Chapter 12 She Said Yes #2
BEFORE SHE KNEW it, they were speeding down Deleveaux towards the town square, the ice world tinted in red once again.
Hopefully, we weren't going to visit his mother, she thought for a moment, but then they passed the hotel.
People were starting to come out more now that the snow had stopped falling.
It was high enough to ski in, so they wanted to enjoy some of it before the trucks took it away.
They pulled up to a boutique, and he turned off the engine. Kayden jumped off, then lifted her, holding her for a few seconds in the air.
“Stop it, Kayden,” she laughed, embarrassed.
People were looking at them, but he couldn’t care less; he was ecstatic. Her cell phone, which was in her pocket, fell in the snow, and he put her down.
“Sorry,” he apologized and picked it up. Before handing it to her, he swiped the screen and held it up, pulling her close.
“Say cheese,” Kayden said, smiling that big white smile, teeth sparkling in the limited sunlight.
She realized over the last few weeks, they hadn’t taken one picture together the whole time.
They hadn’t done a whole lot together, actually.
No dates, no movies, but then again, your options weren’t exactly vast up there when it came to entertainment.
She would make sure she snapped pictures over the next couple of days, though.
If she couldn’t be with him physically, at least she’d get to have some memories to remind herself that this whole ordeal wasn’t a fantasy.
She leaned into him and smiled as brightly as she could, and he hit the camera button.
They both looked at the screen, and it was perfect —like those cheesy camera-commercial couples.
She tucked the phone back into the leather jacket, and he grabbed her hand again and pulled her into a vintage jewelry shop named “Arnolds.” Now she understood what was so important as he pushed the door open, and the bell chimed overhead. It was the engagement ring.
A middle-aged woman was standing behind the counter, very refined and very serious.
You could tell she was the type of woman who thought more of herself than she actually was.
Her hair was short and curly and looked as hard as a baseball.
The smell of Aqua Net confirmed her theory as they got closer to her.
The shop had a floral, green-patterned wallpaper with brown stripes on its walls.
A grandfather clock stood in one corner, behind the facing display, and other display cases were along the perimeter of the walls to its left and right.
It wasn’t Zale’s, but it was charming. Kayden pulled her closer and closer to the display, and it held a treasure of beautiful, rare-looking jewelry.
“Mr. Capshaw,” the woman stated.
It wasn’t a friendly greeting, more formal than anything. She flashed a brown grin, the result of either too much coffee or possibly cigarettes.
“I’m in the business for a ring, Mrs. Arnold,” he said, leaning over the glass display.
“I see,” she replied as she gave Lana a disapproving glare. “You know I’m still heartbroken that you and my Melissa never got the chance to marry.”
She attempted a coy look, but it failed miserably. Kayden shrugged his shoulders while smiling, but Lana could tell his patience was already wearing thin with her.
“Well, Mrs. Arnold, Mellie was always a social butterfly. I don’t see how she would have found the time,” he said, with a hint of amusement in his voice.
He sure had a nice way of calling a woman’s daughter a slut to her face. Lana would give him that. Mrs. Arnold gave an embarrassing grin and grabbed the keys from the table behind the counter.
“What can I help you with?” she replied, opening the case.
Kayden looked at Lana, waiting for her to respond, but she froze.
Accepting a ring from him now reminded her of having to leave it and him behind later.
She decided not to make it a drawn-out affair and would pick something out that was modest so they could be on their way.
Lana looked over at the case and quickly understood that modesty didn’t exist in there.
The stones were some of the most beautiful she’d ever laid eyes on, and nothing appeared to be under four karats.
The clearest of diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, as well as chocolate diamonds, were before her eyes, and she couldn’t help but light up as she looked over at them all.
“You gonna try one?” he asked.
She glanced up at him from the case and nodded her head.
“Well, which one, dear?” Mrs. Arnold asked, annoyed.
“All of them,” Kayden replied.
Mrs. Arnold’s mouth dropped open.
AFTER SPENDING THE entire afternoon putting Mrs. Arnold through her paces, Lana picked out a four-karat princess cut in white gold.
It was the most beautiful thing she had not only seen but worn before—even if for only a few days.
