Plan B (Best Laid Plans #2)(29)

It's the ring. Like, the ring.

"Kyle, this is the exact ring I described to your sister and grandmother."

"I know. I hope it's what you wanted because you're stuck with it now."

"I..." I stare at the ring nestled inside the box. Then I stare some more, because I have no idea what to say.

"Unless you want to make up an elaborate story about something happening to this ring," he says drily. "Then we could pick out something else. If you prefer."

I'm still staring at the ring. He listened to me? He was actually listening to that crazy-pants story I told his grandmother? In detail? He listened and he committed the details to memory and then he went out and got the exact ring of my dreams?

Okay, so.

Exhale.

Logically I know there are at least four things at hand that need to be dealt with right now. Things of importance. But I'm feeling weirdly emotional.

The fact that Kyle changed before our date didn't help. And he did a full-on strip-tease with his tie that got me all worked up. By which I mean he took it off like a normal man but fuckkkkk, it was hot. You know that maneuver when they grab it with one hand and loosen the knot? Yum. Then he put on a pair of jeans, really soft jeans, before rolling back the sleeves of his shirt, which we already know does things to me. Pregnancy hormones are no joke. Also I'm a bit of a slut so I should stop blaming the pregnancy for everything.

Anyway.

My heart has swooned. It's flopped over into a full swoon. I imagine if I could see my heart right now it looks exactly like Tubbs looks when he rolls onto his back, belly exposed, paws in the air, like a morbidly obese sea otter.

I take it out of the box and slip it onto my finger. Unreal. He even got the sizing correct on my fictional fantasy ring. Except wait a second. The box is bearing the name of a high-end jewelry store so I think this freaking ring might not be as fake as the story I told when I described it. "Wait a second." I wiggle the fingers on my left hand. "Is this real?"

"Of course it's real. Do you think I'd let my wife walk around with a fake ring? I need to ward off every man in a five-mile radius, remember?"

For fuck’s sake with that again. "I was making you look good," I remind him. "You just left this sitting in your car while you came upstairs to change?"

"Relax. It's insured. I know how that gets you off."

God, it really sort of does. Which is new. I used to get really hot and bothered about men on motorcycles or, worse, musicians. I wonder if I'm having a biological response to being pregnant? Like some women nest, going crazy cleaning their homes before the baby arrives. Maybe my uterus got all excited by the introduction of nest-worthy sperm and is now trying to get me on board for the kind of partner who reads about taxes for fun.

"A ring is a little presumptuous. And unnecessary. I haven't agreed to this."

"And yet I spent my day fielding congratulatory emails from colleagues due to your fiancée stunt at the party. Then I was late for a meeting due to an unannounced visit from my grandfather demanding to know if I was going to run his company into ruin with my erratic social life."

"Okay, wow. Did he also talk to you about the proper handling of condoms? By the way, did you use the store brand? I've been dying to know. I imagined you sitting at your desk using your employee discount to order a case, but now that I've met Mrs Lascola I'm wondering if you just add them on your shopping list and let her buy them when she's out picking up your dry-cleaning."

He side-eyes me while merging onto the expressway. "You're kind of a bitch," he says, but his lip is twisted in amusement and he's not saying it with any animosity.

"Don't I know it." I nod in agreement. "And I hope you told your grandfather that if you crash and burn his company it will be all your fault ’cause I don't need that on my head."

"Something like that, yeah." Kyle laughs. "I told him I had a vested interest in seeing the company succeed."

"I can understand that. Being the one to fuck everything up sucks."

"Are you speaking from experience?" He doesn't ask the question in a snarky way, more like he's genuinely interested.

"Sort of. I'm a twin and my sister was the perfect kid growing up. She's still perfect, so it's like living your life with a side-by-side example of perfection staring at you all the time."

"You get along though? You and your sister?"

"Oh, of course. She's my best friend."

"But she worries about you, so you try not to be a burden," he fills in. He's not wrong.

"She's a fixer, my sister. A natural-born leader. I've always imagined that our mom must have told her to keep an eye on me at some point and she never stopped."

"You don't think of yourself that way? As a leader? You run your own business, with the blog. You're very successful."

I blink. No one ever really gives me credit for my blog. And I get it—to a certain degree, I get it. It sounds like a hobby. But it's not, far from it. And it's more profitable than a lot of careers. I make more money than most of the people who glance at me and ask, “But is that sustainable, dear?”

"I guess, but it's not like I have employees, it's just me. So I'm not really leading anyone, I'm just doing my own thing." I shrug, but I turn in my seat so I can watch him instead of the traffic. The view is better this way.