Shopping for a Billionaire's Fiancee

by Julia Kent

  The waiter arrives with the tiramisu and a bottle of Champagne.

  Chandra’s nowhere to be seen.

  Guess calling it off isn’t an option now, is it?

  Shannon’s eyes light up, then die, like a Blue tip match being struck and snuffed out. “What’s all this? I didn’t order dessert yet.”

  “Compliments of the house,” the server explains.

  She gives me a look that says Have I been busted? Part of her pride with mystery shopping is that she’s undetectable to staff. Being skillful with her evaluations is critical. She looks crestfallen as the piece of tiramisu bigger than my brother’s ego is plated in front of her.

  Just what every man wants when he’s proposing—for his beloved to look like her childhood pet got hit by a car.

  Two Champagne flutes come out from behind a server and a cork pops.

  Hold on.

  SCREECH. Slam on the brakes.

  The ring is supposed to be in the Champagne before they serve it.

  The glug glug glug of alcohol pouring from the bottle into the glasses echoes in my mind as I search visually for my mother’s ring. It’s not exactly a small bauble, so it should be here.

  It should be here.

  “Enjoy your dessert,” the server says, giving me a wink when Shannon’s head is tipped down.

  Where is the ring?

  Where is the fucking ring?

  “Do you think they’ve guessed?” she says in a panicked voice, picking up her fork.

  “Guessed what?”

  She throws her non-fork hand in the air in frustration. “That I’m evaluating them? No restaurant has ever just spontaneously offered me Champagne and tiramisu!” She pauses to think. “Maybe they recognized you?”

  The truth is right there. My mouth is full of it. The authentic, verifiable fact that this is all a set up for her benefit—for our benefit—is crouching on my tongue, ready to be unfurled and explained, described and confessed. It coils, waiting for a signal from my brain, hesitating until I decide it’s time to say what I need to say.

  In hindsight, ten seconds could have made the difference between a delightfully tender proposal and one that ends in blood, pain and humiliation.

  I’m a decisive guy.

  But not this time.

  She carves out a large bite from one corner of her piece of tiramisu, the custard and ladyfinger concoction asymmetrical on the fork, a little too suspicious. Because it’s dusk, the only light in the room is candlelight and overhead, dim bulbs designed to give an aesthetic that shouts romance.

  Her lips encase the sweet treat and she lifts her full glass of water, taking a big swallow just as her eyes bug out of her head.

  I think I just found the ring.

  Shannon leaps to her feet, the fork clattering to the ground, her water glass falling as she drops it and clutches her throat.

  “Unng! Unng!” is all she can say. A cold wave of horror takes over my body, as if I’ve been flung into the ocean off a cliff and tossed by a thirty-foot wave.

  Chandra appears suddenly and shouts in a commanding voice, “Someone call 911! We need a doctor! Heimlich!”

  Two busboys pound through the kitchen’s doors but before they can get to us, my arms are around Shannon. I’m behind her, pelvis against her ass, hands forming the carefully folded fist under her sternum.

  She’s barely breathing. Her grunts become more frantic, her fingernails clawing at her throat. I can’t see her eyes and frankly, I don’t want to right now. If I see the glow of who she is begin to fade as this unfolds badly, I can’t do what I’m about to do.

  In a split second I become two Declans. It’s the third time in my life I’ve had this happen. My second with Shannon. The day she was stung I divided into two distinct realities, each able to watch the other, like viewing a film.

  One Declan lifts her into me, ready to thrust up and dislodge the ring. She makes an unholy sound and tenses.

  No air.

  C’mon c’mon c’mon.

  I envision the ring in her throat, willing it to loosen and shoot out of her mouth. Jesus Christ come on come on come ON, and just as I’m about to perform the Heimlich, she stops me.

  A thin hiss of air comes out of her but she’s desperate, leaning over the table, hands on the edge as a man my father’s age rushes over, followed by a petite woman with greying hair.

  “I’m a doctor and my wife is a nurse,” the man says, looking at Shannon’s face. “I hear air, but the obstruction’s still there. Don’t do the Heimlich yet.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “What’s in there? A piece of meat?” the nurse asks.

