Not wanting to spoil the moment, I stay quiet about the fact that I am not intending to change my name again, I like being Lauren Day, it’s taken me a long time to find her again and I really don’t want to give her up, but hey, life with Jason has taught me to pick my battles, so I will save this one for another day and I smile sweetly as we are buzzed into the Jewellers shop. They seem to be expecting us and we are treated like royalty, with a glass of champagne for Gabe and myself and a soft drink offered to Ava, which madam insists is served to her in a champagne flute; I must admit, I love Ava’s style and attitude but I am terrified of what the next few years will bring, I know she’s not my daughter but I am still going to play a part in raising her and I can see there are going to be some battles ahead. Poor Gabe, he has no idea what he is in for. Give me sons any day!
I spot a ring that I love instantly and for some reason it makes me feel faint and dizzy, I don’t know if it’s excitement, or the reality of all that’s happened in my life over the past couple of months, but I feel sweat bead on my top lip and at the back of my neck and as it trickles down my back, I feel myself sway. The next thing I’m aware of is Gabe’s worried eyes looking down at me, along with a couple of the staff from the shop…
“What the fuck Lauren, are you okay? You just went.”
“What happened?” I ask
“You looked at the rings, looked at me and just started to slide to the floor, fuck baby, you scared the shit out of me, are you okay, do we need to get you to a hospital?”
I can’t help but smile at his overreaction; he’s squeezing my good hand so hard it’s painful.
“You’re hurting me?” I try to pull my hand away but he’s not letting go.
“My hand Gabe, you’re squeezing too hard, it hurts.”
He looks down at my hand.
“Dad, let go of her hand, you’re squeezing too tight.”
He looks from my hand, to Ava, then back to me as he eases his grip on my hand but doesn’t let go.
“I’ve never been engaged before, thank you for asking me to marry you; sorry it took me so long to say yes.”
He laughs and lets out the breath he has obviously been holding and shakes his head.
“Lauren.” Is all that he says.
Ten minutes later I’m feeling fine, sitting up in a chair with a glass of iced water in my hand; I’ve spent the last five minutes arguing with Gabe that I am all good and don’t need to go to hospital or home to bed. Ava has said nothing but I can tell by the way she’s looking at me and holding the fingers sticking out of my cast, that she’s worried.
“Gabe, I am fine, please stop fussing and let me chose a ring; do you two see anything you like?”
“You chose baby, it’s your ring.”
I scan my eyes over the rings laid out in front of me again, I love them all, they are all so ‘me’ and my head spins again just a little at the fact that Gabe bought me here to this shop and not a normal high street jeweller, because he knows me so well; it’s just ten weeks to the day since we met tomorrow and yet he knows me inside out and my heart smiles at that thought, I swallow, hard, because after all the drama we have already had today, I don’t want to start crying as well. I look up at Gabe and he gestures to the rings…
“Is there something there that you like?” He looks worried, is he thinking that he got it wrong, that I don’t like the rings I’m being shown? I actually feel a physical pain in my chest at the thought of him doubting himself when he has got it so absolutely right; I bite down hard on my bottom lip, I’m not sure if I want to grin like a lunatic or cry like a baby.
“I love them all; everyone is beautiful and so different.”
The rings are obviously all antique, ranging from Victorian, Edwardian, art deco, right through to big seventies style topaz and cognac coloured diamonds but my eye keeps going back to one ring. It’s an art deco cushion ring, rectangular in shape, with diamonds set into the platinum, there is a single stone in the middle, a diamond shape surrounding it, with more diamonds all around. It’s unique and I love it. I pick it up carefully and look at it; I have fairly skinny fingers but thanks to my broken arm and the cast, they are a bit puffy right now but it slides on perfectly; I look at the ring on my finger, then up at Gabe.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper.
“It’s perfect,” Ava whispers.
“It’s you,” Gabe whispers and I can’t blink back the tear I have been hanging onto anymore and it rolls, big and fat down my cheek and splashes onto the glass counter top.
CHAPTER 19
We drop Ava off at around four O’clock and Gabe is pissed off when he gets back in the car because of the run in he has had with Nina for getting her back late.
“Did you get a bollocking from the ice queen?”
“Don’t I always?”
“What did you ever see in her?” I ask.
“A fuck, plain and simple, I told you, we met, I was drunk, we had sex, we made Ava, there was never an attraction, she was carrying my child, I felt I had a duty to do the right thing so I looked after her, she wanted more and threatened to leave so I married her, I didn’t love her, there was no attraction so no sex, she screwed around with someone else, I caught her and left…end of the marriage.”
I have heard all of this before and don’t really know why I am torturing myself by asking for the details again, it’s a woman thing I think, we don’t want to know the details but we have to know them, then the we over think and analyse every detail that we are told, we certainly are a complicated gender.
“What are you smiling at?” He asks, looking across at me as he drives.
“Was I smiling?”
“You were.”