by Melissa Hill
While under normal circumstances Terri would have suggested that Rachel bought it straight away, instead she grimaced and shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. Do you think it might be hard to walk around in all day?’
Rachel walked a couple of steps and then turned around. ‘No, it’s fine actually.’
Terri wrinkled her nose. ‘I dunno. I’m still not sure if it’s really you.’
‘You’ve said that about every single one I’ve tried today!’ her friend said testily and again Terri felt like a heel. ‘Maybe, but you know I won’t let you settle for second best,’ she said, even though Rachel would have no clue that there was a deeper meaning to those words. But the comment also seemed to annoy the sales assistant and the atmosphere in the bridal studio grew tense.
Rachel turned around to let the woman unzip her, and she and Terri waited in silence as she put the dress back on its hanger, and got out the next one.
It was a strapless, princess gown made of ivory silk. It had very little detail, just yards and yards of the luscious material. Rachel stepped into the dress and the bridal assistant pulled it up and over her breasts. Once it was all zipped up, she stood on a small riser to examine herself in a three-way mirror.
‘Oh my goodness, this one is beautiful!’ she gasped, staring at her reflection.
Terri’s mouth dropped open. She had to admit that it was. There was no way anyone could find fault with that dress.
‘Ah, I almost forgot the finishing touch.’ The saleswoman rushed forward with a simple ivory veil, which had the smallest amount of lace running around the edges. The result was spectacular.
‘This is the one . . . I know it,’ Rachel whispered.
Terri swallowed hard. ‘It is pretty,’ she said evasively. Rachel continued to stare at her reflection. ‘I know it’s cheesy, but this is the type of dress I’ve always pictured myself in. It’s not too fussy or fashionable – more sort of . . . timeless, isn’t it? The kind of dress that could be passed down through generations.’
Bloody hell. Terri knew how much this sentimental stuff mattered to Rachel and she also knew that if she was looking for tradition, Gary Knowles was the last person she should be marrying. The guy’s notion of tradition was drinking the same pint in the same pub every Saturday night. She pursed her lips together, not sure how to respond.
Looking radiant, Rachel turned around and smiled. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she urged. ‘Do you think Gary will like it?’
Terri waited for a moment and then decided to ask the question. ‘Rachel, are you absolutely sure about this?’ She looked meaningfully at the sales assistant, who caught the look and reacted appropriately.
‘I’ll give you both a minute,’ she said and moved away.
Rachel stared at her. ‘Sure about what?’
‘About marrying Gary.’
Her friend coloured. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Well, it just all seems to have happened very quickly, doesn’t it? I mean, you two haven’t been seeing one another all that long, and then in New York he just proposed out of the blue?’
Rachel paused ever so slightly and there was a strange look on her face that Terri couldn’t identify. Was it hurt, or could it be doubt? Rachel turned back to the mirror and squared her shoulders. ‘Look, I know you don’t particularly like Gary; you’ve made that perfectly clear. And that’s fine, you don’t have to, but the truth is that I’m committed to the idea.’
Terri sat up straight. ‘Committed to the idea? What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means . . . it means that yes, of course I love him. OK, so he might seem a little . . . brash at times, but at the back of it all I know he’s a good man. And I know that he loves me. He wouldn’t have asked me to marry him or bought me that amazing ring if he didn’t want me to be his wife.’
Terri took a deep breath, desperate to blurt out the whole sorry truth so that her friend would finally be able to see the light. But, looking at Rachel’s face, again she knew she couldn’t do it.
‘Rachel, I’m sorry. Maybe you should take that dress,’ she said finally.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Yes, it’s lovely; it was made for you. Wait there and I’ll go and get the sales assistant.’
When Terri found the woman, she offered an apology. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said, smiling. ‘My friend and I just needed a minute to chat about it, but I think we’re ready now.’
‘Marvellous.’ The saleswoman started to walk back to the fitting room to take Rachel’s measurements. ‘Has your friend decided what she wants?’
