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‘Do you see another woman here in need of an engagement ring?’
His attempt at a joke brought a smile to her face. And set an unbidden tear trickling down her cheek.
‘I thought you liked it?’ he said, brow crinkling with confusion.
She wiped the tear away and sniffed and laughed at the same time. ‘I do. I love it. I just can’t believe you’ve chosen something so beautiful for little old me.’ No one had ever gifted her anything so beautiful before. She hadn’t received a present in years, not a proper meaningful gift that wasn’t part of her work’s Secret Santa.
Not knowing why her eyes were leaking, she wiped another tear away.
‘Are you going to try it on?’ he asked.
She held her hand out to him. ‘I want you to put it on me.’
She felt rather than saw his hesitation. ‘Please?’ she said. ‘I’m never going to have this moment again.’
Clara would never marry for real. She wasn’t capable of forming the kind of bond that marriage followed—how could she when all trust had been knocked out of her at such a young age? For real bonds to form, trust was needed. Trust that they would never lie to you and trust that they had your best interests in their heart, and only her mum had ever had her best interests at heart. In any case, she doubted there was a man alive who could put up with her! But here, in this moment, she wanted to experience the romance of a ring being slid on her finger. Just for the experience. Just for the moment. And just with Marcelo...
It was comments like that which had fed Marcelo’s determination for the perfect ring. Her honesty. Her lack of guile. Her lack of self-pity. Her matter-of-factness that relationships, never mind marriage, were not for her.
How easy it would have been for her to become bitter at what life had thrown at her but Clara latched on to the good rather than focus on the bad. Look how she’d spent her time in Ceres focusing on training to be a princess rather than indulging in bitterness and recriminations at the heinous behaviour of her brother and the King of Monte Cleure.
Surely it must affect her? Her brother had sold her to a monster who would have forced her into a marriage from which she would have been lucky to escape with her life, but, other than the time she’d opened up about how she’d been prepared to fight to her last breath on her wedding night, you’d never know what she’d been through.
There had been myriad reasons for him to buy her the perfect ring but deeper than all of them had been the need to do something special for her.
He’d had a strong feeling that it had been a long time since anyone had done anything special for her.
He attempted another joke. ‘Do you want me to get down on one knee too?’
She pulled a humorous face. ‘Let’s not go overboard.’
Chuckling, he carefully plucked the fifteen-carat oval diamond set on an elegant pavé band covered in sparkling diamonds from the box and took hold of her hand.
The thumping of his heart became a boom.
He put the ring to her slender wedding finger. He’d never noticed what pretty hands Clara had before. Was it his imagination or was there a tremor in it?
Slowly, he slid the ring over her knuckle until it nestled snugly on her finger. The diamond glittered.
He lifted his gaze from the ring to her eyes. They shone as brightly as the jewel on her hand but the expression in them was one he hadn’t seen before.
‘It’s perfect,’ she said. ‘How did you guess I would like it?’
He rubbed his thumb over the main diamond. ‘I was going to get something colourful and elaborate but when I saw this...’ He took a deep breath. ‘It’s simple and solitary and sparkling and beautiful. Just like you.’ And worth every cent of the money he’d splurged on it, which had cost more than he’d paid for his Bugatti. It was the single most expensive item he’d ever bought.
Clara’s lungs practically closed from the rapid expansion of her heart.
‘Are you calling me simple?’ she tried to jest, but it came out too choked to be funny. In its box, the ring had been stunning. On her finger, its beauty overwhelmed. It was an engagement ring fit for a real princess.
But, just like she would never be a real wife, she knew she could never be a real princess. Gazing at the sparkling diamond on her finger only reinforced that feeling. She would try, though. Try her darnedest to be the best princess she could be and make Marcelo proud and make herself at least a little worthy of this ring.
He squeezed his fingers around hers and gave something that was almost a smile. ‘I meant it as a compliment. You have no artifice.’
‘And that’s a good thing?’
‘At least I won’t have to spend our marriage wondering what you’re thinking.’
The overwhelming feelings finally became too much to contain and, tugging her fingers from his hold, she flung her arms around his neck. ‘Thank you. I promise to take good care of it.’
