Put a Ring On It (21 page)

Instead of answering her question directly, he said, “I gave her my grandmother's ring. She never wore it. Not once. It was too small for her finger. She kept saying she would get it resized, but she never did. It embarrassed her. But when she left, she took it with her. I never knew why.”

Brighton's throat felt dry and tight. “And you still love her.”

“Love is a feeling. I'm more about action.” He reached behind the desk and located her blouse. “Here. Let me find your bra.”

•   •   •

A mere ten minutes after Brighton straggled out of the attorney's office with messy hair, smeared lip gloss, and tattered dignity, Jenna intercepted her in the middle of Main Street.

“So! I hear you and Jake just got into some very
heated
negotiations at the family law office.”

Brighton gaped at the bartender. “How on earth did you hear that? It's been like five minutes!”

Jenna shrugged one shoulder. “Welcome to Black Dog Bay.”

“No, seriously. Did the legal secretary send out a mass e-mail the minute I walked out the door?”

“I cannot reveal my sources.” Jenna led the way to the Whinery and held the door open. “I can, however, offer you a refreshing glass of sangria. Made it this morning with fresh peaches from the farmers' market.”

“How can I say no to that?” Brighton took a seat at the bar. She glanced around at all the pink and silver fripperies and sighed. “And to think this is where this whole, champagne-drenched mess began.”

Jenna pulled an icy pitcher of sangria from the refrigerator beneath the bar. “Would you do things differently? If you could go back to the night you met him?”

Brighton nibbled her lower lip, considering. “I should have run out the door the second he smoldered in my direction.”

“Why? You said yourself it's been fun.”

“Yeah, but he's not a good match for me. He was a spur-of-the-moment, seat-of-my-pants, double-dog-dare marriage of convenience. Like a Regency romance meets Mad Libs.”

Jenna smiled. “Sometimes, that's just what a woman needs.”

The Whinery's front door swung open and Genevieve Van Petten swept in, looking like European royalty with her dark sunglasses, ivory sheath dress, and lean, sculpted legs.

“Look who's here,” Brighton muttered. “Daisy Buchanan.” She held her ground and sipped her sangria. Eyes front, back straight, ankles crossed.
Show no weakness, give no quarter.

Genevieve approached and cleared her throat—but not a normal, phlegmy, plebian throat clearing. No. Genevieve's
ahem
had been cultivated in the poshest finishing schools in New England. “Hello, Brighton. I hoped I might find you here.” She rested her hand on the back of the nearest barstool. “Is this seat taken?”

I
'm too sober for this.
Brighton signaled Jenna to top off her sangria, then acknowledged the other woman with a curt nod. She could smell the faint trace of Genevieve's light, floral perfume.

“May I sit down?” Genevieve asked.

Brighton kept her expression perfectly pleasant as she inwardly dry heaved. “I can't stop you, but I should give you fair warning that I'm not feeling very chatty at the moment.”

“That's fine; I just need you to listen.” Genevieve arranged herself on the stool with the effortless grace of a ballerina. “I heard that you and Jacob . . .” Her self-assurance finally faltered. “I heard you decided to divorce.”

Brighton refused to confirm this. She remained still and silent until Genevieve tried again.

“I know it must have been a surprise, seeing me on his porch like that. Again, I can't tell you how truly sorry I am.” The perfect
high-society blonde tucked a strand of perfect hair behind her perfect ear.

Brighton couldn't tamp down her disappointment and anger any longer. She put down her glass and swiveled her stool to confront Genevieve. “Sorry for what, exactly?”

“That you found yourself caught in the middle of this. I know how hard it is to let go of him.” The other woman's smile was calm and compassionate. “It's been fifteen years since we first met. And not a day goes by that I don't think about him.”

“I heard that you only got together with him to piss off your parents,” Brighton remarked. “Is that true?”

Genevieve took this as an invitation to relay her version of the story. “I didn't marry him to upset my parents. I married him because I couldn't bear not to. It was the first time in my life I wanted something enough to defy my mother and father. He was different from anyone I'd ever met. So brash and smart; completely unafraid. He made me feel brave, too. When he went down on one knee and asked me to marry him, what could I say?”

