Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

LILY

T he door softly closes behind us, sealing us into the awed hush of the store. It reminds me of the quiet on a snowy day when all the noise is absorbed and is a stark contrast to the loud confusion outside. Even Tate who must be used to all that attention visibly relaxes.

Expensive parquet flooring is softened by cream rugs and around the room angular art-deco-style counters in brass and marble are bathed in soft, warm light, their contents sparkling like the thousands of diamonds they are. Arched windows line either side of the huge space, filled with iconic scenes of New York dazzling in an azure sky. The effect is doubly impressive thanks to the ceiling of mirrors reflecting the light and colours of the city.

A small, slim man in a dark suit rushes up, his face lit up with a polite deferential smile which manages to be neither overly obsequious nor pompous.

‘Mr Donaghue, welcome to Tiffany’s. It’s an honour to have you here today and this lovely lady must be your fiancée.’

Was it really only yesterday that this was all agreed, I think, trying to get into my role.

The store assistant is good, very smooth and sincere, immediately making me feel like we’re in very capable hands. Only I can see the sudden clenching of Tate’s jaw.

‘Yes, this is Lily Heath,’ he says.

‘A pleasure to meet you, Ms Heath.’

I nod regally. And it’s not hard to genuinely smile at the guy, because he oozes niceness. ‘Thank you.’

‘Oh, my God, you’re British. Fabulous .’ The man’s face creases with joy. ‘I just love London. And may I say how much I love that dress.’

‘Thank you.’ I smooth my hand down the fabric. He has excellent taste. I love this dress, but then I also love jeans and T-shirts and my beloved selection of cowboy boots. I’m a bit of a chameleon when it comes to clothes.

Another woman, polished, with a bright white smile, approaches with a couple of photographers in tow.

I hear Tate hiss out a breath.

‘Hi, Nancy, from the press team. You might remember me.’

‘Nancy.’ Tate nods, and I can tell from the tightness of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders that he does remember her and his memories aren’t that great.

‘We’d like to get a couple of photos of the two of you, if that’s all right?’ she says. ‘If you could just stand together and look…’ She gives us an encouraging smile as her words falter. Probably because Tate is as stiff as a board in his demeanour.

Tate duly moves to stand closer to me and awkwardly puts one arm around me, but let’s just say there’s enough space between us to drive a bus through.

‘That’s it,’ Nancy says, clearly a little nervous. I feel sorry for her, so I relax a little into Tate’s body which is a mistake because it’s solid and comforting. We’re in this together.

As Nancy steps back a minute to talk to the photographer, I glance again at Tate.

‘Smile,’ I murmur, and I’m so close to his face I can feel his warm breath against my skin. It lights a small glow inside me and inexplicably I want to wrap myself around him and take all of that warmth from him.

‘You’re supposed to be excited. We don’t want your fans to think you’ve knocked me up.’ I smirk, and add huskily, ‘In which case, you should be so lucky.’

‘I don’t know,’ he whispers. ‘Yesterday you were being nice to me, you held my hand. Who knows where we might get to tomorrow.’

‘I felt sorry for you. You’d clearly had a scare.’ I lift my hand to cup his face, sliding my fingers against his freshly shaven, smooth skin, with a faux concerned expression. A mistake because it triggers an intense desire to skim his cheekbones and slip my hands into his thick black hair and pull his mouth to mine.

His eyes darken and as the photographer starts snapping, he leans into my touch, it gives me a brief sense of victory, but then he laughs and drops a kiss in my palm. ‘You keep believing that.’

I have to close my eyes at the tender touch, tantalising my nerve endings sending them in a tizzy of hope and excitement. Bastard body betraying me.

‘Perfect,’ Nancy pipes up as the photographer takes a final shot.

‘Now, have we had any ideas on the type of ring you’re going for?’ our enthusiastic sales clerk says. ‘Let me take you up to our third floor which is our engagement room.’

Shit, I really hadn’t thought this far ahead. Excited fiancées marrying very rich sportsmen have probably already decided on how many carats and what kind of diamond they want, along with the type of setting. I berate myself for not being better prepared.

