Page 13 of An American in London

“Congratulations, Mr. Kelley.” He turns to me. “And ...”

“Tuesday Reynolds.” I plaster on a smile and attempt to push away an intrusive thought about how close I was to being Mrs. Miller if I’d married Jed.

But ... was I close? Maybe he had no intention of marrying me.

We never set a date. Jed suggested—and I agreed—that we wouldn’t move forward with wedding plans until we’d grown our nest egg to a quarter million dollars—which seemed high to me.

He said it would be best to start our marriage off with financial comfort, since money problems are the leading cause of divorce in America.

Yet here I am, shopping for a fake engagement ring with a near stranger, precisely because there was no nest egg.

And if there was no nest egg, was there ever really a plan to get married?

What rankles most is that I’ll never know.

“We would be delighted to find something that will suit you. My name is Edward. Let’s go to the suite.”

Edward leads us through the shop, where the number of sales assistants far outweighs the number of customers. We go through a door the assistant unlocks with a key card.

“Please take a seat,” Edward says. There is a red velvet sofa with a low table in the middle of the room and to the side, a small desk with two chairs tucked underneath it. “Can I offer you any refreshments? Tea? Coffee? Champagne?”

Ben looks sideways at me and then back to Edward. “Her coffee order is ridiculous. You’ll be sorry you asked. I’ll have a black coffee, please.” He guides me to the sofa and we take a seat.

“I’ll take a green tea,” I say, determined not to be irritated by Ben’s assessment of my coffee order. “Thank you.”

Edward presses a button under the small desk, and almost immediately, someone knocks at the door. A tall Asian woman who looks around twenty appears. Edward goes to speak to her, presumably to give her our drink order.

I nudge him with my elbow and lower my voice. “Calling me ridiculous in front of people might not be the best way to convince them we’re in love— FYI .”

“ FYI , I didn’t call you ridiculous,” he replies as if such a suggestion is in and of itself entirely ridiculous. “I would never do that. I was referring to your coffee order.”

“Semantics,” I say.

“Which are important. You’re not ridiculous. Your coffee order is ridiculous. You are not your coffee order. Just like your name is ridiculous. But you’re not ridiculous.”

“Ben!” I say. “You gotta stop calling me ridiculous. You might try and argue I’m not my name or my coffee order, but you’re adding to the list of my ridiculous qualities fast and thick.

Before long, everything about me is going to be ridiculous, and that’s a red flag when you’re supposed to be falling in love with someone. ”

He pulls in a breath, not in an exasperated way, more like he’s weighing what I’ve said. “I see where you’re coming from. For the record, everyone is ridiculous in one way or another.”

“I agree. But the man who’s in love with me has to think those ridiculous things are adorable.”

“I can’t sleep unless I wear an eye mask. Ridiculous or adorable?” he asks.

I scan his expression, trying to determine whether or not he’s making this up. He’s not. “Adorable,” I reply. “Do you have to have a lavender-scented pillow as well?”

He narrows his eyes at me like he’s going to get me back for making jokes at his expense. “No, but that sounds adorable . Can you get me one?”

I laugh, but before I can think of a reply, Edward’s back. “Do you have any styles in mind?” he asks.

“No.” I don’t want a replica of the engagement ring I returned to Jed. That would be ... weird. “Just not an emerald cut.” I don’t really know how to describe my previous ring other than that. “I’d like something a little ... different.”

“Of course, miss. Excuse me, and I’ll bring through a selection.” Edward does a little bow and wafts out.

“So you come here a lot?” I ask Ben, now that we’re alone.

“No,” he replies.

“Then how do they know your name?”

“I’ve made a couple of purchases from them. I suppose they know who I am.”

I don’t feel jealous, exactly, but my mood takes a turn toward jealous-adjacent. It doesn’t make sense. I’m not with Ben. I’m not his girlfriend, and I’m certainly not his fiancée. I barely know the guy. But there’s a bubble of something I’m not used to feeling in my stomach.

“What kind of purchases?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant.

He leans back on the sofa and stretches his arm across the back, behind me. “A couple of watches. That kind of thing.”

“No other engagement rings?” What is it with this guy? He’s gorgeous and rich. Okay, so he’s a little grumpy, but there are men on death row in relationships. Why doesn’t Ben have a girlfriend?

He lets out a half laugh. “No. The only women’s jewelry I’ve ever bought has been for my mother.”

