Chapter 51
“The Scientist” - Coldplay
Maeve
I’m looking for the fan remote in the nightstand drawer when I find the ring. Preston likes to crank up the speed of the fan after I get up in the morning, turning it so high anything not tied down is liable to take off across the room.
He moved in a few weeks ago, after Janie got the house in the divorce.
It just made sense, even if adjusting to a roommate has been more difficult than I thought it’d be.
No matter how many times I tell him, he still can’t manage to put his damn socks in the laundry hamper, and I’ve watched him use my favorite mug for the very last time.
Every time I jump him about it, he smiles as if he’s being funny and says, “I like this one better.”
Yeah, so do I, I always want to snap back, but refrain. But if he does it one more time, that’s it. I’m fighting for my cup. This is my house.
Preston finally got out of bed a few minutes ago and is currently in the shower.
I can hear him singing off-key, probably into my shampoo bottle.
Rolling my eyes, I continue rifling through the drawer, then freeze when my fingers close around a box that feels way too familiar, considering I’ve never seen it before.
I pull it out and move to the bed so I can sit down.
It’s small, square-shaped, and covered in black velvet. You and I both know what this is. They don’t sell normal jewelry in boxes like this.
Prying open the lid, I prepare myself to gasp, but a tiny whimper comes out instead the second I see the ring.
Halo setting, thick white-gold band, at least three carats.
It looks like it’s a J or K on the GIA scale—not yellow exactly, but far from icy.
Definitely SI clarity—it’s busy inside, as if it’s holding a little storm.
I snap the box shut again, hiding the ring from view. If I had to guess, I’d say he didn’t choose it himself. It looks exactly like something a shop assistant would try to upsell.
Shoving the box back inside the drawer, I stand up and blow out a breath. The ring itself isn’t the problem. Easy enough to get it exchanged. The problem is how he’s planning to propose.
Preston may be a lot of things, but a planner is not one of them. At least not when it comes to his personal life. Even though we’re officially a couple now, I organize all of our dates, and he comes along for the ride. So how is he going to pull off a proposal?
The best thing I can do is plan the perfect night and hope he takes the hint.
I glance down at the nail I broke yesterday during a meeting that did not go particularly well. It was a fresh manicure, too, but this gives me an excuse to get a new one. I certainly don’t want emerald nails in the photos. They would distract from the ring.
After scheduling nail and hair appointments for this afternoon—god, it’s nice to be well-connected enough to get last-minute bookings at the best salons—I mentally scroll through the possible restaurant options while scrambling some eggs for my almost-fiancé’s breakfast. We’ll need something with privacy, of course, but well-lit enough that the pictures aren’t grainy.
A discreet staff is a must, since I’ll need to give them a heads-up so they can have a bottle of champagne chilled.
By the time Preston joins me in the kitchen, his eggs are perfectly cooked, and I have the perfect place picked out.
“Hey, babe,” he says, kissing my cheek and smelling suspiciously like my French conditioner.
“Good morning.” I give him a bright smile with his plated breakfast. “I was thinking.”
Preston settles himself on a barstool and raises a brow. “Uh-oh.”
“Why don’t we do dinner at Sauvage tomorrow night?”
“Sauvage?” he asks around a bite of eggs. “Isn’t that the place with ice sculptures on the tables?”
“It is,” I say, a little surprised he’s been there.
“Janie and I went there for our anniversary once.”
My heart plummets. At least I’m finding out now and not after the fact. We can’t get engaged at a place he’s taken his wife. Although that will severely limit our options. “Okay.” I square my shoulders and wipe some crumbs from the counter with a dish cloth. “We can go somewhere else, then.”
“No.” Shaking his head, he takes a long drink of water. “Sauvage sounds good.”
I frown at his bent head. Sauvage does not sound good, at least not for my proposal. “Preston,” I snap, and he quickly looks up. “I don’t want to go somewhere you took her.”
His eyes widen, and he looks genuinely surprised. “Janie and I went to a lot of places over the years.”
“Just forget it,” I say, and pick up my phone. “I’ll find something else.”
He shrugs and returns to his food, happy to let me have whatever I want. See what a gem I’ll be marrying?
* * *
We end up going to élan instead. Atmosphere-wise, it’s not quite as good as Sauvage would have been, but at least it’s not tainted with memories of Preston and his ex-wife. God, I still don’t want to think about how narrowly we avoided that one.
Right before we left, I made up some excuse about needing to grab something from the bedroom. He waited for me in the foyer while I checked the nightstand drawer. The ring box was gone. That can only mean one thing—showtime.
I know you’re thinking that realistically the ring could be in a lot of places—hidden somewhere else, taken in for resizing, returned for god knows what reason.
But you don’t know Preston like I do. He’s a simple man with simple intentions.
If he’s planning to propose to me, he’s going to do it in the most straightforward way possible.
I’ve given him the perfect setup. All he needs to do is take advantage.
We’ve finished our first four courses—I highly recommend the rosé champagne lobster medallions—and are waiting on our dessert.
I wanted to get the sphère de chocolat etoilée, which I swear is handcrafted by angels before being delivered to earth, but when I mentioned it to Preston, he said he’d rather share the nuage de citron et lavande.
I wanted to point out that there is no need to share anything, we could each get our own, but I remembered his financial situation just in time.
He’s got enough traditionalism in him not to let me pay for our meal, even if his job doesn’t pay enough to afford places like this very often.
Especially not with the payments he must have taken on for the ring in his pocket.
Thinking of it reminds me why we’re here in the first place. I don’t know if he’s forgotten or if he’s just waiting for the perfect moment, but every man needs a gentle push now and then, right?
I reach my hands across the table for his. He takes them and smiles at me, his brown hair flopping across his forehead, making him look younger than thirty-five.
“I can’t believe we can finally do things like this,” I say, glancing around the restaurant.
It’s late in the evening, so most patrons have cleared out, leaving the perfect atmosphere for an intimate moment.
“It’s incredible.” He strokes the back of my hand with his thumb.
It happens suddenly, the way most flashbacks do. One second I’m looking down at our joined hands, and the next, I’m seeing Pierce’s fingers wrapped around mine, his thumb the one brushing against my skin, except his touch causes goosebumps to break out up and down my arms.
I shake my head, clearing those traitorous thoughts away. Of course my self-sabotaging brain would remind me of Pierce on the night of my engagement.
Giving Preston an encouraging smile, I say, “I don’t want to do this with anyone else. You’re it for me.”
“You’re it for me too, Maeve.” He tightens his hands around mine. “In fact, there’s something I want to ask you.”
Here we go.
My pulse picks up speed as he reaches into his pocket and withdraws the same box I found yesterday. I take a deep breath to calm my racing nerves. So far, everything is going according to plan. I just wish it wasn’t all so damn exhausting.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the server approaching us with the lemon chiffon cake. I glance up, meeting his eyes, and give him a subtle nod. He retreats to the kitchen, presumably to get the champagne.
Preston pops open the box. My gasp of surprise is perfectly executed—What? I only practiced half a dozen times—and I free one of my hands to cover my mouth as I stare at the ring. It catches the light, and you can hardly see its flaws from here.
“Maeve Wilson, will you marry me?”
The look of expectancy on Preston’s face is exactly how I pictured it—everything is exactly how I pictured it.
My French manicure is flawless, I’m wearing a black Dior dress with a pearl-edged square neckline I just picked up today, the restaurant receives full marks for both food and atmosphere, and there’s a handsome man smiling at me from across the table, asking me to spend the rest of my life with him.
And that’s when it hits me.
I spent so much time thinking about the proposal, I never stopped to think about the question itself.