Page 107 of Back To Our Beginning

“Well,” I started slowly. “I haven’t seen anything with gold in her house. It’s all silver or stainless steel, so that’s why I discarded these others.” I motioned to the rings with gold bands.

“Makes sense,” Brantley nodded. “What else?”

“She’s down to earth. She doesn’t wear a lot of make-up, but she always wears pink lip gloss. That’s why I think she’d like the pink.”

He nodded.

I was getting into this. “Neither of these are too high, like those single diamond rings are, so they won’t catch on things.”

“Makes sense. All of these are sensible reasons. Anything else? Anything emotional?”

“Emotional?”

Aw, shit. Woo-woo.

I looked down at the two printouts. Then I looked at his tray of gemstones. “May I?”

“Sure, look through them,” he nodded.

I sorted through the stones. There were purples, blues, greens which I was pretty sure were emeralds. Diamonds, of course. I finally found one of the light pink stones, like what was in the one picture. I set that one aside. I liked that it was a rectangle cut. It looked noble. The color reminded me of the color Maddie’s cheeks would get when she blushed. I kept pushing through the other stones, placing each one beside the pink one. The bright pink stones were nice, but too overwhelming, whereas the less glittery diamonds really set off the light pink stone. The pink in the middle with small square diamonds on either side looked regal.

Strong.

Like Maddie.

It took me more than a minute to explain all of that to Brantley, but I managed to. When I looked up from the tray, I saw there were tears in Chloe’s eyes. She immediately looked away.

“Did that answer your question?” I asked Brantley.

“It definitely did. Can I have your e-mail? I think I can give you preliminary sketches tonight. In the meantime, let me price out the light pink sapphire, and let you know what you’re in for on that. I’ll be working in platinum, so I’ll give a ballpark on what that will cost. I’m not sure what I’m going to design, but the ballpark should be pretty accurate. I won’t know on the diamonds. But when I e-mail you the designs, I’ll be able to give you pricing.”

The three of us stood up. “Let’s go to my office, where I have everything.” Brantley smiled as he picked up his tray of gems.

“I’ll leave the two of you to it,” Chloe said. She pulled out a sketchpad from her tote bag. “I’m going to draw for a bit.”

“See what you can do about drawing more of Oracle’s Silence. I’ve been on the fan page, and the natives are getting restless. I’m not the only one jonesing for the next installment,” Brantley said before we left the conference room.

“Yeah. Yeah.” Chloe waved us away.

When we sat down in his office, I asked Brantley what he was talking about.

“Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“Chloe writes one of the most popular manga series out there. She has a huge cult following. She hasn’t released in over a year. Doesn’t matter. Me and the rest of her fans will wait for years if necessary to read the next installment of Seris’.”

“Huh.”

I thought about one of the guys on my team who read manga. I wondered if he’d ever heard of Oracle’s Silence.

“I’ve got to tell you, Beau. It’s going to be a pleasure working on Maddie’s ring. How you explained things has really inspired me.”

I looked at the man in surprise.

“Seriously. I can tell you really know her. Not many men do. I hope one day I find a woman to love like that.”

Chapter Thirty