She was in Kayden’s room —or what had become their room —and putting her clothes into the suitcase she kept tucked behind his coats in the closet.
He was downstairs cooking dinner, so she had time to plan her forced abandonment.
Lana caught a glimpse of the light coming off the ring and held her hand up as the flecks danced around in the stones.
Man, was it nice, she thought, but I’d give up fifty of them for one Kayden.
She thought of the wedding plans they had made one evening in front of the fire.
They were throwing ideas out, but it came together rather perfectly in her opinion.
He wanted to fly them to New York sometime in the upcoming weeks to pick out the wedding bands and get their registry started.
It was early March now, and they had decided on a December wedding.
The house would be finished by then, and Kayden thought the best way to christen it would be a lavish estate wedding.
They would spend two weeks in Bali on their honeymoon before moving back to Hamby for good.
It was a fast timetable, and if she thought she was actually getting married, she would have called her family by now.
One day, the truth would eventually come out, she hoped, but when that was and whether it would make a difference to him were other things.
She zipped up the suitcase and stood in the closet, saying a mental goodbye to him and Hamby.
She wept quietly for a moment, then calmed herself before going downstairs.
THE SUN BLAZED overhead, set against a sweep of cerulean sky.
Paula strutted in her designer swimsuit and towering Louboutins as if the world were her runway.
Other women at the pool were shooting her nasty looks, but she didn’t notice.
She was too busy sipping her Bahama Mama drink and watching the DVR feed from her house on her laptop.
From the screen, she could see her mom, Kim, Lana, and Kayden.
She turned up the headphones’ volume to listen in on what was happening.
After the scene unfolded with Lana telling her mother off and stalking up the stairs off-camera, Kayden turned to his mom and spoke.
Paula couldn’t believe the words from his mouth, although she knew everything he said was true.
Their mother did treat him badly, and so did she at times, but she was happy to see for herself the changes that had begun to happen in him.
Lana was a good influence on her brother, and Paula could see herself proud to be his sister again if he kept it up.
Paula also wished she hadn’t seen quite so much of her brother and Lana in their intimate moments and fast-forwarded through them.
Peeking in on them was becoming like her own “Netflix and chill,” and she was hooked now.
The time stamp on the video was already a week old, and it made her wonder why she hadn’t heard from her brother, mom, or Lana yet.
She closed the laptop down, vowing to watch it all first before she called.
She picked up her phone and looked at the signal bar: nothing at all.
The signal sucked on their part of the island.
Her mom had no right to tell Kayden who he could be with. Especially pushing that conniving she-slut Kimberly on him to make matters worse. Garrett splashed water at her from the pool, and she smiled, putting the laptop down, kicking off her heels, and jumping into the deep end with him.
KIM, MAUREEN, AND Heathcliff were seated in the small café downstairs at the Spence Hotel and enjoyed an early dinner.
Heathcliff kept shooting loving gazes at Maureen, and while sweet, Maureen wasn’t the affectionate type, and Kim felt a little bad for him.
Maureen chewed men up and spat them out back home, so she doubted there’d be any difference up there.
The two were having a conversation under hushed tones, but Kim wasn’t paying either of them attention anyway.
She hunched over her laptop and ignored the Cobb salad on her plate, eyeballing Kayden’s Insta feed.
The unblock program had taken longer than usual to finish its job, but now she was finally back on his page.
As she scrolled through his timeline, a picture of him and Lana popped up on her screen, and she snorted and kept scrolling.
Kim clicked on Lana’s Instagram profile to check out her timeline, but it was set to private.
Damnit, she thought and finally picked up her fork, stabbing a chunk of ham and lettuce.
As she chewed, a notification popped up on her laptop. It was from Kayden. She dropped the fork and clicked it before she was blocked again, and was instantly livid. It was a picture of Lana’s man-hand wearing a diamond ring, the caption reading:
“She said yes!”
Kim turned her laptop to Maureen.
“Look at this,” she yelled way too loudly in the quiet room, as other patrons were now all looking at the three of them.
“Calm yourself,” Maureen started evenly and coolly, “What is it?”