Put a Ring On It (11 page)

Brighton relented as an old, familiar surge of excitement hit. “We can probably get it done by noon on Wednesday, but we better get cracking. Does this fool happen to know his ring size?”

Lila gave her a look. “What do you think?”

Brighton nodded. “When you call him back, tell him to go to the nearest pawn shop and have them size his finger.”

“God, you're good.” Lila picked up the phone but didn't dial. “Is that why Jake married you?”

“I have no clue why he married me,” Brighton confessed. “And I only married him to stick it to my ex. Hot rage plus hot guy equals bad decisions.”

“I know all about making snap decisions because of an ex,” Lila said. “But getting
married
?”

“I know.” Brighton hung her head. “I'm too ashamed to tell my family.”

“No, that's not what I meant.” Lila kept studying her as though she were an exotic zoo exhibit. “Talk about drama! Excitement! Adventure!”

“I was reeeally mad at my ex,” Brighton murmured. “And like I said, I don't know why Jake did it. There are more pieces to this puzzle, and I'm a little afraid to find out what they are.”

Lila leaned back against the counter. “So what's it like, being married to Jake Sorensen?”

“It's . . .” Brighton tried to find the right words. “Easy. The opposite of real life.” Being with him was so seductively simple. He
didn't argue or act as the voice of reason. He didn't expect anything from her.

Because he didn't care.

But no—that wasn't fair. He'd cared enough to whisk her away to Vegas, to take her to his house and cook for her and give her the most mind-blowing orgasms of her life followed by witty conversation.

He just didn't care about her in the way that a husband traditionally cared about his wife. Which was fine, because they weren't really married in the traditional sense of the word. And they'd been together less than forty-eight hours. She didn't care about him, either.

Much.

S
ix hours later, Lila dropped Brighton off in front of Don't Be Koi.

“Sorry, that went way later than I expected,” Lila said.

“Time flies when you're frantically trying to re-create a wedding ring using grainy Facebook photos.” Brighton's fingers were cramping from all the drawing and detail work, but she felt elated. She'd forgotten how exhilarating it was to lose herself in a design project. The total concentration conferred a sense of peace—her busy mind quieted while her hands worked.

“We're totally going to pull this off.” Lila paused. “Right?”

“Absolutely.” Brighton unbuckled her seat belt. “That guy is just lucky he wants white gold—platinum takes forever to cool.”

Lila checked her cell phone as a text came in. “That's Malcolm, wondering if I'm ever coming home. I better let you go inside. Tell Jake I'm sorry I deprived him of his bride all day.”

“Ah yes, his legally wedded tax implication.”

“I'd say you're more than a tax implication.” Lila smiled knowingly. “There's something going on between you two.”

Brighton waved this away. “Look at Jake Sorensen and look at me. Do you really think we're going to fall madly in love and live happily ever after?”

Lila shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Name one.”

“Remind me to tell you the story of how Malcolm and I got together someday.”

“Is Malcolm like Jake?” Brighton asked.

“No.” Lila gazed off dreamily into the distance. “He's nothing at all like Jake.”

“That's why you're living happily ever after.” Brighton opened the door and got out of the car. “What time do you want to get started tomorrow?”

Lila snapped out of her reverie. “Is seven too early? I'll bring coffee.”

“I'll be there.” Brighton waved good-bye.

“You're the best. And listen, you have to finish up the detail work, so I'll need you well rested. Try to get some sleep tonight.”

Brighton closed the door and practically skipped past the koi pond, thoughts of Gatorade in her head. “I make no promises.”

•   •   •

“Hello?” Brighton kicked off her shoes in the front hall and padded barefoot up to the master suite. The fading light cast shadows across the stair treads. “Anybody home?”

No one answered. Which, when she thought about it, was kind of eerie, because this house was clearly maintained by a substantial staff. Every baseboard, window, and countertop was immaculate. The beachfront was perfectly raked. The beds were made, the towels were folded, and the entire place smelled comforting yet
expensive, with subtle notes of sandalwood. And of course, someone had to keep the massive refrigerator stocked with bottled water, iced coffee, soda, craft beer, and energy drinks.

So where was everyone?