  “No,” I say, the words surreal. “It’s an engagement ring.”

  Shannon looks up, eyes feral. She points to her throat, then to her left hand’s ring finger.

  I nod.

  The nurse looks at Shannon’s plate, the glasses on the table, the setting. “It was in the Champagne?”

  “No. The tiramisu, apparently.”

  Sirens wind up in the distance.

  Shannon grabs my throat. Her throat labors to get air into her. The doctor checks her other hand, examining her fingernails. She sounds like she’s breathing through a straw. Tears pour down her face and she looks half mad.

  I did this to her.

  Me.

  Not a bee.

  And no EpiPen is going to fix this.

  Then the thin hiss comes to a brutal stop.

  The doctor opens her mouth and looks in. “The ring is caught and it’s blocking air flow.” He holds Shannon’s face in his hands, forcing her eyes to look at him. “Cough.”

  “Unng.”

  The hissing begins. The sound is like a baby’s first cry to my ears. Relief floods me.

  Chandra appears and says, “The paramedics are in the building and on their way up.”

  “How big is the ring?” the doctor asks.

  “Three carats.”

  Two audible whistles come from the other diners.

  “I think the ring is caught in such a way that as it moves, she gets some air flow from the band itself,” he explains. “The problem is that the ring could cause damage to the esophagus. We need to get her to a hospital immediately.”

  Shannon’s frantic hand finds mine. Her lips are tinged with purple. But she’s breathing.

  The elevator doors open and clattering in the foyer makes me turn and look. In walks a team of paramedics, one carrying a big tank of oxygen. The doctor visibly relaxes.

  His wife rubs Shannon’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay. You’re going to be fine.” She looks at me. “Why was the ring in the tiramisu?”

  “That is a good question,” I growl. “It was supposed to be in the Champagne, where she could see it! Not buried under a bunch of cream and rum-soaked ladyfingers.”

  Shannon can’t even look at me. A paramedic straps an oxygen mask over her head and starts murmuring something to her in calm, dulcet tones. I should be comforting her. I should be fixing this.

  I should have never put her in this position in the first place.

  Chandra stands by, wringing her hands, and I march over to her. “Why the hell was the ring in her food?”

  She looks shocked. “Those were your written instructions. The ones Giuseppe gave us! We thought it was unconventional, but you asked that we follow his specifications.”

  “I never wanted the ring in her tiramisu!”

  “Waste of perfectly good tiramisu,” some woman’s voice says from a distant table.

  Grace’s call about Giuseppe sends a chill down my back. Damn. That must be what this was about.

  The paramedics hustle Shannon out to the foyer. I follow, Chandra at my heels and apologizing profusely. I cut her off with a comment that we’ll deal with this later, and then Shannon disappears into a crowd of first responders, leaving me to merge my two selves back into one again and follow her to the hospital.

  The string quartet appears, the violinist playing the carefully-arranged
song “Such Great Heights,” the one that reminds me so much of us. Her eyes go feral as she watches the tuxedoed string player dip his bow in confusion, his note going flat as the elevator doors close.

  Perfect.

  Just perfect.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Emergency Room...

  “I got your text!” Amanda says in a hushed tone as she pulls back the curtain to Shannon’s little room in the ER. The thin hissing sound has been steady now for the past hour, but Shannon’s lips and fingernails are a light shade of purple that fills me with unending fear.

  “Thanks for coming,”

  “She swallowed the ring?” Amanda asks in a tone of voice that somehow manages to bridge incredulity and defeatism. Not many people can pull that off.

  “Ung ung ung,” Shannon says, giving Amanda raised eyebrows and a sad look. I think she’s saying I am here but it’s hard to tell given her ability to use only one syllable.

  “Sorry.” Amanda can speak Ring, apparently, and looks at Shannon. “You swallowed it?”

  Shannon nods sadly.

  “It’s seriously stuck in your throat?”

  Shannon widens her eyes and manages to say duh without saying the word.

