Through the Friday morning fog Tara spotted another concrete-faced hotel security guard lurking at the entrance to Eddie’s alley. She kept walking through the mist. She told herself that Eddie was okay, but she had her doubts. She could see the headline: Hotel Security Guard Shoots Homeless Vet.
She offered Eddie’s coffee and socks to the next homeless man she passed, who swore at her that he didn’t need her stinking charity. She wished him good day and kept going. The more she thought about it, the more it worried her that Eddie hadn’t used her phone to ask for his friend’s help at all. Two cough drops were not going to fix that cold, and instead of seeking help, Eddie had set her up with his friend when she showed him her “engagement” ring. The ring was certainly changing her life, but it wasn’t exactly like winning the lottery or getting a Publishers’ Clearinghouse check for life. She tried not even to think of the “D” word, but she felt the day might be headed straight for disaster.
As soon as she reached her desk, the requests started coming. Even though it was low season, the Belmont was at nearly full occupancy. She helped two couples from the bridal party rent bikes and found the right tux in the right size for a six-four groomsman who had left his on a plane. Next she arranged for a departing guest to ship boxes of See’s candy to everyone who helped care for her husband who had been hospitalized during their stay. As she made call after call, she was tempted to text the number Eddie had planted in her phone. Just to see whether Eddie and the mysterious Jack had connected.
As the morning passed, she also grew conscious of a lingering unease over Daniel’s vision of the proposal moment. He wanted perfection, but he didn’t seem to know anything about Nicola’s tastes and preferences. The time on her phone told her the flower mart was long closed, so the florist would be committed to red roses, but now the color seemed all wrong to her.
***
Jack had a full day of patient appointments. He had no time for Eddie’s games, and the text he’d received after midnight seemed like a game, a dare, the kind of taunt that fearless older Eddie had often tossed at Jack’s younger self. He ignored it for most of the morning. People with real problems needed his attention. But the text kept popping into his mind.
Eddie had sent it from the girl’s phone. Most nights, Jack was pretty sure, Eddie tucked himself away in a secure place by midnight. He had learned the lesson of that past beating well. Darkness made the homeless invisible to respectable citizens, but not to thugs who preyed on them. Jack wanted to think that Eddie had done the sensible thing and checked into a shelter, but he knew better. Eddie would stubbornly insist on his independence no matter the cost. Jack could not imagine the girl giving Eddie a place to stay. She might bring him coffee and socks, but she had a job at the upscale Belmont Hotel, and no high-end concierge would encourage a guy like Eddie to come near the guests.
By the time these thoughts had become a familiar refrain in his head, Jack had memorized the girl’s number. All morning he held off calling, but when he didn’t find Eddie in any of the usual places at lunch, he decided to try the number stuck in his brain.
***
Nicola Solari did look like Scarlett Johansson, sort of. She had Disney princess golden hair, pansy brown eyes, and a knockout figure. It took Tara less than a minute to realize why Daniel’s red rose theme was all wrong. Nicola’s favorite color was yellow, her fragrance was Chanel No. 5, and she liked bees. Tara glanced at Daniel. If he was oblivious of his beloved’s tastes, it was not because she hid them.
Nicola wore a chrome yellow sleeveless bandage dress tighter than a mummy’s wrapping that emphasized her curves. A gold honeycomb bracelet encircled one wrist, and an amber bee with golden wings dangled from a chain around her neck. The bee theme did not stop there, and Tara doubted that Nicola’s bag could hold both a credit card and a postage stamp. Where did she keep her phone? Nicola might have an eleven-year-old fashion sensibility, but supported by an income in the one percent range, on her it looked terrific.
Tara had to admit that Daniel looked good, too. He had the right haircut for his longish face, a bit of masculine ruggedness in his facial hair, and the perfect green silk V-neck sweater for his hazel eyes and toned abs. It all looked a little calculated, but there was no question that Daniel looked good.
Clinging to Daniel’s arm, Nicola looked around the hotel lobby and declared it, “Magic, just magic.”
“You just wait, baby,” Daniel promised. “It’s going to be a perfect weekend.”
Scratch the red roses. Tara had a true concierge challenge on her hands if Daniel’s Tower Room proposal scene was going to wow his girlfriend.
While Arturo greeted them and Noah hovered at Nicola’s side to organize their luggage, underlings loaded garment bags and suitcases onto a cart. As soon as the couple stepped over to the registration desk, Tara texted Hadley to have housekeeping change the duvet and pillows in their suite to pale gold. She called her florist to see what could be done to change the flowers for the proposal scene, and alerted Josephine in the kitchen that their most important guest was a big fan of yellow and of bees.
