Chapter 3 – Graham
Chapter Three
GRAHAM
I ’m not the kind of guy who poaches another man’s woman. There’s bad karma there because if a woman is so easily lured away from one man, who’s to say she’ll be faithful to you? That said, no woman should be with a man who gives her a fake rock unless it’s something the couple agreed to in the first place because of, say, ethical reasons.
“You don’t have the real one at home in a safe?” I don’t want to be jumping to conclusions.
“Does it look like I have a safe here?” Luna waves a hand around the small space. While neat, the place is bursting with things. There are silly sculptures of animals dressed as humans next to fruit shaped like animals. There’s a garland of mushrooms made out of yarn strung across a cabinet front. A number of design, color, and architecture books are stacked in a tower next to the bed. Her multicolored dishes in reds, pinks, blues, and yellows rest on a shelf above the sink. It’s bright and cheery and very pleasing to the eye. I can see why she likes it.
I lower myself into a blue velvet overstuffed chair.
“Maybe in the closet?” I suggest, angling my head to get a better look at her bedroom that she converted into storage but all I see through the crack in the door is a splash of color.
“No.” She twists her ring, holding it up to the light. Little rainbows dance on a nearby lamp shade. “Are you sure? Look at the refraction.”
“Yeah, I could be wrong.”
She makes a face. “Don’t lie to me.”
I come over and lift her hand up so the sunlight can hit it. “A real diamond will have mostly white light refractions. Rainbows indicate a cubic or moissanite, but there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Luna takes her hand back and stares at the ring, tilting her hand to the left and the right. “When Michael proposed, he said that he spared no expense in getting me the biggest diamond in the store because a woman like me deserved a rock this big and shiny. Now that I know it’s a fake, it’s like he was laughing at me. Calling me big and shiny but really meaning I’m a plastic phony.”
Luna’s voice quavers at the end. Tears are imminent. My dislike for Montclair grows.
“The only fraud here is Michael. He probably has money problems and can’t afford a real rock that big.”
“The Montclairs don’t have money problems,” she scoffs. “They live in an enormous apartment that overlooks the Park, and everything he buys is design—” She stops and jumps to her feet. I follow her as she races into her closet. The walls are lined with clothing rods, and the outfits are sorted by color. There’s a collection of cabinets forming an island in the center, and on top are a number of bags. She grabs the first one with two interlocking Cs and shoves it into my chest. “Is this fake?”
“I don’t know.” I turn the bag over in my hands. “Really. I don’t buy this sort of thing.”
“Purses?”
“Anything, really. I’ve got a…” I was going to say accountant and then realized how snobbish and out of touch that sounds. “I did buy my nephew a car. I could probably tell you if those were real. Also booze. I’ve bought a lot of whiskey for my poker nights.”
She looks dumbfounded. “I can understand not buying a purse, but what about all your clothes? Or sheets? Towels? Groceries? Do you at least shop for groceries?”
Maybe the internet was right, and I do need to be taken out. “Think of it this way. I’m employing people to do things that they enjoy like cooking or writing checks, and if I bought food or clothes, they’d have to be paving asphalt or selling hot dogs on the corner.”
“Who likes writing checks?” An adorable line appears between her eyebrows.
My fingers itch to smooth it away, so I shove my hands in my pockets before answering. “Accountants?”
“Does your accountant know someone who can authenticate this?” She taps the bag in my hand.
“Maybe. I’ll call and ask.”
“No, don’t,” she says, but I’m already on the phone.
“Hey, Lee. Got a question for you. Do you know of someone who can tell a fake from a real when it comes to purses…what kind of purse? It has a C on it. Two Cs, actually…oh, okay, that’s great. Text it to me, will you? Actually, can you make us an appointment for today in say, twenty minutes?” I lower the phone and ask Luna, “Twenty minutes good for you?”
She nods. I confirm the details with Lee and then call for my driver. “Let’s go.” I tuck the purse under my arm and wave for her to go in front of me. When we arrive in the lobby, the doorman is talking with my driver.
Luna stops and turns to me. “I don’t need to go.”
“Okay.” I’m confused, but I’ll roll with it.
“I know it’s fake. If my ring is fake, so is this.”
It dawns on me that the purse was a gift from Montclair. “He’s given me so many expensive things, and I loved it because before him, the closest I’d ever come to a Chanel bag was an ad in my dentist’s copy of Vogue . I feel like a fool.” She rubs the back of her hand across her forehead, and her lower lip trembles.
The line between her eyebrows is no longer adorable but heartbreaking. I pull her full against me and shove her face against my chest. “I’ll break that asshole for you, Luna. Don’t you worry about a thing. Just lean on me.”