Matter of Truth, A (33 page)

“Is that my gift?” I tease as I throw open the closet door
in the master suite. I’m faced with what looks like a whole other room—not just
a closet, but an entire room dedicated to clothes, shoes, and the like.

Whoa. I don’t even have one-fourth of the amount of clothes
needed to fill such a space.

“No.” He pulls me away from the closet. “Nor is that.” I’m
led over to a huge bay window that has a bench built in right in front of it. I
sit down, but he drops down to a knee. The hummingbirds in my chest take flight
as I drink the sight of him in the beautiful moonlight spilling into the room.

“I proposed to you, remember?” Despite my teasing, my voice
trembles.

I love how deep his dimple is right now. “You didn’t give me
a ring, though.”

“But . . .” I motion to his hand, except . . . the ring we’d
found isn’t there anymore. It hasn’t been there for awhile, not since he took
it off the moment he found mine in the secret box. And now it lies next to the
one that had hugged my finger back in the apartment we left behind a few hours
ago.

He shakes his head slowly. “I loved those rings, Chloe. Part
of me still does. I have a lot of happy memories associated with them. It’s
just . . .” He blows out a breath that sends the hairs around his face
floating. “Fate picked those rings out for us. We didn’t have a say in them.”

For a moment, I don’t know what to say. Jonah . . . he feels
that way, too? Resentful of how Fate has manipulated us so much?

“This one, though,” he says softly, pulling something out of
one of his pockets, “I think . . . it would mean a lot to me if you wore it.”
His palm opens to reveal one of the most beautiful diamond rings I have ever
seen. It’s still rose gold, like our others, but constellations of small
diamonds surround a beautiful square one in the middle. Wait—there’s one small
blue stone near the center diamond. Maybe a sapphire? “This is the one I’ve
always wanted to propose to you with. This is the one I’ve always seen on your
finger when I dream about our future. This is the one I wanted to pick.”

My breath catches in my throat. It’s gorgeous. Just
absolutely gorgeous.

“It’s been in my family for generations. My mom wore it
last. It would mean the worlds to me if you wore it, too, as a symbol of how
much I love you.” He’s uncharacteristically nervous, which I would find
adorable if I didn’t actually feel like bursting into tears brought on from
sublime happiness right now. He wants me to wear his mother’s ring?

My voice shakes with emotion when I tell him, “I love it.”

He holds the ring up so the blue stone faces me. “This one .
. . this sapphire is from Astrid.” His smile is so very sweet. “Because I’ve
been lucky enough to have not one, but two wonderful women to raise me. Maybe
someday, when we pass this ring down to our son or daughter, you can substitute
one of the stones for something that represents you, too.”

Okay. I officially burst into those noisy, happy tears. I
stick my hand out and the moment he slides it on my finger, this feeling of
overwhelming contentment overcomes me. He gave me his mother’s ring. Somehow,
after everything that’s happened over the last few years, he trusts and loves
me enough right now to hand over one of the few possessions of hers he still
has.

I pull him up so I can throw my arms around his neck. “I
love you so, so much, Jonah Whitecomb. Nothing would make me happier than to
wear this ring.”

Later, as we lay naked on the ground on top a blanket I made
us, sated in each other’s arms after an intense yet beautiful round of
lovemaking, I marvel at how right this ring looks on my finger.

I will never take this one off.

“I’m gone for like a week, and you get engaged?” Will nearly
slams his coffee cup down on the table. “Plus you’re moving out already?” He
glares at his father. “Dad! Is this not moving a wee bit too fast? Didn’t you lecture
us just a few months back about how the two of us are way too young to even
contemplate marriage?”

Cameron sighs and sets the newspaper he’d been reading down.
“Son, you know as well as I do that love doesn’t always move on the timetables
we’d like it to.”

“I’m not moving out today,” I assure him. “The apartment
isn’t even done yet. Plus, it’s a ten minute walk away, so chances are, I’ll be
over here everyday anyway.”

Will arrived in Annar less than an hour before—he’d been
ready to go to his room and pass out when he noticed the ring on my hand. From
that point on, rather than telling us what happened in Glasgow, he drilled me
on the particulars of everything that happened in the last few days.

Cameron and I exchange a worried glance. If Will is acting
this upset over me moving out, it’s because something bad happened in Scotland.

“How is Becca?” Cameron asks quietly.

He’s silent for so long I actually start believing he’s not
going to tell us. Just as Cameron gets up to head into the kitchen, Will finally
says, “Cora came through. Becca’s . . . she’s fine. Miraculous recovery and
all. Her family nearly shattered the record for hysterical sobbing over how the
doctors didn’t know shite.” He sighs and drops his chin in a propped up hand.
“She doesn’t remember anything about the accident. Broke down when she learned
that Grant was dead.” He scrubs his hair with his free hand. “Had to be
tranquilized or some shite when she learned she lost the baby.”