She thought she managed the encounter quite well. Daniel and Nicola might look photo-shoot perfect, but Tara didn’t feel as bad as she’d expected to feel. After all, she had Justin.
While Arturo escorted Nicola up to their suite, Daniel took Tara aside. Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she glanced at the text on her screen. Jack, here. Do you know where Eddie is?
Daniel closed his hand over her phone. Nothing a guest did was supposed to shock her, but her immediate thought was decidedly un-concierge-like. She put her phone away with a smile, resisting the impulse to say what she thought. “Yes?”
“So, here’s the plan, Keegan. We’ve got this afternoon to see some of the city and get some things done. Then tomorrow Nicola is competing for a spot on the runway in that big charity fashion show. She’ll get her spot no problem, but that’s your opportunity. While she’s at the Fairmont, you can get everything set up here.”
“Thanks, Daniel, we’ll handle it. It’s what we do.” Her phone buzzed again. This time she ignored it.
“Did you get that Goorin Bros. appointment for me?”
“I did.”
“Great.” Daniel took off.
Her phone buzzed a third time, and Tara sent a quick text. Don’t know. Busy right now.
From her desk, in between helping other guests, Tara checked with the florist, musicians, housekeeping, and the kitchen. She listened to a torrent of abuse from the florist about the impossibility of changing flowers eight hours after the flower mart closed, until she reminded him that it was Nicola Solari for whom he was rethinking his plans and calling in favors.
“Safeway,” she told him. “Great roses.” And hung up on his further pungent commentary.
Josephine, the consummate professional in the Belmont kitchen, simply called back with a new menu that included a pale yellow chardonnay, savory corn cakes, and chocolate cups with yellow sugar blooms and candied bees.
You’re the best, Tara texted.
Am I? came a return text, and Tara realized she’d accidentally replied to Eddie’s Jack person. Still busy, she texted.
She waved to Daniel as he left for his hat appointment and sent Hadley off at Nicola’s request to help with the dress decision she was making. Still Jack’s texts kept coming.
How busy?
Can’t find Eddie in the usual places.
Hello. Where did you see him last?
She texted her persistent caller to try her at three and blocked the contact. One thing at a time. First fix Nicola’s dream proposal scene, then think about Eddie. She was making headway at last with the florist when Daniel returned sporting a new fedora, winked at her, and went upstairs.
In five minutes he was back, hatless and distraught. “We have a problem. Your friend Hadley told Nicola that you are one of my exes.”
“Does it matter?” You have a problem.
“Yes. It does. She needs to know that you are no competition for her.”
“Really? Daniel, I’m sure you’ve explained that I’m no threat to her.”
He paced in front of her desk, disarranging his perfect hair. Guests in the lobby looked their way, and she encouraged him to step into the area behind her desk so that she could shield their conversation from public notice. Behind her George talked with a male guest, and she sensed that the man wanted her attention. She told herself to be patient. One guest at a time, and Daniel was a guest.
“Daniel, you can tell her that I’m... engaged to someone else. Look, a ring.” She waved her hand under his nose.
His monologue stopped abruptly. “Hey, wait a minute. So you are engaged now?”
Tara nodded. “Just yesterday. To my longtime significant other, Justin Wright.” She extended her ring hand to show him the ring. Okay, pay back was a little satisfying.
His gaze flicked to the ring and glanced away unmoved. “Justin Wright? I’ve never heard of him. What does this guy do?”
“Daniel, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can tell Nicola that you and I are over.”
“Right. Right. But maybe I should meet this guy. No, I know. I’ve got it. Nicola has to see you with this Wright guy. When she sees you all tight with him, she’ll relax.”
“Daniel, as much as I would like to accommodate you in this matter, I really can’t. Nicola will be occupied all day tomorrow; the hotel will have everything ready for your big moment; and you’ll have to take it from there.”
“Keegan, you don’t get it. I’ve worked too hard to nail this thing. I’m not going to have the deal blown now.”
Tara wondered whether Nicola knew that she was a deal that had to be nailed. “You could try a different hotel. That would show her that she’s first in your affections.”
He shook his head. “We have to have that view. That view is...” he struggled for a word...
“Magic?”
He nodded. “Seriously, call this guy, text him.”
“She already has.” The deep, slightly familiar voice came from behind her.