Terri’s mouth tightened. ‘Well, she seems to think so and I suppose that’s all that matters.’
Chapter 34
Rachel was truly going out of her mind. It was almost two weeks since she’d lost her engagement ring and she’d long since run out of places to search.
When she’d first noticed it missing, she’d turned every room in the house upside down, checked the pockets in all of her clothes, and gone over every nook and cranny in the restaurant. The only explanations she could realistically come up with at this point was that it had fallen down the plughole when she was washing her hands, or been swept into the bin at work with a pile of rubbish. At this stage, though, what had happened to it didn’t seem to matter nearly as much as what she was going to do about it.
Gary didn’t appear to have noticed anything amiss just yet, although he had commented on its absence on her finger during a recent visit to the bistro. She’d quickly reminded him that she didn’t wear the ring at work in case she damaged it, which was the truth, of sorts.
But seeing as it had been missing for some time now, and she was running out of places to search, Rachel knew she’d have to broach the subject soon.
‘I just don’t know how I’m going to tell him,’ she confessed to Terri now. They were in the kitchen getting ready for Stromboli’s lunchtime trade.
Her friend shrugged. ‘It’s not as though you lost it on purpose. These things happen. I’m sure Gary will understand.’
Rachel looked at her. While Terri had been sympathetic initially, Rachel got the feeling she wasn’t taking the ring’s disappearance seriously enough. Didn’t she know how much it meant to her, or, more importantly, how much Gary had spent on it?
‘I really don’t think he will understand,’ she replied, somewhat more testily than she’d intended. ‘When I think of how much he must have paid for it, it makes me sick to my stomach.’
‘Well, I’m not being smart, but maybe it didn’t cost as much as you think?’ Terri ventured. ‘Anyway the ring, or indeed the price, isn’t the important thing; it’s the sentiment behind it, isn’t it? I’m sure Gary understands that.’
But the comment got Rachel thinking. Maybe Terri was right and she could be worrying for nothing. It was an expensive-looking ring and a big diamond, certainly, but maybe not so expensive that she couldn’t replace it herself without Gary realising?
That’s what she’d do, Rachel decided. Instead of confessing to Gary that she’d lost the ring, she’d first see if she could try to replace it. That way he’d be none the wiser. OK, so it would be an unexpected expense on top of all the others they were facing this year, but wasn’t it her own fault for not taking good enough care of it?
There was a small Tiffany & Co. store in Brown Thomas, and she could pop down there during her break after the lunchtime rush and see if she could find a replacement or at least some kind of alternative. And not that it mattered, but she was also slightly curious as to exactly how much Gary had spent on the ring.
No doubt that would correlate exactly with how bad Rachel would feel about having lost it.
‘Can I help you with anything?’ the smiling assistant asked as Rachel perused the display at Tiffany’s later that afternoon. Her eyes eagerly took in the display case and the stunning jewellery laid out there. Rings, bracelets and earrings that coloured the dreams of women around the world, jewels so beautiful that they were real
ly only a fantasy to most, unlikely to ever be a reality. So how lucky was she to have been given one and how idiotic was she to have lost it?
Her heart sank afresh.
‘I’m looking for an engagement ring,’ she told the assistant. ‘It’s a style from your Fifth Avenue store but I don’t think I see it here.’
‘Well, because of our size, we can carry only a select range in this store, but all jewellery is available to order. Maybe you’ll recognise it from our catalogue?’ The woman reached under the counter and brought out a copy of Tiffany’s famed Blue Book. Rachel felt an automatic shiver of delight at the instantly recognisable robin’s-egg blue on the elegant catalogue cover. ‘Was it three-stone or solitaire? Or perhaps a diamond band?’
‘Solitaire,’ Rachel told her, and her breath caught a little at the beautiful photographic array of diamond rings of every shape, setting and design in the catalogue. The photographs were so vivid and the diamonds looked so real she almost expected them to sparkle on the page in the same way they did in real life.
