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“It’s not diamonds,” he said slowly. “In contrast, it’s pretty shit. But it does mean something. To me.”
I took the box gingerly and opened it. Nestled inside was a little ring. It wasn’t garish. It wasn’t ostentatious. It wasn’t making up for indiscretions with a ridiculous price tag.
A simple black band with a small black cross in the middle.
I smiled up at him. “I love it.”
“May I?” Valen asked.
I nodded and he took the box back. He took the ring out, dropped the box, and picked up my right hand.
“Did you know,” he started as he slid the ring onto my third finger. “Traditionally, we wore the engagement ring on the right hand?”
“We?” I asked.
He nodded. “Catholics.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to his words. There was this little flurry of excited happiness in my chest, but Valen wasn’t the excited flurry of happiness kind of guy. It was one reason I loved him. “Oh,” seemed hardly fitting, but his eyes lifted to mine, and I saw the smile in them.
“It’s not, mind,” he said.
“Not what?” I asked.
“An engagement ring.”
I nodded. “No. Of course not.”
“Ye can hardly be engaged to two men at once.” There was a note of teasing in his voice. “But consider it a promise.”
“A promise of what?”
“My intentions.”
He turned his right hand over, the one on which he’d always worn his big black ring on the third finger, and I saw there was a cross cut into it. A cross that matched the one on the third finger of my right hand.
The full implication of Valen’s actions hit me. He’d done this, organised this, at Christmas. Three months earlier. He’d been willing to make me this promise even back then, though maybe it hadn’t meant quite so much before. And maybe that was good. Maybe it was good that we were here, making this promise now when it could mean as much as we both wanted it to.
“I don’t have anything to give you in return.”
Thankfully, he knew what I meant. “If you deign to wear it, that will be promise enough for me, love. You have nothing to prove to me,” he said, like he was the one with something to prove.
I almost told him he didn’t either, but then I thought it wouldn’t hurt for him to prove it. I wanted to trust his love, and I was going to give him the chance, but I wasn’t that naïve princess with the rose-coloured glasses anymore.
Valen had my heart, and I wasn’t going to hold any part of it back from him, but I also knew that I was still contracted to marry Apollo and we didn’t know what the future held. But as they said, you had to love like there was no such thing as a broken heart. Anything else would guarantee failure.
I trailed my fingers over the cross cut into his ring and looked up into his eyes.
“And I’ll consider your promise enough so long as you still wear this ring,” I told him, and he smirked like he knew – and liked – what was coming next. “You will not like what I do to you if you take it off.”
Valen rolled onto his back, pulling me onto his body. “Deterrent works best for me, love,” he said. “Maybe you’d best show me exactly what you’ll do to me?”
I nipped his earlobe. “Sounds to me like you’re after encouragement, Valen.”
His strong arms went around me, and I felt him tilt his tip to my centre. He was rock hard for me again. “Encouragement isn’t what’s lacking, princess. All I need to do is think about you. Catch a hint of your scent. I couldn’t sleep in my own bed for a fucking week after that night you came to my room in that fucking sexy lingerie.”
“Why not?” I asked, my heart pounding so hard in my chest I was sure he could feel it in his.
“Because every time I lay down, all I could smell – all I could remember – was you.”