Tara and Daniel turned. And once again Tara tried to keep from gaping. The voice belonged to the tall stranger named Jack with the steady blue eyes. He stuck out his hand toward Daniel and looked to Tara for help. “Hi, hon, got your text.”
“My text?” Hon? He was that Jack? Eddie’s Jack?
“Texts, actually. I came as soon as I could. I know you wanted to see me.” His look told her to play along.
“Right. Sorry. Let me introduce you.” She stepped up beside him, hoping he knew what he was doing. “This is...”
“Justin, Tara’s fiancé.”
Oh, he was smooth and gorgeous. And she had to be grateful. Daniel was definitely more impressed by Jack than by the ring.
The two men shook hands in that measuring way that men had of sizing up a competitor or a rival. She could see Daniel’s mental process in his eyes. He didn’t like being replaced by a tall good-looking man, but a tall good-looking man would convince Nicola. Jack merely looked amused.
“Justin Wright, Daniel Lynch.” Tara finished. The stranger drew her into a hug against his side. She felt his height, his very solid person, and his strength. She had not made Justin quite so tall or such a good hugger. She had to admit that a fake boyfriend definitely lacked in the hug department.
“Great,” said Daniel. He plainly did not like looking up to Justin. “Do you two have plans?”
“Well,” the stranger looked at Tara. “We have something to do when Tara gets off, and then we’re going...” Tara waited to hear what he would say. Daniel was paying close attention. Jack would not say that they were going to search for a lost homeless man. “... kayaking.”
Tara could not have heard him right. She turned, and he put his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up to his, smiling down at her, slightly amused, as if he had not just suggested that they were going to take to the bay’s treacherous waters in the equivalent of a nautical endive canapé, a vessel so small it would be no more than a floating emery board to passing tankers and cargo ships. The bay had bigger sharks and sea lions.
Daniel frowned. “Just hang on a few minutes, will you? You’ve got to meet Nicola.”
The stranger winked at Tara and looked at his watch. “Gotta run. We’ve got only about an hour of daylight left.”
Daniel was thinking, hesitating. “Huh, kayaking. I don’t think that’s Nicola’s thing.”
“It’s a two-man boat.” The stranger’s voice made the non-invitation plain.
“Right. Let me just get Nicola.”
Daniel dashed for the elevator, and Tara stepped out of the stranger’s hold, and immediately missed it. “Kayaking?”
“You don’t want him to come with us, do you?”
“Us?”
“While we look for Eddie.” He seemed to feel that she understood the plan.
Oh, they were not actually kayaking. “You’re Eddie’s Jack?”
“Yes. Hello.” He shook her hand. “At the moment, I’m your Justin. You seemed to be in need of Justin. And he’s away, according to Eddie.”
“Right, but...”
“Any idea where Eddie is?”
“None.” She was worried about him, but she was also worried that Jennifer or Hadley would show up any minute and recognize this man as the man she’d bumped into the night before.
“He could be playing a game with us, but...”
Another guest appeared at her desk, and Tara helped him with theater tickets and dinner reservations while Jack watched. Her brain kept thinking about Hadley with Nicola. If Daniel explained that he wanted Nicola to meet Justin in the lobby, Hadley would find a way to get downstairs.
Tara could see the headline: Lovelorn Lady Concierge Creates Fake Boyfriend. Fraud Exposed.
She heard the elevator doors open and turned to see Daniel and Nicola coming across the lobby. Nicola had changed into a sweet, pale yellow dress suitable for tea with British royalty, and Daniel had a possessive hand at the small of her back.
Tara stole a glance at Jack as his gaze took in the pair. His expression suggested nothing more than polite curiosity. Daniel did the introductions, and Jack smiled and shook Nicola’s hand, as if his brain were still working. In fact, Nicola seemed more interested in Jack than he in her.
“I think we must have met.” She plainly expected him to agree.
Jack shook his head. “Unlikely. I’m a consultant. I travel a lot. It’s tough on Tara.” He squeezed her against his side again. He was taking advantage, but his hugs were dangerous. They woke up a slumbering tactile sense in Tara that craved more.
Nicola frowned. She obviously had little experience with being contradicted. “No. You don’t have a fiancée,” she told him.
“I beg your pardon.” Jack might be smiling, but she heard the steel in his voice. “Tara and I are engaged.”
Tara held up her hand with the Claddagh ring to back him up. It looked like nothing, twisted to one side so the stone was hidden between her fingers.
Nicola shook her head at Jack, ignoring Tara. “Never mind, I’ll remember you.”