  “Why on earth would you do this to her!” Amanda says to me savagely.

  Here it comes.

  “This was never part of the plan, Amanda. The ring was supposed to be in the Champagne.”

  “How original.”

  Shannon folds her arms over her chest and she and Amanda share a knowing look.

  “The tiramisu was a breakdown in communication.”

  “How do you get from a ring in a glass to a ring in a layered dessert made of orgasmic perfection?” she asks. Shannon’s eyes widen and if she could speak, she’d say, I know, right?

  “Once we get the ring out of Shannon I’ll deal with that. Right now we’re more concerned about her oxygenation than on pointing fingers of blame.”

  Speaking of blame, in walks my brother. “Dude, I cannot believe you get her to swallow and it’s a—Oh.” He’s texting as he talks to me, eyes down, until he looks up and bangs into Amanda’s backside.

  “Sorry. I—”

  They both freeze. He doesn’t even look at her, can’t even see her face because he’s behind her, but he inhales deeply, eyes closing, and says quietly, “Amanda?”

  Who knew eyeballs had that much white on them? Amanda’s (ample) chest begins to rise and fall like a drunk frat boy playing with a shake weight.

  “Andrew,” she says in a deadly voice.

  My brother turns on his heel and walks right out of the room, head down, pretending to text. Amanda spins around, too, and follows him, calling back, “I’ll get Shannon a latte and be back in a minute.”

  “That was weird,” I say to Shannon.

  She looks around the bed furtively, then motions to me, pretending to write.

  Ah. Pen and paper. I reach for my phone, open a notes app, and hand it to her.

  What are those two doing? she types.

  “Hell if I know.”

  Follow them.

  “I’d rather drink battery acid than see what they’re about to do, Shannon.”

  Don’t make jokes about burning throats, she writes.

  Shit.

  Does he like her? she types.

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Why doesn’t he ask her out? she writes.

  I take the phone from her, read the question, and then look at her. She’s so pale, her face covered with an oxygen mask. She’s hissing like Darth Vader and wearing a pulse ox monitor.

  “Honey. Shannon,” I say, sitting on the bed next to her, careful not to disturb the tubes. “Andrew and Amanda’s screwed up relationship really, really shouldn’t be the center of your attention right now.”

  Tears fill her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, baby. I am so, so sorry,” I say, finally able to give her the quiet devotion she deserves. “I am an idiot.”

  She just nods assent.

  “A fool.”

  She agrees.

  “A lovesick dumbass.”

  She purses her lips and tries to sigh. It sounds like a car backfiring.

  A commotion in the hallway is punctuated by a shrill woman’s voice that says, “I don’t care that she’s an adult and has privacy protections, I’m her mother and I demand to know where she is!”

  Marie.

  “Shannon!” she shouts. “Shannon, where are you?”

  Fuck, Shannon mouths.

  Heard that. Loud and clear.

  “We’re in here, Marie,” I say calmly, pulling the curtain aside.

  “My baby!” she gasps, rushing to Shannon, who is wheezing again. “Did you get stung again?”

  “Not exactly,” I mumble.

  Someone in scrubs, wearing a clipboard, comes up behind Marie and—of course—Jason. “You can’t just barge in here like this.” The hospital official looks at Shannon, who gasps, “S’okay.”

  “This is her mother,” I tell the worker.

  “And you are?”

  “Her husband.”

  Marie comes to a dead halt. She could be in a wax museum. “Husband?”

  The worker wanders off. Marie gawks at me, then looks at Shannon, who is bent over and focused on getting more oxygen into her. I’d imagine that the stress is going to make breathing that much harder, and start to analyze at what point I need to become a giant asshole in an effort to protect Shannon.

  “You got married without me?”

  Sooner rather than later, apparently.

  Amanda appears from behind the curtain, her hair ruffled and lipstick smeared. “Marie?” she says, clearly relieved. “You got my text?”

  “We did,” Jason says. He’s wearing cutoff jeans, flip-flops, and a Jimmy Buffet t-shirt. His knees have actual dirt on them. “Marie came out of the house screaming that Shannon was in the ER again and we jumped in the car as fast as we could.”

