“There’s no point in trying to deny it,” he spoke in a heavy Southern accent. I could see the police cap shadowed behind me on the wall. “I going to need you to empty your bag.”
“It’s a purse,” I corrected automatically. “And I don’t...”
Wait a minute...
With a cry of rage, I whirled around to see Nick grinning ear to ear. Every single woman in the store was gathered behind him like a swooning chorus, but they scattered like chickens when I shot them all a dangerous glare.
“You scared the hell out of me!” I exclaimed, shoving him in the ches
t. “Why would you do that?! And where the hell did you get that hat?!”
“The Chief loaned it to me,” he said with a boyish grin. “We were having Segway races outside.”
Only Nick wouldn’t see how utterly ridiculous that statement sounded in the real world.
Still smarting from his little game, I took it off, threw it toward a cufflinks display on the second floor. He let out a long laugh.
A few seconds later, he walked up the stairs after me. Hat in hand. “So...you saw the papers?”
I opened my mouth to reply, then abruptly closed it. To be frank, I didn’t want to talk about it. Not after I’d been obsessing about it all morning. Not after the fiasco in my office.
Instead, I redirected to a conversation of a more pleasant nature. “How did you know what foods to get me?”
It took him a second to change track, then his face softened with a smile.
“We’ve spent almost every day together for the last two years. You think I don’t know what foods you tend to order? You think I haven’t noticed?”
Again. Incredibly sweet.
A faint blush colored my cheeks, and I dropped my eyes to the floor.
“You sure slept in this morning. Didn’t feel like running?”
A rather strange expression came over his face, and he fidgeted nervously. After glancing over his shoulder to make sure we were alone, he dug his hands deep into his pockets.
“No, I didn’t go out for a run.” A little tremor shook his voice, and he took a deep breath to steady it. “I actually went somewhere else.”
His caginess sparked my curiosity, and I took a step closer—lowering my voice to be as discreet as his own. “Where did you go?”
His eyes met mine for a split second. Nervous. Trying to anticipate my reaction.
“To get a ring.”
Chapter 9
YOU KNOW THAT FEELING you get the split second you realize you’re in over your head? The clammy tingle that wets the hairs on the back of your neck, followed by the bitter taste of delayed adrenaline? The corners of your vision dim for a moment, and if you’re anything like me, the only impulse in the entire world you can manage to summon is to run.
That’s what happened to me the moment I saw the ring.
“That’s a...”
Words failed me. As in, vanished completely from my head. There was a chance the speech centers of my brain had momentarily shut down. So instead of talking, I merely tilted my head to the side, and gave a four-year-old caveman approximation of the situation.
“...ring.”
Nick raised his eyebrows slightly, but given the present circumstances, even he knew better than to give me a hard time. He merely looked down at the open box, biting his lip with a grimace. Like the thing held a disembodied finger, not a beautiful diamond.
“Yeah, I...” he looked again at my face, and tried to adjust himself accordingly, “I thought it would be best if we had one on hand. You know, before the party tomorrow.”