Danny suddenly grabbed her hand and stared at it. “I’m too busy looking at this. When is that man going to get you a ring? You’ve been walking around with a bare hand long enough, don’t you think?”
Angelique blushed to the roots of her hair—her shining, perfectly styled hair, thanks to Danny. “He already did,” she confessed. “It’s sitting at home in the little Tiffany box because it’s too big. And I never took it to have it sized because I don’t like it. The stone looks like a headlight and it’s platinum. It’s just not me.”
Danny looked disgusted. “Girl, I ought to beat you. Your husband buys you a beautiful platinum wedding ring and you’re too cute to wear it because the stone is too big? You should be ashamed of yourself. Have I taught you nothing about fine jewelry and the need to have as much as possible?”
Angelique had glanced at her ringless hand, and she had felt shame. Even before she had declared her love for him, Donnie was committed enough to buy her a big beautiful ring and she was too picky to wear it. “You’re right, Danny. I think I need to do something about that.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Danny’s words stayed with Angelique over the next few days. He was right; she was being ungrateful about Donnie’s gift. Maybe the rings weren’t to her taste, but the fact that he’d gone out and purchased them after their Vegas wedding made them special. And the fact that he never nagged her about them or even mentioned them in any way made him special. She went from feeling ungrateful to ashamed of her behavior, and said this to Lisette when she made a lunch date with her.
“I’m taking that ring to Tiffany’s today to arrange to have it sized to my finger. Lisette, I can’t believe that I’ve gone this long without doing anything about the ring. I’m so ashamed of myself.”
Lisette comforted her by reminding her that she’d had a lot to deal with over the past few months. “Give yourself a break, sweetie. I think it’s completely understandable. I’ll be glad to go with you, though. Where shall we go for lunch?” They had lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen before going to the Somerset Collection across the road from Somerset Mall. Lisette had the car valet-parked so Angelique wouldn’t have to walk too far in her very pregnant condition and the two women went into the mall and found the Tiffany & Co. store.
Lisette sighed in happiness. “I just love this store. Everything looks better in a Tiffany box.” She laughed.
“I hate to disagree, but this thing is just not me. If it were a classic Tiffany setting in plain yellow gold, maybe, but this looks like he bought it for another woman,” she exclaimed.
Lisette had to agree. “But remember, Angel, he didn’t know you nearly as well as he does now. You have to give him points for trying, though. It is a magnificent ring; it’s just not your ring.”
Their salesperson was very accommodating and helpful. She had Angelique sitting on a tall stool so she wouldn’t put too much strain on her back. When Angelique was comfortable, the woman examined the ring.
“We were wondering when you were going to bring this in for sizing, ma’am. It’s been exactly one year since it was purchased. Mr. Cochran didn’t want to have it engraved until it was properly sized,” she said warmly.
Angelique laughed and said there must be a mistake about the date. “My husband didn’t buy this ring until February of this year,” she explained. “We were married on Valentine’s Day and he got them after the wedding. We eloped.”
“No, I think you may be mistaken. He purchased this ring in November of last year. He even left the names he wanted engraved on the rings, Aneesah and Donnie. And you’re Aneesah, correct?”
“No. No, that’s not correct at all,” Angelique said faintly. Without another word, she rose from the stool and left the store without looking back.”
***
Warren came home to find a very upset wife waiting for him. “What’s the matter, baby? I can see something’s upset you, what is it?”
Lisette went into his comforting arms and allowed him to hold her and stroke away some of her concern. “Oh, Warren, this has been the most horrible day!” She explained to him about going to Tiffany’s with Angelique to have the ring sized and Angelique’s discovery that, despite what he’d told her, Donnie had bought the ring for another woman.
“Warren, if you could have seen her face, it would have broken your heart. She turned around and walked out of the store in a daze; she left her purse, the ring, and me. I had to grab everything and go out to find her—she was just sitting next to a fountain, looking like her heart was broken. Why on earth would he do something like that, Warren? Why did he lie to her about that ring? And how could he pretend to be in love with Angel when he was ready to marry someone else not two months before they got married? What kind of man is he?”