“Oh, son,” Cameron murmurs, reaching out to lay a hand on
Will’s forearm.

“Kellan came in quite handy then. Got her . . . to a point,
I guess, where she wasn’t bloody hysterical all the time. Then she called me.
Begged me to come see her. Jesus. It was brutal.”

My heart goes out to him.

“She . . . she wants another chance. Says she misses me,
that we’ve lost too much time already. Told me she was sorry for what she did,
so very bloody sorry that she shagged my best mate and was going to have his
baby.”

“How do you feel about that?” I ask softly.

“Like she fucking punched me right in the balls.” He stands
up. “I’m going to go to bed. Chloe, if you dare to get married while I’m
napping, I’ll never speak to you again.”

I stand up and hug him tightly. “Understood.”

When he’s gone, Cameron says, “I worry about him, hen.”

Me, too.

After much going back and forth on
how to handle the situation, Jonah and I finally decide it’d be best if he
talked to Kellan about our decision to get engaged again. Initially, I’d wanted
to be there, but in the end, I realized there was a good chance I’d just
flat-out make things worse by sobbing outright, wracked by guilt, which would
have done neither man any good.

Even still, I’m a nervous wreck tonight, knowing that Jonah
is having that discussion with Kellan while I’m to have one with Callie.

Jonah’s ex-girlfriend shows up at my apartment, board game
in hand for what she believes to be a leisurely night in. But Cal’s always had
keen eyesight, so the moment I attempt to hug her, arms outstretched, she stops
me with a look that is an agonizing cross between resignation, surprise, and
flat-out pain.

My stomach plummets three stories down. She’s been telling
me for some time that she’s over Jonah. Hell, she’s made it clear numerous
times lately that she’s more than interested in Will (although, if I tell him,
she warns, she’ll cut me out of her life forever). So knowing that seeing the
ring on my finger crushes her is a blow I wasn’t quite prepared for.

Within seconds, though, she pulls out a smile and hugs me
anyway, murmuring congratulations in that husky voice of hers.

“Callie—”

She pulls herself upright. “Don’t you dare apologize, Chloe.
I can see that’s what you want to do. I’m just—I’m being stupidly sentimental.
That ring . . .” She shakes her head, sending silvery strands floating around
her shoulders before letting out a throaty, sad chuckle. “I used to dream about
that ring on my finger.”

I can’t help but ask, “Do you still?”

“No.” And then, more firmly, “No. Not anymore.”

Will comes out from his room, hair adorably mussed. “Chloe,
have you—” His feet come to a halt the moment he spies Cal. “Oh. Hello,
Callie.”

They stare at each other so long that I’ve become the
awkward third wheel.

I take the board game from Cal. “Do you want to join us?” I
ask Will. “I ordered a pizza and—”

“Why do you look like that?” Callie asks quietly.

She’s not talking to me, though. One of Will’s hands goes to
his hair. “Like what?”

“Like you’ve . . .” She flushes, waves her hand around.
“Like that.”

I’ve got to admit, I’m just as confused as he is about what
she’s talking about. Other than looking like he just got out of bed, he looks
just like Will. Incredibly gorgeous, yes, but it’s not like she hasn’t ever
seen him before.

“Oh, well.” He ducks his head. “Right, then.”

Is it wrong to admit I’m amused by how dorky they’re acting
right now?

“Is that a yes?” I ask him.

He blinks, like he’s just remembered I’m in the room. “Um .
. . yeah. Of course. Let me—I guess . . .” He runs his hands down his wrinkly
t-shirt and then blushes himself. “I’ll be right back.”

After he leaves, I turn to Callie. “Smooth moves there.”

She snatches the board game back. “Shut up.” And then, more
gently, “Is he okay?”

I wish I could answer that one myself.

According to Jonah, things did not
go too well when he talked to Kellan about our re-engagement. There was no
fighting this time, nor arguing—just Kellan shutting down right before his eyes
before leaving to go do who knows what. He hadn’t come back by the next
morning, but Jonah assured me that he was in contact with Kellan their way and
his brother was asking for some space to wrap his head around everything.

It was hard not to go running after him. I bite my lip,
wanting to keep the words inside, but I eventually murmur, “Maybe we should
have waited to tell him?”

We’re looking at furniture today, despite me being able to
make us pretty much anything we want; while I’d been so excited to do this very
normal, couple-y thing just an hour earlier, now I feel the weights of our
actions pressing down against me once more.

Jonah pulls me close and kisses the side of my head. “He
appreciated me telling him right away. He asked me to tell you he doesn’t want
you to feel guilty about any of this.”