Brighton couldn't imagine Jake making such an old-world display of gallantry. Proposing on bended knee wasn't his style.

Then again, who was she to say what was and wasn't his style? She was just the human shield he used to ward off this ethereal, blue-blooded siren.

“From the moment I said yes, I knew it was temporary.” Genevieve sighed. Even in the harsh afternoon sunlight, her complexion appeared smooth and poreless. “But I thought that if I could escape
my family's expectations for a summer, I might be able to change the rest of my life.”

“Did you?” Brighton asked.

Genevieve shook her head. “After we ended things, I went back to my ordinary life. I was exactly the same, at least on the outside.”

Brighton thought about the corporate office waiting for her back in the city. The closet full of dark suits, the dental appointments and gym memberships, the gray, overcast skies and the bumper-to-bumper commutes.

“But inside, in my heart and soul, I've never been the same.” Genevieve sounded wistful. “And even though I couldn't manage to change my life, he changed his. Jacob had nothing when we got married.” She paused to let this sink in. “
Nothing.
Not even a credit card. We lived in a rented studio. I had to eat ramen noodles and SpaghettiOs for the first time in my life.” She shuddered, then waited for Brighton to commiserate.

“I love SpaghettiOs.” Brighton hadn't eaten them in years, but suddenly she was starving. “But then, I grew up poor, so . . .”

“I married him even though he couldn't afford a proper engagement ring.” Another dramatic pause. “All we had was a hand-me-down from his grandmother.”

“Wow,” Brighton murmured. “How you've suffered.”

“I'll admit it: I was ashamed to wear it. I was afraid of what my friends would say. I was cowardly and vain.” Genevieve's demeanor changed ever so slightly. Her tone and expression shifted as she sized up Brighton. “But I kept it all these years. I still have it.”

Brighton shook her head. “You didn't give his family heirloom back after your family got the marriage annulled?”

“It meant something to me.”

“It meant something to him, too,” Brighton pointed out.

Genevieve glanced at Brighton's left hand. “What did you do with your ring from Jacob?”

Brighton reached for her sangria. “Don't have one. As I'm sure you've heard, we had kind of a spontaneous wedding.”

“And he wouldn't even buy you a ring?” Genevieve looked horrified and a little smug. “That's awful. When
I
married him, he was determined to give me everything I wanted.”

“I said that he
didn't
buy me a ring, not that he
wouldn't
,” Brighton snapped.

Genevieve looked confused. “Oh. Well, it's none of my business, I suppose.”

“No, it's not.” Brighton smiled sweetly and let the silence expand.

Finally, the exquisite blonde rallied with, “I came here to apologize. I can't imagine how you must be feeling about all this. But I also came to explain that Jacob and I have a long, complicated history, and it's not over. It will never be over.”

“Mmmm.” Brighton ran her fingertip along the rim of her glass. “Because after he made a bunch of money, you still rejected him. In front of a roomful of people.”

“That was . . .” Genevieve's flawless complexion flushed. “That was complicated. I had already promised to marry another man.”

Brighton glanced at the socialite's bare fingers. “And how did that work out?”

“It was the worst mistake of my life. I married a man I didn't love and I paid for it every single day.” Her blue eyes brimmed with tears.

“I'm confused; break this down for me again.” Brighton rested her chin in her hand. “Why did you get that annulment?”

“My parents were going to cut me off.”

“From what?”

“My trust fund. The family investments. What was I supposed to do?” Genevieve shed a single dainty tear. “Be penniless? Drop out of college?”

“You didn't have to drop out of college. You could have applied for student loans and done work-study.”

Genevieve stared at Brighton as though she had started speaking in tongues.

“And why did you marry that other guy after Jake came back with a million dollars?”

Genevieve looked stricken. “I know how this is going to sound. I know. But . . . a million dollars isn't really all that much. And a good marriage is about more than money. My family and his family had known each other for years.”

“And yet it didn't work out.”

“It didn't.” Another ladylike tear ran down her cheek. “As I said, I suffered for my sins.”

Brighton rolled her eyes. “That's a bit dramatic, don't you think?”