The woman turned to the solitaire section and Rachel almost immediately recognised her own platinum marquise design. ‘That’s the one,’ she said, pointing to the picture.
‘Classic marquise,’ the assistant clarified with a nod. ‘Yes, that’s a very popular one. It’s gorgeous.’
Looking at the photograph Rachel felt sick to her stomach yet again, to think she had lost such a stunningly beautiful item. But perhaps with luck (and a thus far unknown amount of cash) she just might be able to recover the situation.
‘And you definitely don’t have this one in stock at the moment?’ she asked.
The assistant looked rueful. ‘I’m afraid not. We’d be happy to order it for you, and can have it instore and ready for collection by the end of the week. Although we do require a deposit for special orders. Two thousand for this one.’
‘Two thousand?’ All of a sudden, Rachel’s heart lifted and her face broke into a huge smile.
It wasn’t as though she had that amount of money lying around in loose change anywhere, but the ring was nowhere near as expensive as she’d imagined. Yes, replacing it would mean sacrificing the majority of her share of the income from Stromboli for the next few months, but it would be worth it. She shook her head. Trust Gary to surprise her again by managing to choose an amazingly beautiful diamond ring that looked like it cost an absolute fortune, but in reality was actually rather reasonable.
‘For the deposit, yes,’ the assistant continued, taking out an order book. ‘I can take it today, if you’d like. Or maybe you’d prefer to wait for your fiancé and let him be the one to injure the credit card,’ she joked easily.
Now, Rachel felt nauseous. ‘Two thousand? For the deposit?’ she repeated in a whisper, all thoughts of replacing the ring suddenly going right out of the window. Her face went pale.
‘Yes, ten per cent of the overall price is standard for booking deposits.’
Rachel’s head grew light and she began to see stars in front of her eyes. It didn’t take a genius to work out that if two thousand was ten per cent of the overall price, then Gary had spent twenty thousand – twenty thousand – on the ring.
And she had lost it.
Oh Christ . . . oh Christ . . . oh Christ. Her head spinning, Rachel held on to the edge of the glass display case. She was so dizzy she was sure her legs would give way beneath her.
‘Are you OK?’ the woman asked, seemingly unaware that she’d as good as felled her latest customer.
‘I’m fine,’ Rachel managed. She tried to compose herself as best she could. ‘And . . . actually, I think you’re right; it’s probably best to wait for my fiancé to do the honours.’
The woman chuckled. ‘Wise decision. Pop in any time you like, both of you. We’d be delighted to look after you, and of course we provide a glass of bubby to all our happy couples to really get the celebrations going. Would be a shame to miss out on that!’ she added with a wink.
‘Yes. A shame.’ Desperate to get out of there before she did something stupid, like collapse in a heap on the ground, Rachel bade the Tiffany’s sales assistant a quick goodbye. She stumbled her way through the store and back out onto Grafton Street as fast as her woozy legs would carry her.
Twenty thousand! The ring had cost twenty thousand euro, and she’d gone and lost it. What was she going to do? And why had Gary spent so much? She felt inexplicably angry at him.
As it was she’d have died if she’d known she was walking around with something that valuable on her. And to think that she’d been wearing that ring while blithely kneading dough and getting it covered in flour and eggs and all sorts.
It was far too much to spend on her. It was far too much to spend on anyone or indeed anything that didn’t at the very least have four wheels or a roof on it!
There was no way she could tell him she’d lost it now, Rachel knew that for certain. Especially when she knew that times were tough in the building trade and she’d suspected for a while that Gary was just about keeping the business afloat. He was much too proud to admit it, of course; but Rachel wasn’t stupid, and reading between the lines she’d figured things were bad when he was so anxious to return from New York quickly in order to get back to work. She sighed, everything suddenly becoming a hell of a lot clearer. No wonder he’d been so reluctant to participate in her enthusiasm for the wedding preparations; no doubt all he could think about was how much more he’d need to shell out for that too!
