Page 32 of The Marriage Clause

He slides the ring onto my finger, and it fits.

I look down at it, having a near out of body experience because this doesn’t feel like my life, and then back up at him.

Our eyes lock. One second. Two. Something passes between us and I hate that I can't read him right now. It's the auction kiss and the town car and the way he said "It's Everett now" all compressed into the weight of a diamond on my finger.

"Ten million," the jeweler says.

I cough. Actually, physically cough, like the number lodged in my windpipe.

"I'm sorry—ten— ?"

Everett doesn't blink. Doesn't flinch. Ten million dollars and he reacts like someone told him it's Tuesday.

"Bill it to my accountant. He knows the invoice is coming," Everett tells the jeweler.

"It's too much," I say.

"You're about to be a Kauffman now." His voice is even. Matter-of-fact. "And more than that, you'll be my wife. People will expect it."

He pauses for a moment, searching my eyes as he waits for this all to sink in.

Then he asks, "Do you like it?"

I look down as the cushion cut diamond catches on every light source in the room like it was born to sparkle. "It's gorgeous, of course, but..."

"It suits you."

But when I look up, he looks away, and takes a step back, his hands reaching deep into his pockets. The moment closes like a door.

Ten million dollars on my finger, an upcoming honeymoon, and a consummation requirement, and the man can't hold eye contact for three seconds when I know for a fact that he stares down competitors in a boardroom on the regular.

I hate that that bothers me as much as it does.

The jeweler and his armed escort leave. Christian excuses himself to take a call. And Everly, still buzzing with wedding energy, pulls up florist options on her iPad.

"We need to decide on flowers," she says. "The designer wants to coordinate with whatever we choose for the ceremony."

Everett is on his phone again, or still, it's hard to tell when he starts and when he stops. It feels like one constant flow. He's been half-present since the ring, answering emails like a man trying very hard to pretend the last ten minutes didn't happen.

"Peonies," he says, without looking up.

Everly pauses. I pause. The florist on the video call pauses.

"She likes peonies," he adds, as if this is obvious information that everyone should already have.

Everyone stares.

"I never told you that," I say.

He shrugs. One shoulder. Barely a movement.

But I know, I know, he noticed. The same way he notes my coffee experiments and the way I organize files and apparently my shampoo, because peonies are my shampoo. Could he have actually known that? They are my favorite flower. They line the backyard of my childhood home, and the smell from the shampoo brings me back to happier days before the accident. But he can't know any of that, so he must have smelled it off my shampoo.

Something about the way he said it—casually, like it was nothing—makes it worse. Because it isn't nothing. And he damn well knows it.

Everly catches my eye across the table and gives me a look that clearly says, See? before returning to her binder like nothing happened.

After the meeting breaks, she tilts her head and studies me the way I imagine she studies every person who enters her brothers' lives with the care of someone who has been protecting this family long before any of them realized they needed protecting.