“Oh, right, because everyone does this,” I mumbled to myself as he helped me into the carriage, and ignored his laughing. “Okay, this is actually pretty amazing,” I admitted a couple of minutes into the ride.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said distractedly as he reached under the bench for something. He stopped to give me a quick smile, but then went back to looking for whatever he must have dropped. “This is for you,” he said when he found what he’d been looking for.
My eyes widened, and I blinked a few times when I looked at the deep red, rectangular box in his hand. There was a gold design around the edges of the box, and it looked beautiful—but I had a feeling the box wasn’t what he was giving me.
“Uh,” I breathed, and took the box from his hand. “Thank you?”
I opened the lid of the box, and my eyes widened further when I saw the beautiful bracelet inside. Small, double chains attached to a white gold circle pendant with the word LOVE engraved on the top and bottom. Wait, is that a diamond as one of the O’s? My mouth popped open and a puff of air left my lungs when I looked up. On the black underside of the lid, etched in gold, read Cartier.
I snapped the lid shut and looked at Collin. “This better be a joke; please tell me this is a joke.”
His brow furrowed, and he gave me a look like he thought I was being adorably stupid. “Why would it be a joke?”
“Is it real?”
“Of course it is. Do you like it?”
“Like it? Collin, it says ‘Cartier’ on the box.” I half-whispered so the driver of the carriage wouldn’t hear me. When Collin’s expression showed his confusion, I continued: “We’ve only been dating for a few weeks—”
“Technically tonight’s a month,” he corrected, but I didn’t stop talking.
“—you are not supposed to give me these things! What if I never go on another date with you after tonight?”
“Do you plan on this being our last date?” he asked, and raised an eyebrow.
“Well, no, I haven’t really been thinking that far ahead. I’ve just been taking it one day at a time. It’s not like I planned on marrying you tonight, though!”
He laughed, again like he thought I was being adorably stupid. “It’s a bracelet, Harlow, not an engagement ring.” Taking the box from my hand, he opened it up and took the bracelet from it. “A simple ‘thank you’ would’ve been fine,” he teased. “Can I put it on you?”
I looked at him blankly, but still held out my wrist. “Whatever happened to flowers?”
“Do you like flowers?”
“What girl doesn’t like flowers?”
“So that’s a yes?” he asked, his voice bordering on a tease.
“Of course—well, no, I mean I do. I just don’t like roses.”
Collin nodded, and bit back a smile. “All right. No roses.”
I held up my arm to look at the bracelet, then dropped it back to my lap and let my eyes close. After taking a deep breath, I opened them and looked at Collin. “Can you please just tell me it’s fake so I’ll feel better about taking this from you?”
“No.”
“Who are you that you do this after only a month of dating? Are you secretly a prince or something?”
His next laugh was louder, freer, and I found myself smiling at the sound of it.
“As far as I know, my family just comes from old money.”
I sat back in the carriage and slowly exhaled. I didn’t know what to say or how to respond. “All of this—it’s so much. Too much . . . it’s crazy.”
Collin looked at the horse and driver, then down to the red box in his hand. Again he shrugged. “Maybe one day it won’t seem like that to you.”
My eyebrows rose at his implication, but I didn’t respond. Growing up, I’d had this fantasy of going away to college, and then meeting the person that I would marry sometime after. That’s how it had been for my parents, so I’d thought that was just how people did it. I was also so sure that twenty-year-old guys were ready for a good time, not looking to start long-term relationships. I had thought of Knox as the exception, and I’d always considered us lucky to have found each other early. Now to have Collin—who often had girls falling over themselves to talk to him—hint that he planned for our casual dating to turn into something more was sending a flurry of emotions through me.
I was shocked and flattered, but guilt tore at me, and I felt another piece of my heart crumble as I wondered what had happened to the love I’d been so sure of.
“Collin,” I said awhile later, “I’ve been dating you . . . I want to date you. You didn’t have to do this, you know. You don’t have to buy me.”
“I’m not. I told you, maybe one day it won’t seem crazy to you.”
“So this is the norm for you then?”
He smirked and eyed me. “Only with girls I’m not willing to let go.”
Present Day—Richland
I SAT QUIETLY in the corner of the office, away from watchful eyes since I couldn’t seem to stop my uncontrollable shaking. It was Monday afternoon and I was waiting to see my OB, and somehow this appointment had turned into something more terrifying than my Saturday morning tests.
I couldn’t stomach the thought of getting rid of a baby, but I also wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I brought a life into that house. I kept thinking I could just run away, and then I was positive that’s exactly what I was going to do . . . until I remembered the failed attempt before. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I was ready to scream, “I can’t have a baby!” to the next person who spoke to me.
My purse vibrated, and my shaking paused for only a second before growing more intense . . . because I also had no idea what I was going to do about that. Seeing how I was holding my cell phone in my hand, I knew the cause of the vibration was Knox’s phone. Just before I’d left, I’d run out to the back porch to grab it, telling myself “Just in case,” but still hadn’t responded to the few messages he’d sent since Friday because I didn’t know what to say to him. I knew Knox was worrying and I didn’t want him to, but I felt like I’d betrayed him. How was I supposed to tell him I was pregnant?
That thought made me roll my eyes for the hundredth time. It couldn’t be any more backward. Not knowing how to tell an old love that I was pregnant with my husband’s baby . . . but even before Knox fell back into my life, I’d felt like I still belonged to him, not Collin. So the guilt I felt over the current situation was making it so hard to let him know that I was fine . . . because I was the furthest thing from fine.