“You wouldn't say that if you'd been in my marriage.”

“Okay, but be honest: Why are you showing up now?” Brighton asked. “He'll never be up to your lofty standards. He's moved on. He's married someone else. Why don't you give back his grandmother's ring and let him be?”

“I tried. I've been trying for years.” Genevieve rested her fragile, spindly wrists on the edge of the bar. “But as I said, there's something about him that makes him impossible to forget. Which is why I wanted to talk to you, woman to woman.”

Brighton snorted. “‘Woman to woman'?” She pushed her stool back. “We're done here.”

Genevieve rested one hand lightly on Brighton's shoulder. “If he didn't want me, I'd leave. I'd go away and never come back. But the truth is, we're not done with each other, and I'm not sure we ever will be.”

Brighton shook off Genevieve's hand. “He is done with you. He married me.”

“After fifteen years of being single. On the day I contacted him. Isn't it possible that he married you to send me a message?”

“Yes, and I don't think the message was: ‘Please show up at my house at your earliest opportunity.' If you're so insistent on chatting ‘woman to woman,' let me ask you something.” Brighton tried to remain emotionless, but she wasn't as good at this game as Genevieve was. “Why
did
you contact him? Why now, after all this time? What do you want from him?”

“Who says I want anything from him?”

“I do.” Brighton thought back to what Hattie Huntington had said about the Van Petten family's financial distress. “Call it woman's intuition.”

Genevieve looked a bit discomfited. “I don't expect you to understand our history.”

“Good. Because I don't. What I do understand is that you didn't want him enough to stay with him when he was poor, you didn't want him when he ‘only' had a million dollars, but now that your trust fund dried up, suddenly he's the long-lost love of your life.” She had to stop to catch her breath.

Genevieve's expression froze. “Who said anything about my trust fund?”

Brighton leveled her gaze. “I heard that the Van Pettens are having a cash-flow problem. I heard that all you have left is social currency, and that doesn't pay the bills.”

Genevieve's lip trembled. “That's just vicious gossip.”

“So you're saying that you'd be here throwing yourself at him if he were still making minimum wage and eating SpaghettiOs?” God, she was hungry.

Genevieve pulled herself together and sat up straight. “You don't need Jacob. I do.”

I don't need him, but I want him.

“Stop calling him Jacob,” Brighton said.

“But that's his name.”

“His name is Jake. Jacob is annoying and pretentious.”

“You're only saying that because you don't like me.”

“Fair point.”

“I married Jacob—Jake”—Genevieve looked pained as she forced herself to say the nickname—“for the right reasons. We were desperately in love. Both of us.”

“No, you weren't.” Brighton said this instantly, almost as a reflex. But maybe she was wrong. Jake hadn't married Genevieve because he was drunk and bored and reckless. He'd married her because . . . well, maybe he
had
loved her. Maybe once upon a time, Jacob Sorensen had been capable of a deep, genuine connection.

“He loved me more than anyone else has ever loved me before or since.” Genevieve sounded stronger with every syllable. “I didn't appreciate it at the time because I was so young, but he would have done anything for me.” She inhaled slowly. “You need to let him go, Brighton.”

“Why? Because you want another chance? Sorry, life doesn't work that way. You don't get unlimited chances with a guy like Jake. One per customer, lady. You had your turn.”

Rather than argue, Genevieve changed the subject. “I wish we'd met under different circumstances. I feel as though we could have been friends.”

“I doubt you'd want to be friends with someone like me,” Brighton said. “I'm very ordinary.”

“You're talented. I was sincere when I asked you about commissioning a piece of jewelry.”

“If you're looking for someone to design your next engagement ring from Jake, you're going to have to keep looking.” Brighton took another big gulp of sangria. Overwhelmed with loss and frustration, she turned to the only healthy outlet left to her. “Which
reminds me, I should get going. I've got a few designs to finish up before Monday.”

“What are you working on?” Genevieve asked.

“Rings.” Brighton thought about Lila and Malcolm and their starry-eyed devotion. “For a couple that actually stands a chance in hell of making their marriage last.” She pushed her half-empty glass aside and flagged down Jenna. “Check, please.”