Page 39 of To Tango, with Desire

I sat down on the high-backed stool and continued pinning the skirt laid out on my sewing table. “I don’t care. I’m busy working, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“This won’t take long.”

“What makes you think I’m interested in anything you have to say, Zane? After the stunt you pulled last night, you’re enemy number one.”

He placed a small box on the satin dress. “Open it.”

Hot, gripping fear seized my lungs. I stared at it like it was a bomb. It may as well be.

“No.”

Zane smirked, flicking back the lid.

I gasped.

In the box sat an oval-shaped diamond, with two smaller pear-shaped diamonds flanking it on either side. Despite my anger, I sat mesmerized, unable to tear my eyes away.

Zane took out the ring, slipping it on my finger. The gold band was delicate, and surprise surprise, it fit perfectly.

“I wanted to make sure you liked it before presenting it to you and your family at our engagement party.”

“What party?”

“I’m organizing it, or my event planner is. Along with your mother.”

“Why?”

“It’s expected.”

“I thought you had no family.”

Pain, a fleeting, quick flash of it dampened his smug expression. “I have one or two people I consider family. But that’s not the point. You forget, Amira, that you’re marrying one of the wealthiest men in the world. Would you deny your family a chance to celebrate this match?”

“How much did this cost?” I looked down at the trio of diamonds, amazed at the way they glinted in the sun. They were stunning, and the ring was exquisite. How had he possibly known that it was to my taste?

I’d never been one to dream of my wedding day as a child. My thoughts had always been about clothes and fashion. I’d forever been cutting up fabric and sewing dresses for my dolls, so marriage had never been a priority. And yet here I was, not far off my twenty-sixth birthday with a proposal.

And it made me want to weep.

A proposal should be more than an exchange of jewelry. I may not have dreamed about my wedding day, but even I knew that a proposal should be brimming with romance and magic. It should be filled with love and promises. Anything but this.

“Why do you look sad?”

Surely, he wasn’t so unfeeling to think this was an acceptable proposal?

“This isn’t right, Zane.”

“You don’t like the ring?”

“What? No, not that, this.” I gestured between us. “A proposal should be more than just a perfunctory ring presentation. You could be showing slide decks at a board meeting—”

“If you met the people on my board, you wouldn’t be saying that.”

“I’m serious. A marriage proposal should be thought out.”

Zane shrugged one shoulder. “So, it’s not the ring you object to, but my method of delivery?”

“God, Zane! I object to everything! But yes, the delivery is lacking everything a girl could want. You’re asking me to marry you and this is the best way you could do it? Just pop open a ring box and say whaddya think?”