  I take a second look at Marie. She looks like Two-Face, from Batman.

  “I was in the middle of my beauty regimen! Jason was about to shower and we were going to see Blue Man Group, when Amanda texted me and I’d only put on one set of eyelashes—”

  That explains it.

  Marie gives Amanda the once-over. “Why do you have your shirt on inside out?”

  Andrew appears at the door and catches my eye. “You need me? Because I’m getting calls from Singapore about the—”

  “You would seriously abandon your brother at a time like this?” Amanda snaps at him. “What kind of person are you? Who does that? Shows up for a brief and shining moment and then just bails when it’s most important?”

  Is Andrew’s shirt on backwards?

  Wait a minute. What’s going on with them?

  Before Andrew can answer, in walks a tall, vaguely Slavic-looking guy a few inches taller than me and built like a Russian hockey player, but without the broken cheekbones. And he has all his teeth.

  All the women in the room make a sickly sucking sound just like Shannon’s breathing.

  “Hi, everyone,” he announces. He’s wearing a white physician’s coat and a hospital badge. “I’m Dr. Derjian, and I’ll assess—” he looks at the clipboard at the end of the bed “—Shannon’s case.”

  Jason sticks out his hand to introduce himself. “Jason Jacoby. I’m her father.” They shake hands and I realize I need to engage in this masculine ritual that is akin to the female air kiss.

  Formality dispensed with, Dr. Derjian examines Shannon’s file while Amanda and Marie examine him.

  Marie lasers in on him, eyes flitting from his left hand to his face. “You ever see a case like this before, Dr. Derjian? A swallowed engagement ring is pretty out there, isn’t it?”

  He smiles, a broad, white grin that makes Marie look like she’s about to hump his leg. “Oh, this is pretty par for the course when you work in the emergency room. I’ve seen some pretty strange items in some really weird places.”r />
  Marie leans in, grabs his arm and says, “I really need to get to know you better.”

  “Marie,” Jason says with an undertone of warning. “Leave the doctor alone so he can help Shannon.”

  “Is it true people come into the ER with live animals up their buttholes?” Marie asks.

  Dr. Derjian looks at Marie with the same expression I’ve directed at her hundreds of times over these past eighteen months. I feel you, bro. Bet your mother-in-law is a lot saner than mine.

  “Marie,” Jason says again, this time gently taking her elbow and turning her toward the door. “We’ve talked about this. Looked it up on Snopes. It doesn’t happen. Let’s go get some coffee.”

  “But you’re already holding a coffee cup in your other hand,” she protests. “Wait!”

  Shuffling back into the room and giving Shannon a Mother of the Year sympathy smile designed to look good for an audience, she fishes through her purse and hands the doctor a business card.

  At this point, it’s clear to me that he’s decided she’s a garden-variety loon. Which makes him right.

  “Please. I run a yoga class and we would love to have a fit, eligible bachelor doctor come and visit.”

  “But I’m not—”

  “You don’t do yoga? That’s okay. That’s why it’s called a class—you’re a student, there to learn.” She pats him gently on the cheek, moving her hand down to his arm, testing his biceps with little squeezes followed by satisfied little breaths. “I’ll save you a special spot in the front row.”

  “Watch out for Agnes,” I warn him. “She pinches.”

  “No, I do yoga,” he replies as Marie’s eyes light up like a set of fireworks in the hands of unsupervised twelve year old boys. He shoots me a very confused look. “But I’m not an eligible bachelor.”

  “Married?” Marie squeaks, horrified, the light dimming like an imploding dwarf star.

  “Engaged,” he says.

  I’ll bet his fiancée didn’t swallow her ring.

  Amy’s red, bouncing curls make an appearance. “What’s going on? Amanda texted me. Is Shannon all right?” Marie waves her in. The little ER space assigned to Shannon is beginning to feel like a clown car.

  Shannon waves her hands like she’s trapped on a desert island and we’re all search planes. She points to her throat, then the doctor.