“Well, that’s disappointing,” I say. “As your fiancée, I was looking forward to lots of expensive gifts for birthdays and Christmases.”

“I’m not averse to it.”

“What? Buying me expensive jewelry?” I flatten my palm on my chest and flutter my eyelashes like I’m thrilled at the idea. Which, of course, I would be. Name a girl who says no to expensive jewelry.

“I’ve never been serious enough about a woman to buy her jewelry. It’s just never occurred to me.”

“You’re engaged now. Don’t hold back, my friend.”

“I’m not sure our arrangement counts.”

I pretend-pout, and I finally get that smile from him I was looking for when we were posing outside.

“So you’re a mommy’s boy?” I ask. “Buying your momma expensive jewelry and all?”

“I love my parents. They worked hard all their lives and gave me everything they could.”

“So you didn’t grow up with money?”

“No. We weren’t poor, but my mother worked part time as a teacher, and my father was ... in client relations. We got a new car every three years and went on holiday every summer.”

“And you became this uberwealthy guy ... how?”

“Like most people who have done it themselves: self-belief, hard work, and luck.”

“In hotels?”

He shakes his head. “No, tech stocks. I was a nerdy teenager. Started trading money on the stock market that I earned through my Saturday job at Halfords. Then I reinvested it and reinvested it. When I got to a hundred thousand, I told my dad and ...” He shakes his head, and a dimple on his right cheek appears.

It makes him look younger than he normally does.

“He completely freaked out. He’d opened the trading account for me because I’d been bugging him about it.

He knew I had less than a hundred pounds, so didn’t worry too much—thought it would teach me a lesson about not spending what I couldn’t afford to lose. I’d started with ninety-two pounds.”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. Looking back, I was so precocious.”

“A hundred thousand pounds is a lot of money for a seventeen-year-old.” I could barely remember seventeen. Those first few years without my mom are all a blur.

“I’d made a million by my eighteenth birthday.”

“Wow,” I say. “That’s impressive.”

He shrugs. “What about you? What’s the Daniel De Luca thing all about? Are you one of those crazies who hang around his film sets and try to break into his hotel room when he’s traveling?”

I smile. I suppose it must look like I’m obsessed with DDL. My fourteen-year-old self most definitely was.

Thankfully I don’t have to begin to explain because Edward returns with a large tray, placing our conversation on temporary hold.

How strange that we’re about to pick out engagement rings, yet this guy doesn’t know much about me other than my coffee order.

That’s going to have to change over the next few days.

Edward places the tray on the low table and starts to take us through the various settings and stones.

“Which one do you like?” Ben asks me.

There’s no ring in front of me I don’t like. They all gleam like they’re vying for my attention. I shrug. I can’t help but think back to my engagement. Jed presented me with his great-grandmother’s ring when he proposed. It was pretty enough, but it hadn’t been my choice.

“Why don’t you tell me the ones you like, and that will narrow it down,” I say. It feels wrong to be excited about all this beautiful jewelry in front of me. It’s not like I’m going to be keeping it. And it’s most important that Ben is happy. “All these feel a little overwhelming.”

Ben works methodically down the rings and picks out three. Three of the prettiest engagement rings I’ve ever seen. I might have seen bigger on the fingers of some of the wives of the people Jed worked with, but I haven’t seen nicer. I know my favorite without having to think about it.

Edward places all three on their own separate stands.

“This one’s pretty,” I say, pointing at the middle one.

“This is particularly beautiful—a yellow cushion-cut diamond in a double-halo setting,” Edward says. “Let’s try it.” He hands me the ring, and I slide it onto my left ring finger.

It looks bigger on my hand.

“I’m not sure,” I say, suddenly really uncomfortable. What the hell am I doing? I’m picking out engagement rings with a stranger. I’m here in London for work, not to pretend to be someone else.

“It’s beautiful,” Ben says. “Impressive without being gaudy, and classic without being boring.” His eyebrows are pinched together, and his expression is hard to read, almost like he expected to see something other than the ring on my finger. “I think this is the one.”

“Really?” I ask. “I’m not sure it’s me.”

He nods. “It suits you. It’s a little unusual.”

I laugh, and my anxiety ebbs away. “I’m unusual?”

“You’re definitely that,” he says. “You’re American, after all.”

“There are three hundred million of us,” I say.

“But not another one like you.”

Our eyes lock, and I can’t think of anything to say. It’s like he’s stolen the words right out of my mouth.