Maybe Jake had gone back to the Whinery to find another boozy watch enthusiast. Maybe he was chatting up another freshly dumped executive worker right now. Maybe . . .

She heard the soft hiss of running water from the master suite. Someone was in the shower. Her heart rate kicked up as she opened the door.

Sure enough, the invisible housekeepers had been busy. The bed had been remade with snowy white linens and piles of fluffy pillows. A silver bowl of strawberries rested on a rough-hewn wooden bench next to a silver champagne bucket filled with ice and three bottles of orange Gatorade.

Brighton tugged her blouse out from the waistband of her skirt and knocked on the bathroom door. “Jake?”

His voice was muffled through the heavy white door: “Your timing is perfect. Come on in.”

She opened the door and stepped into the palatial bathroom, which featured a huge white and silver slipper tub, a glass-walled shower almost as large as Brighton's entire bathroom, and a custom-made blue and white tile map of the Delaware coastline across one entire wall. She couldn't stop staring at Jake's bare chest. His torso was as perfectly proportioned as his face.
Somewhere, a museum is missing its Michelangelo sculpture.
His shoulder was marked with a trio of faint white scars that just added to his rugged masculinity.

She took off her earrings, placed them carefully on a stack of white washcloths next to the sink, and reached behind her to unzip her skirt. He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.
She met him on the bathmat and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Hi.”

“Hi.” His hands settled on her hips.

She looked at the shower. “You're done already?”

“Nope.”

“But you turned the water off.”

“No point in wasting water.” He finished unzipping her skirt.

“I didn't figure you for an environmentalist.”

“Someone's got to think of the radioactive wolves in Siberia,” he murmured against her lips.

“I think it's actually the Ukraine,” Brighton murmured back.

He kissed his way down her neck and starting working on her blouse buttons. “Did you try the strawberries?”

“Nope.” The thin, soaked silk of her blouse clung to her skin. “But they can wait.”

She could feel his smile against her cheek. “Go get one.”

“I'm otherwise engaged right now.”

He eased away from her, ducked out to the bedroom, and returned seconds later with a strawberry. “Taste.”

She took a tiny, tentative nibble, then devoured the rest of the berry in one bite. “Oh my God.”

He nodded, vindicated.

The strawberry was sweet and juicy and delicious, more so than any strawberry she'd had before. It tasted like summer. It tasted like sunshine. She had to close her eyes and support herself with one hand on the marble counter. “That is . . . I can't even . . .” When her taste buds finally settled down, she admitted, “Those were absolutely worth twelve dollars.”

“I'm glad you like them.” He peeled off her blouse and got to work on her bra.

“Did you
do
something to them?” Brighton ran her hands along his back muscles. “Like infuse them with dopamine?”

He quirked one eyebrow, confused. “What?”

“Never mind.” She stepped out of her skirt.

He slipped off her bra, followed by her panties. Then he took her hand and tugged her toward the shower.

Her hand flew to her throat. “My necklace.”

“Leave it on.”

“These are hanadama pearls,” she protested weakly, even as she put one foot into the shower. “I hand-strung them myself. Soap and water erodes the nacre.”

He turned his smolder all the way up. “But you look so good in them.”

Brighton couldn't resist him, couldn't stop touching him—but she knew an opportunity to gain leverage when she saw one. “Tell you what: I'll get in the shower and I'll do all kinds of depraved things to you and I won't say a word about nacre.”

“Best marriage ever.”

“
If
you let me do some work on your watch when you're finished.”

He regarded her with renewed interest. “You want to fix my watch more than you want to save your pearls?”

“I want to fix that watch
bad
,” she informed him with a sultry pout. “I'll do
anything
.”

He turned on the shower. “You've got yourself a deal, Mrs. Sorensen.”

•   •   •

“Pass the Gatorade, please.” Brighton settled in for a long night in Jake's bed. She leaned back against the padded headboard, snuggled into his worn blue T-shirt, and stared down at the laptop propped up on a pillow.

Jake handed her a fresh, cold bottle. “Do you need a snack?”

“No thanks. Now, quit stalling and pick a color: brown or black.”

