Big Rock(18)

“I have to pinch myself too, just to remind me that it’s all real,” I say, and pinch my forearm, doing my best to ignore the nagging seeds of guilt. I can’t let the lying eat away at me. It’s all for a good cause, and no one is getting hurt. Besides, I’m not the first dude in the history of the world who needed a fiancée, stat.

“I can remember when you were a wild five-year-old boy like it was yesterday,” Nina says, nostalgia glimmering in her eyes.

“I can’t believe my dad actually let me visit the store as that crazy five-year-old boy,” I say, flashing back to all the hours I’ve logged in this upscale joint. I know the place inside and out. Five floors of sophistication, glitter, and glamour. Diamonds sparkle behind gleaming glass showcases and atop marble pedestals, and the burgundy carpet is so lush you want to curl up and sleep on it.

Or run circles on it, which is what I did as a kid.

“You were so wound up,” Nina says, shaking her finger at me. She smiles, and her gray eyes crinkle when she does.

“How wild was he exactly?” Charlotte asks. I detect a note of mischievous curiosity in her tone. She casts a quick glance at me, and I know what she’s doing—fishing for fodder to tease me with at some unsuspecting moment.

Nina laughs delightedly as she answers. “Little Spencer was a handful. Once, when his mother was visiting relatives out of town, Spencer’s father brought him into the store an hour before opening, and this little devil child immediately started zipping and zinging around all the cases,” she says, weaving a path in the air with her hands to demonstrate.

I cringe, as Charlotte laughs. “I can picture that perfectly.”

“Oh, that was only the start of the havoc he tried to wreak. He knocked over a case of rubies once during one of his marathon laps around the store. Another time, he snagged the velvet lining from a display case, and turned it into a cape,” she says, and Charlotte’s lips twitch in amusement. “But,” Nina says, narrowing her eyes and holding up a finger, “I had a solution.”

“Benadryl?” Charlotte asks playfully, then squeezes my hand.

I groan inside, knowing what’s coming.

“Oh, I wish I could have gotten him to nap while his father was busy in a meeting. Instead, I went to the fancy pet accessories shop down the block, bought a leash, and attached it to the loops of his corduroy pants.”

Charlotte’s hand flies to her mouth, and I drop my forehead to my palm. There it is. The story I will never live down now. I don’t know what’s worse—the leash or the corduroy.

“You walked him around the store on a leash?” Charlotte asks, taking her time with each word, wonder in her voice.

Nina nods, proud of her solution. She pats the side of her leg as if she’s giving a dog a command, then emits a low whistle. “C’mere boy,” she says, laughs shuddering through her. “He loved it. He took to it like a little Cocker Spaniel.”

“Amazing. Almost like he’s got a little bit of dog in him just waiting to come out,” Charlotte says, shaking her head in amusement.

I roll my eyes as the women continue their banter.

“But don’t they all? Men, that is,” Nina says.

Charlotte nods. “Good thing I like dogs.”

“Besides, it was either leash him up, or risk this little hellion breaking all the diamond cases. He’s mellowed over the years though. In a good way,” Nina says, patting me on the cheek. “And he’s mellowing in an even better way now, isn’t he?” she says, directing the last words to Charlotte, who gulps and seems to tense. Her eyes widen, and I freeze.

Shit.

This is it.

This is when Charlotte chokes.

“Wouldn’t you say so?” Nina continues, prompting Charlotte, who’s stock still.

Red starts to streak across her cheeks, and she’s about to word-vomit the truth. To blurt it all out in one big, fat confession tied up with a white bow of ridiculous. She might have aced the jewelry selection, but that was easy for her sparkly, jewel-loving heart. This is the hard part, and it shows. Oh crap, does it show in the terror in her eyes.

Her lips start to move, but no sound comes. I squeeze her hand, a reminder that it’s her turn to speak. But if she can’t form words, I’m going to need to step in. Somehow, she manages a nervous smile, then she winks at Nina, and at last speech returns. “Actually, he’s still a hellion. So if you held onto that leash, I might be able to put it to good use.”

Nina tosses her head back and cackles. She drops a hand on Charlotte’s arm and whispers, “Oh, I do so love the naughty energy of the newly engaged.”

She excuses herself to go check on the ring, and Charlotte shoots me a look. “Thought I was going to blow our cover, didn’t you?”

I hold up my thumb and forefinger. “You were this close to giving it up, weren’t you?”

She arches an eyebrow. “Maybe I wanted you to squirm.”

“You evil woman,” I say with narrowed eyes.

She dances her fingers up my arm. “Or perhaps I was just processing the fantastic image of you being on a leash,” she says, looking like the cat who didn’t just eat the canary, but feasted on the bird’s whole damn family. “You do know that was basically the best ammunition ever that she just dropped in my hand. The Spencer on a Leash tale. But it got even better when she called you a Cocker Spaniel,” she says, the corner of her lips quirking up in a “gotcha” grin.