursed his lips and looked over each piece in their collection with a slight frown. Occasionally, he would hold something up to me, but each time, he put it back down without a word.
...until he got to the necklace.
“This.” His eyes glowed as he picked it up. “This is the one.”
My lips opened, then closed. No words could come.
It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful necklace I’d ever seen. It was long. Overly-long, in the style of 1920’s flappers. But instead of a string of pearls, this was a chain of diamonds. The thing sparkled like you wouldn’t believe. Dropping almost down to my navel, before ending in a teardrop-shaped pendant that was as big as my thumb.
“Mr. Hunter,” Ruby gasped. “It’s absolutely stunning. The finest piece in the store.”
Nick ignored her and turned to me instead.
“What do you think?” he asked softly. “Do you like it?”
I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to tell him it was obviously too much, that this entire spree had been kindhearted but confusing as shit, and walk right out of the store.
But the words ‘too much’ had never really registered with Nick. He wanted to do something nice to apologize. He was staring deep into my eyes.
In the end, I pulled in a breath and did the one thing that people who work in PR are never supposed to do.
I told the truth.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
A beaming smile spread across his face—a smile I’d never seen before. It wasn’t bored, or mischievous, or amused, or anything else I’d come to associate with Nick.
It was sincere. A soft kind of radiant that seemed to glow from the inside-out.
“Then it’s yours.”
Chapter 11
BY THE TIME WE EMERGED from the store, the afternoon sun had already risen high in the sky. We got hotdogs from a nearby stand—just as Nick had requested—and ate them in silence on a bench in Central Park. Watching the pedestrians. Tossing bread to the pigeons.
Neither one of us had really said much since the moment with the necklace. And while this silent, over-analytical tendency was completely normal for me, it couldn’t have been any less so for Nick. The man didn’t have an ‘off’ switch. Truth be told, the only times I could remember him being silent, were when he was sleeping.
Several times, he glanced ov
er at me. Several times, he glanced down at the Dior bag by our feet. Each time, he was either unwilling or unable to speak.