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“So…that daycare,” Nick spoke up as we ate. “What do you think of switching her to St. Mary’s? They have much stricter security there.”
I shook my head. “Too expensive and snotty.”
“Nothing is too expensive for my daughter. I’ll obviously cover the costs.”
“She has friends in her current daycare. I don’t think she should leave now.”
To my surprise, he didn’t argue. Instead, he simply changed the subject. “Does she have any pets?”
“No. She would love a puppy, but I don’t have time to take care of one. How about you? Do you have pets?”
“God, no. I don’t want to have to take care of a mangy animal, and I especially don’t want them shitting on my Moroccan rugs.” He said the words as if it had happened to him before.
I smirked. Now that sounded personal and too specific not to be a real memory.
“Do you drink?” I asked.
“Not really,” he said breezily. “My parents were addicts, so I pretty much avoid it like the plague.”
“Me too,” I surprised myself by saying. Even more shockingly, I continued, “About parents being addicts. My mother was…is an alcoholic.”
His gaze was fathomless for a few seconds, and I wasn’t prepared for his next words. “My parents abandoned me at home for days at a time so they could go off and get high.”
I shook my head. “Once, I adopted this puppy that I loved so much. His name was Spot. He was a brown Maltese with a black spot around his eye that made him look like he was wearing an eye patch. I found him at the side of the road and brought him home. Prettied him up. But then my mother sold him to a stranger for a bottle of bourbon. I never got him back.”
“That’s rough,” he said.
“It was,” I said, and for some reason, even though the pang of pain was still there, we both started laughing at our joint trauma.
“Okay,” he said after our laughter died down. “So I’m guessing no grandparent visits in the future.”
“Nope.”
“Good,” he said. “I don’t like to share.”
I nodded, then cocked my head. I almost asked what he meant by that when he said, “So, about the daycare….”
I rolled my eyes. “I said no.”
We argued about it for a few more minutes with no resolution, after which he changed the subject again. We started talking about Violet, her hobbies, and her birth.
And then, finally, we got to the fake fiancée scheme.
Nick started by reaching into his pocket, pulling out a velvet jewelry box, and sliding it over. “There you go.”
I eyed it curiously. “What is it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He raised an eyebrow. “It’s the ring.”
I frowned. I reached over, opened the box, and was nearly blinded by the flashy diamond that lay within.
“It’s diamond and platinum. A Gawinski,” he said. Like as if that should mean something to me. “Feel free to keep it after all this is over. For your trouble.”
“Is your answer to everything just throwing money at it?” I asked, both out of curiosity and because I felt vaguely insulted even though he hadn’t said anything insulting.
He shrugged. “Why not? It seems to work.”
I felt annoyance start to crack the so-far pleasant atmosphere in the room. I released a huffed laugh, and he cocked his head.
