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I did, feeling my nose creasing into a disapproving scowl. It was a navy-blue box, and I immediately knew what was nestled inside it. My heart rattled in my chest. The last time I was given an engagement ring, I ended up throwing it into the ocean. I’d considered pawning it for all of five seconds before deciding I didn’t want anyone’s love story to be tainted by the shitty piece of jewelry that represented the death of my own fairy tale.
The box opened with a crisp click, and in front of me was cushioned the most beautiful engagement ring I’d ever seen in my entire life—movies, pictures, and reality combined.
It wasn’t just any ring, though. It was the ring that had caught my eye and snatched my soul in a magazine when I was fourteen.I’d cut it out of the Vogue issue and hung it on my Big Fairy-Tale Wedding pinboard. I still had that pinboard somewhere in the attic, laden with clippings of the perfect wedding dress, the perfect bouquet, the perfect flower arrangement…
The only thing you forgot to envision was the perfect groom, and we all know how that turned out.
I clamped my mouth shut to prevent myself from gasping. Mom always said coincidences were a sign from the universe.
“W-what made you go for this one?” My voice was gauzy, bodiless in the space between us.
“I remembered the engagement ring Tucker gave you.” Rhyland’s voice skimmed over my skin like the briefest touch of rough knuckles. Goose bumps erupted everywhere. “Then I remembered Tucker was a first-class moron, so I figured the safest route was to go with the opposite of everything he chose for you. Instead of a cushion, I went for an oval shape. I got you a thin band instead of a thick one. A Harry Winston instead of Costco.”
I wagged my finger at him. “I take digs against Costco personally. It’s my favorite brand in everything. I’d happily be Mrs. Kirkland, given the choice.”
“You love it, don’t you?” His voice dropped seductively, fluttering in my stomach like a delicate bird, and every cell in my brain revolted, reminding me I didn’t do butterflies or crushes or men.
I drew in a deep breath, a reminder that this was a fluke. Rhyland didn’t know this was my dream ring. I cleared my throat. “I still need to see if it fits.”
“It fits,” Rhyland reassured me.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve spent half my fucking lifetime studying every curve and measurement of your body.”
Our stares struck like a match over red phosphorus. For a second, I had this crazy thought that maybe he harbored this great, agonizing love for me, the same way Row had been secretly in love with Cal. But Rhyland’s mouth twisted into a sour smile.
“Oh, sweetheart.” He shook his head as if I were a lost cause. “Nothing wholesome and sweet like that. I wanted to fuck you is all. I want to fuck most things that move. I’m no Prince Charming. The only scenario in which I’d have a redeeming bone in my body is if I got in a car accident and my body melted into someone else’s.”
A shock of heat slapped at my cheeks, making them burn from the inside. The urge to throw the ring in his face and release a chain of Italian swear words was strong.
But no. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
A teasing smile puckered my lips. “If that’s all, you can leave now.”
He slung his briefcase over his shoulder and made his way to the door. He stopped a couple feet from it. “Oh.” He snapped his fingers, pointing at me. “By the way, I’ll pass on the bumping uglies offer. Flattered but no longer interested.”
“I’ll try to move on from the disappointment,” I bit out sarcastically, sliding onto a stool at the kitchen island.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Also, the ring is a rental, so don’t get attached.”
“I pity the woman dumb enough to form an attachment to anything you gave her.”
The door closed on a soft final click.
I turned off Grey’s Anatomy and burst through the master-bedroom door, smothering my face in a pillow and yelling into it in frustration. Rhyland underestimated me. So did the rest of my family. Well, they had another thing coming.
I was going to make it in New York.
Not just for me. For Gravity too.
RHYLAND
“You, my friend, are fucked. And not in the way that makes you want a cigarette and a stiff drink afterward.” Tate Blackthorn—billionaire pseudo mobster, corporate shark, and a royal pain in the ass—sat across from me at the Grand Regent’s rooftop bar. He tossed my business plan across the low concrete table between us, sitting back and taking a drag of his cigar.
He wore a black button-down shirt to match his black button-down heart. Nothing could pierce through that fucker’s chest, I was sure—not even a 5.56 mm bullet. A sculpted arm was slung over the low, upholstered leather couch, his hand toying with the hem of the minidress of the woman he’d brought with him: a barely legal Norwegian supermodel who’d just made her Victoria’s Secret debut. He didn’t look like the CEO of GS Properties, the largest real-estate company in America andEurope combined; he looked like David Gandy trying to sell a megayacht.