"You were going to give this to me that day? During semester break?" I can't take my eyes off of the box.
"I bought this to give to you a very long time ago." He edges the box forward with his thumb. "I hoped that one day I could give it to you."
I hesitate before I reach down to scoop it into my hand. "What is it?"
He swallows hard before he covers my hand with his. "It's something you wanted. You showed it to Asher at that antique shop in South Hampton. My mom took us do the restaurant next door to it for lunch every Thursday and each time, you and Asher would go in the shop to look at it."
I pull my hands to my stomach. "Caleb. No."
"I drove Asher back to the shop one Friday afternoon and he showed it to me." He cups my chin in his hand so our eyes meet. "I bought it on the spot. I've had it since that day."
I know what it is. I already know what it is, but I tentatively pick up the box and carefully open the lid. It's there, just as I remember it. A small silver ring set with one pink pearl. "I remember this."
"You couldn't take your eyes off of it and you couldn't afford to buy it."
"It was really expensive." I try to recall the price and since I was only fourteen or fifteen at the time, I can't.
"It was eighty nine dollars," he says softly. "I bought it, put it in my pocket and when I got back to the house I thought about giving it to you, but the timing wasn't right."
"It wasn't?"
"I was twenty then, Bell."
"I wasn't." I smile.
"It's your ring now." He pulls it gently from the box. "It's a promise that I'll protect you. It's a sign of my need to love you and it's a symbol of everything we mean to each other."
"I love it." I slip it on the ring finger of my right hand. "I'll wear it here for now."
"You'll wear it on whatever finger you want." He pulls my left hand into his and brings it to his lips. "This finger here is reserved for me too."
I kiss his lips knowing that it's a promise that we're making today but it's a reality that has existed between the two of us for the past twenty-five years.
Chapter 53
Two Months Later
"I seriously can't believe you're doing this." Caleb pushes the paper on his desk back towards me. "You're going to turn that down."
I glance at the number he'd written down again. "I'm not interested."
"I've told you what a fucked up mess Loire is right now, right?" He rakes his hand through his hair. "Gabriel can't get a handle on it and Asher left for San Francisco this morning?"
"He left?" I pretend I hear nothing but that. "Was he excited to go?"
He growls as he turns the paper around and scribbles down another number. "What about this? This has to be enough."
"Nope." I lean back in the chair and cross my legs. "You would get a lot more done if you worked in your actual office instead of here."
"Until an hour ago I was fucking my girlfriend in the bedroom down the hall." He points the pen in the direction of the hallway. "The woman is completely insatiable. She can't get enough of me."
I don't look up from my smartphone. "You must have a really big dick."
"Fuck." His hand hits the desk with a thud. "You didn't just say that my dick is really big, did you?"
"You have a big cock, Caleb." I glance up from my phone. "I've caught you staring at it. You know how big it is."
He shifts slightly in his chair. He has an erection. I can tell by the way he's fidgeting. "I lost my train of thought."
"You were telling me that Asher left for San Francisco." I tap out a quick text message to Clive telling him I'll be in the office within the hour. "That means that he took that job at the recording studio there."
There's a long pause and I wonder if he's about to stand up and bend me over the desk. "I'm going to miss him. We've gotten close the last few months."
It's been two months since Asher came back. He'd been in therapy and for some of the sessions his brothers had gone with him. They'd worked through a lot of his issues as a cohesive unit and when he told them he wanted to move to the west coast to experiment with a career in the music industry, they had both been on board.
"I'm glad he went." I finally look up at him. "I'm proud of you for being so supportive of his dreams."
A ghost of a grin pulls at his lush lips. "I was only supportive because you told me you were coming to work for me. I thought you'd take his place."
"I never said I'd work for you, Caleb. I work for Clive. We've been over this more than a dozen times now."
He leans back in his chair his arms stretching above his head. "You said you would work for me last night."
"When you were eating me out?" I snap back playfully. "Newsflash Foster, when you have your head buried between my legs, I'll say just about anything."