We ascend a magnificent, brightly lit staircase dominated by a huge, bronze statue of Venus dappled with a patina of Verdigris. It’s awe-inspiring, and obviously, the goddess of love is symbolic, which makes me feel a bit grubby. Even if the motives behind our actions are justifiable, pure, surely we’re committing some kind of love blasphemy. It doesn’t feel right.

The Love and Engagement Room, to give it its full title, is a long thin space full of glass display cases, the contents of which are twinkling like shooting stars in a meteor shower.

Another smartly dressed sales assistant glides towards us.

‘Good morning. I’m Lacey. I’ll be here to help you today. Have you any ideas of what you’d like?’

‘We haven’t really thought about it,’ Tate and I say, at exactly the same time.

We glance at each other and smile at our obvious ineptitude. He reaches for my hand and gives it a quick squeeze and suddenly we’re comrades, united in our awareness of how awkward and ridiculous this is. I squeeze his hand back, happy to let him take the stereotypical lead.

‘Why don’t we take a look?’ says Tate. ‘Do you mind if we have a wander see if anything takes our fancy?’

‘Absolutely. Just let me or any of our assistants know if you’d like to try anything on and, of course, we have a sizing service, it usually takes two or three days but…’ she gives an eager smile, ‘I’m sure we can turn it round quicker if necessary.’

We both nod. Still hand in hand, we move over to one of the several glass-topped counters dotted around the room.

The bright white light of diamonds sparkles everywhere, and at any other time I might be entranced, but I suddenly want to cry. I daren’t speak, not that I could, as the words are stuck in my throat behind an outsized lump. This was supposed to be a bit of acting, a bit of razzmatazz, all part of our cover story. And I thought it would be fun trying on expensive rings. Now I’m just haunted by a strong sense of wrongness.

‘Anything caught your eye?’ asks Tate, as we do another studious circuit of the diamond jewellery displays.

I shrug, and then realise that I ought to look a little more enthusiastic. I know Tate’s loaded, but I don’t want him buying me an actual engagement ring just for show.

‘Who’s paying for this,’ I whisper. ‘And can we send it back?’

Tate snorts out a tiny laugh. ‘That’s what you’re worrying about?’

‘Yes,’ I say indignantly in a hushed voice. ‘I can’t keep it. And certainly not if you’re paying for it.’

‘Don’t worry, I checked with Winston. He’s picking up the tab. He’s getting a hefty discount because of the publicity. Consider it compensation,’ Tate gives me a crooked smile, one I remember well, ‘for putting up with me.’

My heart melts just a little as I catch a glimpse of the boy I used to know.

‘If this were real,’ he says, ‘what would you choose?’

‘Something simple, elegant, not too blingy,’ I tell him.

‘Okay, but I do have a reputation to uphold you know,’ he teases. ‘You’re going to need a big rock.’

An assistant waltzes by, obviously earwigging, and Tate adds, mischievously, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing a ring on your finger… and nothing else.’ He shoots me a look full of suggestion, and the assistant covers her hand with her mouth and blushes.

She’s not the only one. A zing heads southwards lighting up my nerve endings. Damn, the man still has that effect on me. An ache of frustration burns between my thighs. Tate and I got naked plenty of times, but we never went all the way. We were in love, we thought it was forever– or I did– and we decided to wait until the end-of-season game. Now I wish we had got on with it, at least the thought of sex with him wouldn’t hold that mystique. I’ve had sex plenty of times, and good sex at that, but I still wonder what it would have been like with Tate.

‘Cut that out,’ I hiss into his ear as if I’m whispering sweet nothings.

‘I was trying to be romantic.’

‘If that’s your idea of romance…’

‘Sorry,’ he says, looking contrite. ‘It was… inappropriate. Truce? This is supposed to be fun… at least for you. I’m supposed to be putting a brave face on and hoping my bank balance isn’t about to be decimated.’ He winks at me and I remember how playful he could be.

‘Decimated, you say?’ I tilt my head and give him an impish smile. ‘Okay, then, let’s see how much damage I can do.’

I focus on the case of rings in front of me and one stands out in particular. I walk around the displays, but it’s the one in the second cabinet that draws me back. A single solitaire, an emerald-cut diamond set in platinum. Simple and elegant.

