eyebrows winged halfway up her forehead, her expression one of pure incredulity.
“I think I proposed already,” he said stiffly.
“Well, but … no, because now there’s a ring.” She didn’t touch the ring box, she just looked at it.
“And most women at this point would be looking at the ring.”
“Why all this?” she asked, ignoring his statement. “The museum and the lights?”
“Because I had to speak to quite a few people to arrange this romantic gesture.”
She nodded slowly. “And they’ll tell other people.”
“Yes. Your social class is just small enough that word travels to everyone in it very quickly.”
She frowned. “Right.”
“I’m sorry, did you want something more public?”
She shrugged. “No.”
Anger surged in him, anger and something else that he couldn’t quite identify. “You’re disappointed?”
“I’m not disappointed. That implies I had an expectation about this moment and, truly, for all I knew, you were going to courier me a ring at my office. But I did have expectations of this moment as far as my life goes.”
“And this doesn’t meet your standards?” he asked, his stomach tightening.
“Not really.”
“You might want to look at the rock before you declare the effort subpar, querida,” he said, conscious of the fact that his accent had thickened with his building anger.
He popped the top on the box and pushed it closer to her. She looked down and her eyes widened. Not a big surprise. Five carats would have that effect on someone like her.
“I hope that’s fitting of a woman of your status.”
Vanessa looked down at the ring, glittering beneath the lantern light. The large, square diamond set into a band of white gold with an intricate, antique-style weave was nestled in cream silk, looking as if it had been made just for her.
There was so much about the moment that seemed made just for her. An empty art museum, a gorgeous man and a marriage proposal. If it had been a real marriage proposal—real in the sense that there was love behind it and not just mercenary business dealings—he would have gotten down on one knee. They would have walked through the museum and talked about their future. They would have felt like the only two people in the world.
If they had never parted, if she had stopped him from leaving that night, maybe it would be real.
Her heart squeezed in her chest and she squelched the thought. It didn’t matter. This was reality. And in reality, he’d shoved the ring in her direction and barely looked at her. He hadn’t even asked the question, and it all just hung between them, awkward and unspoken. Painful. Because this was like some nightmare version of a fantasy she might have created for herself.
“It’s lovely.” She reached out and touched it, hesitant to pick it up, to put it on, because the ring made it all seem real. And final.
And because part of her wanted so badly to wear Lazaro’s ring, so very badly. And that was embarrassing, humiliating. She didn’t really want the Lazaro that had come back into her life with all the finesse of a jackhammer. She wanted the man she used to imagine he was. The man he never had been.
“Don’t you like it, querida?” he asked.
“I love it. It’s beautiful. Perfect.”
“You seem giddy,” he said, his expression flat.
“I love it,” she said, teeth gritted.
“Put it on.”
Anger surged through her, pummeling her tender heart. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”
She held her hand out, determined not to be the one to fasten her own diamond handcuffs. He took her hand in his, the heat of his skin on hers sending prickles of electricity through her body, making it nearly impossible for her to cling to the anger that was anchoring her to the balcony, reminding her that this was nothing more than a farce.
He took the ring out of the box and it caught the light. Such a beautiful sign of eternal bondage. She closed her eyes while he pushed it onto her fourth finger. It fit perfectly, and it was more disturbing than anything that it fit. That it somehow seemed right.
She pulled her hand back and brushed her palm down over her skirt, trying to ease the fiery, tingling sensation that was spreading from her fingertips to her wrist.
“How big is it?” Her own voice, the mercenary tone, cooled her off quickly. Reminded her that this was a transaction. Nothing more. Because she had to do something to stop her heart from pounding faster. To keep herself from thinking of all the what-ifs.
“Does it matter?” he asked, his voice as cold as the sick weight in her stomach.
“I’ve heard size matters.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Big enough to satisfy you.”
She swallowed hard, the need to get the upper hand fueling her, choosing her words for her. “I’m not sure about that.”
“The purebred could do better?”
She looked at the ring again. It was beautiful. Perfect. “Possibly.” The lie stuck in her throat.
He jerked back, as though she’d struck him. He looked, just for a moment, like the boy he’d been the night she’d rejected him. Then any vulnerability was gone, replaced with an expression that was as hard as granite.
“I think,” he said, “it’s time we went and had a talk with your father.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I’VE already heard your news, Vanessa. I’ve been down at the club this morning.”
Vanessa fought the urge to hang her head and stare at the toes of her ruby-red shoes. Something happened to her when her father used that tone, that flat, disappointed tone that let her know she’d somehow made a mess of things. She felt like a child again. Small and desperately inadequate, trying to live up to an ideal that had been placed just out of her reach, an ideal she was falling so short of it was nearly laughable.
Michael Pickett wasn’t a large man; he wasn’t young anymore. His voice was thin now, wispy. He couldn’t yell. He didn’t need to. What he could do with a small hint of disapproval in his voice couldn’t be underestimated.
Vanessa swallowed. “Well, it was … unexpected.” She looked down at the rug, a floral-print rug, the same one that had been in place in her father’s office since she could remember. Everything was the same at the Pickett estate. Nothing ever changed. The house was like a relic, surrounded by the modern world but not really a part of it. Like the owner of the estate himself.
“And
