When Melanie spotted the mound of gifts under the tree, she knew he hadn’t been kidding. To her amusement, the three men began tossing the boxes around until there was a little pile beside everyone there, including her. She added her own gifts to their piles, then watched as they tore through paper with an eagerness she would never in a million years have expected from this sophisticated family.
When Richard realized she hadn’t opened the first gift, he nudged her. “Hey, you need to get started.” He plucked a small box from the pile beside her. “How about this one?”
Melanie took note of the inept wrapping job and concluded it was from him. Something about the size of the box made her decidedly nervous. She made a great show of shaking it, then slowly removing the paper as the others watched and waited expectantly.
When she saw the velvet jeweler’s box, her heart skipped, then lurched into a frantic beat. “You didn’t,” she whispered, her gaze on Richard.
“Open it,” he commanded gently. “Please.”
Inside, she found a diamond the size of a small boulder. Melanie stared at it in shock.
Ever since their phone conversation a week earlier and the hints he’d subsequently dropped, she had been expecting Richard to do something to catch her completely off guard, but she’d never anticipated anything like this.
She gulped, then looked into all those happy, expectant faces. She couldn’t do this. She just couldn’t.
Before she could think about it, she dropped the ring, jumped up and ran from the room.
Richard found her outside, taking great gulps of icy air. “Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.
“No, I’m not okay,” she replied, her voice shaky. “What were you thinking?”
“That this would be the perfect time to convince Destiny that we’re serious.”
“You should have warned me.”
He sighed. “In retrospect, I should have.” He studied her intently. “You really weren’t expecting an engagement ring? Not even after all the hints I dropped?”
She shook her head.
“Think you can put this on and go back in there and fake being deliriously happy?” he asked, holding out the ring.
Melanie backed away, hands clasped behind her back. “Even if I were willing to agree to a phony engagement, which I’m not certain I am, I can’t wear that.”
“Of course you can.”
“What if I lose it? What if it gets stolen?” she asked.
Richard shrugged. “It’s insured. Besides, we need a ring like this for the engagement to be convincing.”
Melanie regarded him with dismay. “You never struck me as the type to go for ostentatious jewelry.”
“I don’t. Destiny does.”
“Are you sure about that? She strikes me as a very classy woman.”
“She is, but a ring like this will definitely get her attention.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Richard, I’m not sure how much more of this I can take,” she said honestly.
“I know. Just think of the satisfaction you’ll feel when you get to throw this back in my face. I’ll probably end up with a black eye or a bloody nose.”
Vaguely cheered by that prospect, she nodded slowly. “Okay, then. I’ll wear the ring.” She let him put the monstrosity on, then hefted her hand in the air and studied it. “It’s a good thing this is just a game.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
But even as he said it, Melanie thought there was an odd expression of regret in Richard’s eyes. It made her see something in Richard she’d never expected to see…vulnerability. It reminded her of something Mack had said to her back at the beginning of this farce, that Richard needed someone who could see past his defenses. Now that she had, she realized that was even more dangerous than anything that had happened between them up until now.
Chapter Twelve
Richard stared at Destiny and Melanie huddled together in a corner and concluded that his aunt had bought the phony engagement hook, line and sinker. He was surprised by how guilty that made him feel. He forced himself to examine why that was, but the answer was fairly obvious. He’d never before gone to such elaborate lengths to get even with Destiny for meddling. Usually he just took her interference as a fact of life, something she did out of love—annoying but essentially harmless. He had no idea why he’d felt compelled to go to such an extreme this time. He had a feeling it had a lot to do with his conflicted feelings for Melanie herself.
“Guilty conscience?” Mack inquired, regarding him with amusement.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Richard said, not in the mood to share his soul-searching, even with his brother.