Tate shadows me and when I’m about to do my fourth circuit, he cups a hand under my elbow and leads me back to the second cabinet. ‘Which one?’ he asks.

I give him an uncertain look. ‘I don’t know how much it is,’ I say. ‘It might be really expensive.’

‘I thought we were going for decimated,’ he murmurs. ‘I can afford it, babe.’ He sounds indulgent and amused, and all the assistants smile at each other.

‘We’d like to try this one,’ he says and points to the siren ring.

‘Excellent choice, madam,’ says Lacey, appearing from thin air.

She is already unlocking a drawer and pulling out a velvet tray, on which she lays the ring. Then she looks up and eyes Tate as if he’s the ultimate romantic hero.

Tate turns to her. ‘Would you mind?’ She backs off to give us some privacy, although everyone is surreptitiously watching us. I can feel their eyes burning into our backs. It’s definitely a red-letter day for the staff at Tiffany. Big football star gets engaged before the biggest game of his life.

‘Let me,’ says Tate, picking up the ring.

My hand as I hold it up is shaking slightly. He takes my finger and slowly slides the ring onto it, his touch a caress. The contact is intimate, almost reverential, and I can’t help a quick involuntary intake of breath. Tightness grips my stomach and suddenly I’m full of regret. I don’t want to be here. Don’t want to take part in this charade. It should be something special and we’re making a mockery of it. Once I had dreams of happy ever after with Tate. Nausea rises up in my throat and I feel cheap and shitty.

He lifts my hand, tilting it this way and that, so that the facets of the gem catch the light and sparkle. His thumb caresses the palm of my hand as I stare down at the rock on my finger. A hollow, hungry sensation fills my stomach. I’ve avoided emotional entanglements because they don’t suit my lifestyle, but standing here, this gorgeous diamond solitaire weighing heavy on my finger, I realise that it’s an approach I’ve stuck to because of Tate. I was badly burned by his confession to his father that he was merely filling time with me. This ring is a symbol of what might have been, and it hurts a million times more than I could ever imagine.

I make the mistake of looking up at Tate. His tousled dark hair, framing those brilliant blue eyes, which are focused on me with such intent I miss a breath. Everything hurts but I don’t even flinch when he leans in to kiss me. My lips part and my whole body trembles with the ache of longing and loss. As his mouth touches mine, my heart expands with both pain and joy.

Tate’s hand slides up my back as his lips softly trace mine, bringing balm to my soul, soothing away the jagged edges of hurt that have been buried beneath the surface for so long. I wrap my arms around his neck, as much to hold on as to help me stay up. My body is magnetised to his, north to south. As we draw closer together, I inhale the scent of him and a million memories flood into my head like shimmering butterflies. I lose myself in the kiss, it’s like coming into harbour after a long voyage, when you thought you’d never see home again. My feelings are perplexing: big, complicated emotions at odds with the calm and simplicity of the moment. Inside I’m serene, like there’s a sense of completeness that I didn’t even know I had missed.

The sudden realisation of what’s happening wrenches me out of my reverie. What are we doing? This is all show. Our bodies don’t seem to have a lick of sense between them. Yes, I want him. Lust. Desire. But I can’t afford to get back into that murky mix of emotion and craziness. I stiffen, my lips freezing at his gentle onslaught, and instantly he draws back, his eyes dark with emotion and a flash of something I can’t quite identify. Confusion. Anger. Fury?

There’s a sigh from Lacey, and I catch sight of a woman in my peripheral vision holding up her phone.

I look back at Tate, his mouth has flattened, all the warmth and softness gone. His blue eyes are as fierce and icy as the cool sparkle of the diamond on my finger. I pull my hand out of his.

‘I don’t think I can do this,’ I say to him in a low voice, my heart beating with an uncomfortable, uneven rhythm in my chest.

Tate’s jaw tightens ‘Seriously? You get to walk away at the end, Lily. You’re good at that, I seem to recall.’ He strikes a hit, anger reverberating in his voice. Obviously Tate Donaghue’s memories are very different from mine.