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“I just want to see it. That’s fair, right?”
“Okay.” She slipped her hand into her pocket and withdrew the small piece.
Because of course it had to be sapphires. Didn’t that just beat all?
Two infinity symbols made up of diamonds bracketed a sapphire in the middle. The deep blue color was gorgeous, and he could only imagine how lovely it would look on her pale finger. He only had one question.
Well, two, but she didn’t have an answer for when she would start wearing it, so no point in asking that one.
“It’s pretty,” he said at length. No reason to dump his own issues with sapphires at her doorstep. If she liked it, that was all that mattered. “But why isn’t it bigger?”
“What?” She gaped at him.
“A wedding ring should be special.” He rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. “I know you were already engaged before, and that probably he gave you a nice ring.” Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed her tucking her other hand under her hip. “Nothing about this situation is normal, but if you decide you want to upgrade it, just let me know. Not that I don’t like the one you picked out,” he added as she gawked at him.
“Are you even real?” she asked after a moment.
“I wasn’t insulting your ring. Yeah, I have my own issues with sapphires, which is my problem, but—”
“Michael. You don’t even know me. We barely ever spoke. Were you even aware of my existence before this weekend?”
He slid her a glance. He was in no hurry to go there, but they needed to get their past on the table before she found out in another way and hated him even more.
If that was even possible.
“Yeah. Did you ever know about the pictures?”
“What pictures?”
“So I guess that’s a no.” He exhaled and rubbed her knuckles again before closing his hand around hers. She must’ve been distracted by his latest impending revelation, because she didn’t even try to pull away. “You know Lila is my stepmother.”
“Even though she’s barely older than you, yeah.”
“My family is weird. Sorry you married into it. Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Back when she started up with Nick, she and my father were separated. I was concerned she was going to create a big issue with her divorce. My dad isn’t an understanding man. The fact that he’d had affairs for years wouldn’t stop him from treating L like shit. So I thought if I hired a PI friend to take some pictures of her and Nick while they were cavorting all over town, she’d see how indiscreet she was being.”
“So, wait, you hired someone to take intimate pictures of your stepmother?” Her eyebrows rose. “Sure you weren’t off on some Freud trip? She’s a beautiful woman, and I know how teenage boys are with hot MILFS.”
“She wasn’t technically a mother then,” he mumbled. “Just a stepmother.”
“Yeah, and you didn’t deny guys get turned on by having a sexy stepmom. So that’s how that was.” Chloe shifted to sit sideways on the couch, pushing her back against the arm. He didn’t blame her for needing space but it still stung.
“The pictures weren’t intimate. I specifically told Jerzee to not photograph anything of that nature. He wasn’t sneaking around outside her bedroom. The photos were all taken outside, no super long lens, no big drawn out time period.” Michael rubbed a hand over his face. “And one of the pictures he got was of you and Nick.”
“Of me and Nick what? We didn’t do anything.”
“You were hugging. Smiling at each other. In one of them, it kinda looked like you were blowing him a kiss.”
“I don’t blow Nick kisses. What the hell? Where are these pictures?”
“Hang on. I still have them in my email. I kept them because—”
“You wanted spank material of your stepmother?”
“No,” he said sharply. “I wanted to have them available so she could see all of them. I’m glad I did so now you can too. There is no spank material or anything close to it. The most Jerzee got of Nick and Lila was them kissing outside a laundromat and him grabbing her ass—which if you know them, he does about every six seconds.”
“Wow. Bitter much?”
He didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t hear him out now anyway.