“How can I not?” I whisper softly.

He leans his head down against mine. “One day at a time, honey.
And if that’s too hard—one step at a time. One breath. One heartbeat. I’m not
promising that someday we’ll all look back at this time and laugh at how we
agonized over our situation, but I do think there will come a time in which
we’ll all have learned how to deal with it better.”

I swallow. “Will he be coming tonight?”

We’d decided to announce our good news to our loved ones at
a dinner party at one of Astrid’s favorite restaurants. There will be no big
wedding planned this time; in fact, we’re leaning toward doing it down at
Karnach in the next month or so with just our closest friends and family
present. Nothing fussy. Small is the way to go, we figure, when trying to
lessen the devastating impact this blissful yet bittersweet occasion will bring
to the other most important person in our lives.

“No.” He kisses my hair once more and pulls away. “I told
him about it, though. I left the choice up to him on how he wants to handle all
of this. He thinks it’ll be best for everyone involved if he stays at home
tonight. But he wants you—us—to know, he’s done running.”

It is so incredibly selfish of me, but I’m glad Kellan won’t
be coming. The entire time, I’d be so stressed worrying about him, wondering
how he was feeling, that I’d probably make myself sick. That would only stress
Jonah out and then Kellan, too; eventually they would do that dumb thing they
do where they bend over backwards to try to make things right for me. In the
end, it would be a miserable experience for all of us.

One heartbeat. One breath. I pull another in, count to ten.
To twenty. I force myself to look at the beautiful ring on my finger, remember
how I came to the choice I did. The happiness that fills me at such thoughts
will always be bittersweet.

In this triangle, someone is always going to be hurting, and
I hate that thought so much it makes me want to blow up everything in sight.

I force myself to focus on picking our furniture for the
next hour. After we’d found some pieces we like, we head over to the sales
counter. As Jonah schedules delivery times and pays for our items, I stare out
the large glass windows at the front of the story. It’s the perfect sort of day
in Annar, with soft white clouds gracing cool blue skies and gentle breezes
tempering warm sunlight.

Just before I turn back to Jonah, a flash of bright, white
hair in the group of people waiting at a stoplight across the street catches
both my attention and my breath. A man stands there, one whose accusatory words
have caused too many nightmares to count over the last year.

I blink, but he’s still there. Tall. Elegant. Grizzled
goatee. White hair. Paler than I remember, wearing a long, black coat on a day
when everyone else is packing away his or her outerwear. He’s standing across
the street, an undecipherable smile on his thin lips as he stares right at me.

“Jonah,” I say quietly, tugging on his sleeve. “I know I’m
out of the loop and all, but is Jens Belladonna back in Annar?”

The sales clerk hands him our paperwork. “No. He’s still
classified as missing. Why?”

I turn back toward the window, but the man is no longer
there.

I jog out of the store, ignoring Jonah’s concern. Once I’m
out on the street, I search in every direction. That was Jens. I’m positive of
it. Where could he have gone?

“Chloe, what’s going on?” Jonah asks when he joins me.

“I just saw Jens Belladonna.” I point across the street.
“Right there. He was watching us.”

Jonah’s forehead furrows. “Maybe you just thought you saw
somebody that looked like him?”

I go to argue, but as Fate would have it, another ghost from
my past blocks our path. Which is just . . . fabulous.

“Well, look at this.” Sophie Greenfield’s smile is so
cat-ate-the-canary smug. “Slumming again, Jonah?”

He closes his eyes briefly, but not before I see the anger
he’s attempting to hide. “Sophie, we really don’t have time for this right
now.”

She actually has the audacity to reach out, like she’s going
to trail her horribly lovely fingers across his cheek. Unable to help myself, I
slap her hand away. But this only exacerbates the haughty smile. “Did Jonah man
up and tell you about what happened between us while you were gone?”

Jonah refuses to play her game, though. “We’re leaving now,
Sophie. I advise you stay away from the both of us.”

“Did you know I was naked in his bed?” Sophie’s voice carries
across the sidewalk as we walk away. “And that I loved it when he put his hands
on me?”

I swing back around, furious. How dare she manipulate what
happened like this—and in public no less! Just as I’m about to put her in her
place, Jonah grabs my arms and says quietly, “Don’t engage her. It only makes
it worse.”

“But—”

“Believe me when I tell you that Kellan and I have made this
mistake far too often. It only ends up antagonizing her to act out more. Our
best line of recourse is to walk away right now. You do not need her parents
petitioning the Council, claiming you’ve been unfairly attacking their daughter
in public. Not now, when you’re just reassuming your duties.”

I stare at him in amazement. Over his shoulder, Sophie
mouths, “You know I’m telling the truth.”

My fists clench tightly, but I let Jonah steer me away.