But what had possessed him to spend so much on the ring? He knew she wasn’t one of those high-maintenance types who expected the best of everything. And really this was a very long way from the chocolate red rose he’d given her on Valentine’s Day.
And to think that he’d never said a word, never even let on that he’d spent so much. That was unusual, actually. Much as she loved him, she knew Gary did have a tendency to brag about things like that.
She looked blankly around her at all the people rushing past on the street, trying to figure out what to do. Maybe she could try to replace the ring with some kind of cheaper version so that Gary wouldn’t notice the difference? But it was Tiffany’s, so of course he’d notice.
Rachel’s head spun, not knowing what she should do now. Was there a chance she’d got it wrong back there and picked out a ring she only thought looked like hers? But in all honesty there was no mistaking it; Rachel knew deep down that the solitaire she’d just learned had a twenty-thousand price tag was exactly the one she’d been wearing on her finger up to a fortnight ago. It was just so hard to believe or even imagine Gary spending so much money on a single item.
‘I had no idea you could even spend that much on a single transaction with a credit card,’ she said afterwards to Terri and Justin, who both seemed just as shocked as she was upon hearing how much her engagement ring had cost. At least, that’s how she assumed Gary had paid for it; he couldn’t realistically have taken that much in cash with him on their trip.
‘Are you sure?’ Terri asked, looking decidedly shell-shocked, and Rachel was somewhat gratified to think that at least now Terri’d understand why she was so frantic about losing it. ‘Christ, that’s a hell of a lot to spend on a rock.’
‘I know. What should I do? There’s no way I can afford to replace it myself now and Gary will hit the roof when I tell him I’ve lost it. He might even call off the wedding.’ She bit her lip in an effort to quell impending tears.
Terri put a comforting hand on her arm. ‘Ah, no. I’m sure he wouldn’t do that.’
‘What about insurance?’ Justin suggested, looking thoughtful.
‘No good. I didn’t have a chance to get it insured before I lost it,’ Rachel replied mournfully.
‘Well, what about Gary’s credit-card insurance? I know my Visa card has some kind of purchase protection included; maybe his does too.’
‘Yes, that sounds . . . interesting,’ Terri said quietly.
‘It is,’ Rachel said, heartened. ‘How would I find
out about that, Justin?’
‘You’ll need to get your hands on Gary’s statement,’ he told her. ‘There’s a monthly fee charged on the card, so if that’s listed on the statement and he bought the ring with the same card, there’s a good chance it’s covered.’ He draped an arm around her shoulder. ‘So maybe you’re worrying for nothing, sweetheart.’
Rachel wanted to hug him. Justin was right; if the ring was automatically covered by Gary’s credit-card insurance then chances were he wouldn’t get too upset about her losing it, since it could be replaced.
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re worrying for nothing,’ Terri repeated, and Rachel immediately began to feel better.
‘Of course now you’ll have to find some way of getting the statement without alerting Gary,’ Justin pointed out. ‘And I don’t know about you but Bernard would leave me for sure if he knew how much I rack up on mine! Or on second thoughts,’ he grinned, ‘maybe he’d be proud, who knows?’
‘Well, we’ll need to share stuff like that soon enough,’ Rachel replied, wondering how she might go about purloining Gary’s credit-card statement without him knowing what she was up to.
And notwithstanding the insurance, there was a second advantage to checking it too. On the off chance that she’d been mistaken about the ring in question today at the store, she could check the Tiffany’s transaction on the statement; that way she’d know for certain if her future husband had indeed spent the best part of a year’s salary on it.
Yes, a peek at Gary’s credit-card bill should draw a line under all of this, one way or another.
Now all Rachel had to do was figure out the best way to get hold of it.
Chapter 35
Vanessa was still walking on air. There was so much to do, so much to plan and she was already itching to get started on those plans.