Her pearls were in ruins, the bedclothes were on the floor, and the only light in the room came from the faint blue glow emanating from the laptop's screen.

His gaze flickered over the photos displayed on the Web site. “I don't care.”

“Let's go with brown.” Brighton tapped away at the keyboard. “It'll match your eyes.”

He made some growly, unintelligible noise deep in his throat.

“I'll take that as a yes.” She scrolled through the site for contact information and nudged him with her foot. “Okay, now you call and place the order.”

“It's the middle of the night,” he pointed out.

“Which means it's business hours in Switzerland.”

“Can't we just run to Target and pick out a watchband?”

“I am going to pretend I did not hear that.” She clamped her hands over her ears. “‘Patek Philippe' and ‘Target' do not belong in the same sentence.”

“You're such a snob.”

“Less talking, more dialing,” she said crisply. “And by the way, I haven't changed my name. I'm still Ms. Smith.”

“You don't want to be Mrs. Sorensen?”

She paused for a sip of sports drink. “It's not that I don't want to be; it's that it seems wrong to call myself that when we're not serious about this marriage.”

“You seemed pretty serious about it in the shower.”

She ignored this. “Besides, I built my professional reputation as Brighton Smith.” She shot him a sidelong glance. “Does that bother you?”

He shook his head and surveyed the clothes littering the rug. “Did you buy anything new to wear?”

“Nope. I kind of lost track of time while I was working on the ring today. I kind of lost track of everything.”

He looked at her for a long moment.

“What?” she finally said.

“You love it.”

“‘Love' is a strong word.” She felt a bit panicky at the mere mention. “It lets me use a different part of my brain. It reminds me of some good parts of my childhood. But it's not like I can't live without it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“True story.” She put the laptop aside and drew her knees up to her chest. “I can stop anytime I want.”

He put one hand beneath his head and used the other to trace the curve of her back through the soft, thin cotton shirt. “If you don't love this work, if you can live without it . . .”

She glanced down at him. “Yes?”

“Why do all this to my watch? Why do you care?”

“Because that watch is special,” she finally answered. “It's rare and it's valuable and I want you to recognize what you have.”

“I'm aware,” he assured her. “That's why I bought it in the first place. Well, that, and too much scotch.”

“That's not enough—I want you to
care
.” She was surprised at the conviction in her voice. “I want you to invest emotionally, not just financially.”

“In a watch?”

She nodded.

He patted her hip. “I hate to tell you this, but that's never going to happen.”

“But I don't want a husband who can't emotionally invest. In his watch,” she hastened to add. “But then, you probably don't want a wife who sent a bunch of photos of your private jet to her ex.”

“Eh. I'll deal with it.”

She sighed and wrapped her arms around her shins. “There've probably been a hundred women just like me in this bed already.”

He smiled that heart-melting, amnesia-inducing smile. “There has never been a woman like you in this bed. Ever. I can promise you that.”

“That's nice of you to say.” She let the subject drop and picked up the laptop again. “Call Switzerland. Make sure you get the steel buckle.”

“Got it.” He groped for his phone on the nightstand.

“Tell them I'm e-mailing photos of the original watch right now. They're going to be so excited.”

“They're going to emotionally invest?”

“You mock me now, but one day soon, you're going to weep tears of poignant joy over this watch,” she said. “Wait and see.”

He reached over to commandeer the laptop. “While we're waiting, let's order you some clothes.”

“My black suit's not doing it for you anymore?”

“Oh, it's doing it for me. That reminds me, I'll order you some new pearls, too. A lot of pearls.”

“You have a boardroom fetish now?”

“I guess I do.” He reached for her. She reached for him.

His phone rang, startling them both.

“Who do you know with such terrible timing?” she asked.

He glanced at the screen, got up from the bed, and left the room without another word.

Probably a work call, she told herself. A sand-related crisis in Saudi Arabia.

She picked up the computer and scrolled through some online clothing stores while she waited for him to return. And waited.

And waited.

Finally, after at least ten minutes had passed, she tiptoed out to the hallway and peered over the railing. Pale moonlight flooded the vast, empty space between the first floor below her and the rafters above her.

“Jake?” she called softly. The sound bounced off the smooth white walls and varnished wood floors.