“A stupid one, I’m afraid. He’s not a bad man, honey, but he did handle this badly,” Warren said sadly. “He never intended to hurt Angelique, and I know for a fact that he truly loves her, but he made a horrible mistake. I knew this was going to blow up in his face one day.”
Lisette drew away from her husband as though he were a total stranger. “Are you telling me you knew about this? You knew he was involved with another woman?”
Warren held up his hands in supplication. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger! Come on, honey, let’s sit down while I explain this to you.” He led Lisette into their living room, which was now fully and beautifully furnished, thanks to his wife. He sat down in the big armchair she had purchased solely with his comfort in mind. Taking her onto his lap, he held her closely and breathed in her fragrance for a few moments. Then he looked around the room and took a deep breath.
“Every time I come home, Lisette, I think about how lucky I am to have you. My life was pretty meaningless before you came into it and I thank God every day that we have each other. You made my life complete and you made my house a home. And believe it or not, Angel did the same thing for Donnie.”
Lisette was mellowing until he mentioned the name of the enemy. She pouted and crossed her arms tightly.
“Honey, listen to me. Donnie and Aneesah were college sweethearts. They dated for a few years before she decided to go to California for her graduate studies. When she moved back to Michigan last fall, she and Donnie started dating again and he decided to ask her to marry him. She turned him down flat because she knew he wasn’t in love with her. She told him that he was in love with the idea of her and it ticked her off to no end.
“She was right, though, because I will admit that he had this laundry-list approach to matrimony,” Warren said.
Lisette looked puzzled and she asked him what he meant. “A laundry list, you know. She has to be this tall, this old, this size, this degree, this, that, the other thing. He was more interested in finding a type of woman than finding the right woman. She told him so, I told him so, his brother told him so and we were all correct. When he connected, I mean really connected with Angel, it was perfect. He is really in love with her, Lisette, I mean in love for the first and only time in his life.
“That is so ironic and sad, Warren. When Angelique first started acknowledging that she was interested in Donnie, she said it would never work out, that he would never be interested in her because she wasn’t his type. She didn’t think she was smart enough or accomplished enough for him and it seems she was right.”
“No, no, honey, you’re wrong. He really does love her. He adores her, that’s for real. Whenever I’m around him it takes him about thirty seconds to start talking about his Angel. He thinks she’s the most incredible woman in the world. He talks about her constantly and brags on her to anyone who’ll listen. All he does is think about ways to make her happy. He’s truly in love, Lisette.”
“But Warren, the ring! How could he have deceived her like that?”
Warren shook his head and held up a hand. “When she had that temporary memory loss, she noticed she didn’t have a wedding ring and she began to think they weren’t really married and he was making it all
up; she was really upset and scared. And genius boy whipped out this ring I told him to return—I told him that more than once,” he muttered. “He takes it out and says, ‘Don’t cry, sweetie, here’s your ring.’ I told him he would come to rue the day he did that, and, unfortunately, I was once again right.”
He held his wife and they kissed a few times, sweet reassuring kisses meant to take away the pain they felt for their friends. “How is Angel doing? It’s not good for her to be upset right now. Is she at home by herself?”
A tear-clogged but resigned voice answered him. “No, Warren, I’m here,” Angelique said wearily. “And I’m not going back to that house. It’s not my home anymore.”
Despite Warren and Lisette’s protests, Angelique insisted on leaving their home. She had called A.J. from the guest bedroom and he was on his way to pick her up. “I need to be by myself for a while, to decide what to do next. I can’t go back to that house. I never want to see him again,” she said in a voice so full of pain it was hard for Lisette to hear.
Lisette jumped from Warren’s lap and went to her friend. “Oh, Angel, please don’t do anything rash. At least talk to him, let him tell his side of the story,” she entreated.
Angelique went from sad and listless to coldly furious in seconds. “I already know his side of the story. I was just some kind of play toy for his amusement,” she said savagely. “He must have gotten some good laughs out of me, fooling me into thinking he wanted me to be his wife when I was just a last-minute substitute for Miss Perfect, Aneesah Shabazz. He let me go to that museum every week, working with her and thinking she was a friend and all the time she was the woman he wanted! He must have been trying to get back at her for some reason. I don’t know why he did it, I don’t care why he did it, but I’m through with it,” she said fiercely.
Just then the doorbell rang and Lisette went to answer it. She led A.J. into the living room and Angelique fell into his arms. “Take me away from here, A.J., please.”
A.J. looked at Warren and Lisette and his confusion was obvious, but so were his feelings for Angelique. “Come on, Angel, let’s go. You need to lie down; you shouldn’t be upset like this in your condition.” He took the coat Lisette handed to him and put it on Angelique. Nodding to Lisette and Warren, he led her out the door to his waiting car.
Warren stood beside Lisette in the doorway and watched them leave. “I don’t know if we should have let her go with him. Donnie’s not going to like this at all,” he mused.
Lisette’s eyes flashed and, as always when she was upset, her French accent popped out. “I could not possibly care less what Adonis thinks,” she snapped, the word thinks coming out as “theenks.” “He made his own bed, now he can lie in it!” With a disgusted “Hmmph,” she flounced into the bedroom and closed the door.
Warren thought about what his wife had said, factored in his long friendship with Donnie, multiplied it by his feelings for Angelique and calculated the risk, then took out his cell phone and hit speed dial. “Cochran, we need to talk, brother.” “What’s up, Warren? By the way, you haven’t seen my wife, have you? She was having lunch with Lisette today and she’s not home yet. Her car is here, but she’s not. Have you talked to Lisette today?”
“Yes, Donnie, I have. They went to lunch today at Somerset, and then they went shopping. Seems that Angel was tired of walking around with a naked hand and she was feeling guilty because she really didn’t like the ring you bought her. So she took it to Tiffany’s to have it sized because she was tired of not wearing your ring, and she was ashamed of herself for being so picky. Care to hazard a guess as to what happened next?”
Donnie dropped the phone in his panic and quickly picked it up again. “Oh, man, they didn’t tell her when I bought it, did they?”
Warren took no satisfaction in the frantic sound of his friend’s voice. “They told her a lot more than that. They told her the names you had planned to have inscribed on it.”
“Where is she now, Warren?”
Warren ignored the question. “You should have seen her, Cochran. I’ve never seen anyone as hurt in my life. It was worse than telling a little child there’s no Santa Claus.”
“Where is my wife, Warren?” Donnie repeated in a low, anguished voice.
“She’s not here. Lisette brought her here and had her lie down for a while. She called someone to pick her up.” Donnie’s relief was apparent.
“Oh, great, she called Paris. I’ll call over there and go get her. I know she’s mad and hurt, but I can explain everything to her,” he said, speaking rapidly and with more assurance.
“She didn’t call Paris. She called A.J. and he came and got her. She left not too long ago. She says she’s never going back to your house again.”
Donnie’s short-lived relief vanished. A towering rage took its place. “She went where? With who? Man, how could you let her go anywhere with him? Why didn’t you keep her with you, Warren?”
“Why didn’t you take that stupid ring back when I told you to? Why didn’t you tell her the truth? She shouldn’t have found out like this, Donnie. I let her leave with A.J. because she’s a grown woman, and she knew what she wanted to do. She doesn’t need any more stress right now. In her advanced state of pregnancy, she needs to be as tranquil as possible and if being with him makes her happy, so be it. Remember, she’s my friend, too, and I care about her.” Realizing that he was being rough on Donnie, he added, “I thought you needed to know, that’s why I’m calling you. Lisette is going to have my hide when she knows what I did; she’s pretty hot with you right now.”
“Thanks, I guess,” he said, the words rich with unspoken feelings. “Look, I gotta go, Warren, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait a minute! What are you getting ready to do? Don’t do anything stupid, Cochran. You need to cool off before you do something you’ll regret,” Warren cautioned.
“I’ve already done something I’ll regret for the rest of my life: I hurt my wife. Now I’m going to bring her home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
A.J. was trying hard not to let his level of concern show. Angelique really didn’t look well. Her normally glowing skin was clammy and pasty and she seemed a bit winded. Her eyes were red and she was obviously struggling to hold back the tears. They were in his loft apartment in Harbortown where he’d brought her after they left Farmington Hills. Normally she liked to sit next to the windows on the long, wide built-in seat he’d built. It was firm yet soft and there were beautiful soft pillows for her to rest against. She could sit and watch the river below for hours; she loved the relaxing effect it had. But she was curled up in the corner of his long sofa, looking lost. His sweet cat Nefertiti, seemed to sense her distress and lay by her feet. She was a lap cat only if invited, and she had impeccable manners. Angelique looked at the cat’s pretty, anxious face and patted the cushion next to her.
“Come on, baby, come keep me company,” she crooned and Nefertiti immediately jumped on the sofa and snuggled up to her. “A.J., she’s so beautiful. I want her.”
“I’ll get you one for Christmas,” he promised. “Now, talk to me, baby. Tell me what happened to get you so upset. You shouldn’t be getting all worked up like this. It’s not good for you and it’s definitely not good for the little one.”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she swiped them away, but not quickly enough. A.J. pulled a huge leather ottoman in front of her and sat down on it so that he could hold her hands. “Come on, baby, talk to me,” he entreated.
Angelique took a long, shuddering breath and began to explain how she and Lisette went to Tiffany’s to get the ring sized and what she’d found out. “So there I am, looking like Boo-Boo the fool, thinking that these rings were bought for me when he bought them for another woman. And that woman was that Aneesah Shabazz, of all people. I thought she liked me,” she said with a stricken look on her face. “I thought she was becoming a friend and here she was laughing at me behind my back all this time. How could he treat me like that, A J.
? Why did he have to lie to me?” She took another long, tearful breath and tried valiantly to stop the tears that were overflowing.
A.J. couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up and scooped Angelique and the very surprised Nefertiti into his arms and settled down on the sofa with them. “I know it hurts, baby, but you can’t cry like this. You can’t let yourself get this upset, sweetheart You have to think about the baby. I don’t know why he did what he did, Angel. Men aren’t the brightest creatures in the universe. They make mistakes and lots of them. I’m not going to try to figure it out or justify it—that’s up to him. I just want you to be okay. Please stop crying, baby,” he pleaded.
Nefertiti added her sentiments by giving a soft “meow” and licking Angelique’s hand while she stared at her anxiously. “See, you’re getting Nefertiti all upset. She has a very delicate constitution, you know. She’s sensitive, just like you.”
Angelique surprised herself by laughing. It was a soft and weak laugh, to be sure, but she did stop crying. A sudden pounding on AJ.’s big double doors made both Angelique and the cat jump. A.J. set the two gently to the side and went to see who was beating on his door like a fool. When he saw the grim face of Donnie through his peephole, A.J. set his jaw decisively. He opened the door at once and stepped outside, closing it behind him.
“What do you want, Cochran?”
Donnie was in no mood for fun and games. “I’m here for my wife, Jandrewski, what do you think I want?”
“I’m not sure what you want. You’ve got a phenomenal woman, a woman far better than anything you deserve, and you treat her like trash. You drag her to the sin pit of the Western world for a sleazy little farce of a marriage, you impregnate her and you don’t bother to tell her she’s not your first choice for marriage, that she was just a drunken mistake. And the lies just kept on coming, didn’t they? You let her think you cared about her; that you bought her a wedding ring, but no, that wasn’t true, was it? That was something you bought for the other woman, the one who had sense enough to tell you to hit the bricks,” A.J. spat out.
A Merry Little Christmas Page 25