Daniel took over. “Congratulations, both of you. Good to meet you, Wright,” he said, putting a pointed end to the conversation. He drew Nicola toward the elevators and leaned to whisper in her ear.
As soon as the other couple crossed the lobby, Tara stepped away from Jack. “You have to leave now. I don’t want anyone to see you.”
His eyes turned cold and distant, as if she’d slapped him, and his mouth tightened into a grim line that made her take a step back. His face without the grin had a harsh knowing quality, not mocking exactly but penetrating and disapproving. She was letting him down.
“Right. So much for thank you. You were with Eddie at midnight. Just tell me where you last saw him.”
“I’ll draw you a map.” She drew a quick street map on a hotel note pad and handed it to him.
He glanced at it and tossed it back on the desk. She felt the buzz of her phone receiving another text. Hadley could show up any minute. She needed him to leave now, but she hated the look in his eyes. He had just done her a favor, and she’d let him down. She stuck out her hand. “Good luck finding Eddie.”
He ignored her hand, turned without another word, and was gone before she could understand his parting look. It felt like that wild moment of driving down the hill with the fire chasing them when everything was about to be lost.
She pressed her hands together to stop the crazy feeling. The stone heart bit into her finger. She twisted the ring back into place. What are you doing? The emerald was the color of cactus. She would be crazy to listen to the thing, but she was in motion before she finished the thought.
***
Jack felt like a prize idiot. When he’d seen his beautiful bag lady in trouble, being harassed by the guy with the super-sized ego, he’d stepped right into the fray. The softly rounded face, with the slightly flustered look of a woman who’d misplaced some vital possession, had already caught his attention twice. Each time he saw her, some protective instinct kicked in, and if he were totally honest, a possessive one. He’d tried to be a hero and instead he’d fallen for an Eddie game.
It was clear the girl wasn’t in on it. She was in the middle of her job, satisfying the whims of the rich and the beautiful. But she had made things worse by accepting Jack’s help one minute and then turning on him the next. Against his side she had felt so right, an armful of sweetness. He had expected Daniel to produce a beautiful, shallow girlfriend. Five minutes with the guy made that clear, but he hadn’t expected his sweet bag lady to turn on him. When she stepped back, her expression told him plainly that she was in command, dealing with the city’s elite, and that he was in the way. He would bet that whoever her absent fiancé was, he was not a farm boy who’d worked his way from overalls to scrubs.
Jack wasn’t usually so wrong about people, but apparently Eddie’s disappearance had clouded his judgment. He realized he was wandering hopelessly in the fog. He needed to bring some method to his search. Even if Eddie was messing with him, his gut said that Eddie needed help.
***
Outside the fog lay so low the tops of buildings disappeared. Tara caught up with Jack on the steps of the big white church of Saints Peter and Paul on Washington Square in the heart of North Beach. He was looking out across the square of lawn and trees in front of the church. A class of elderly people moved in the slow motion of Tai Chi to the mournful strums and plinks of ancient instruments. Dog walkers gathered in companionable groups, and a few huddled figures claimed the benches. There was no sign of Eddie.
“Hello.” She halted at the base of the steps, looking up.
He frowned down at her.
“Can we start over? I want to help.”
“Why?” He came down a step. “A concierge at a fancy hotel is the last person to care about Eddie.”
“He’s my friend, or at least, I’m his friend.” Cold air swirled around them while she waited for his reply.
“I tried all the places I usually find him.” It was a confession of frustration.
“Did you try the libraries? There’s a branch in North Beach and one in Chinatown.”
He was down the steps in a flash, taking her arm and asking her the way. They headed down Columbus, the main thoroughfare of the city’s Italian neighborhood.
He cast her a measuring glance. “It’s not easy to be Eddie’s friend.”
“Actually, Eddie has been a friend to me. Most days he makes me feel like I can take on the world. I met him after my grandmother’s death. He sort of took her place as wise older person.”
“You do know that’s a bit ironic.”
“Because he doesn’t have his own life together?”
“Something like that.”
A librarian at the North Beach branch library knew Eddie, but had not seen him for several days. “He comes in to read the Times,” she told them.
Outside again, it was already dark. A crowded cable car made the turn from Columbus onto Mason. They reversed their steps and headed back up into the heart of North Beach. Jack’s furrowed brow and hurried stride told her how concerned he was for their missing friend.
“Why do you care about Eddie?” So much. He was not at all what she had expected in a friend of Eddie’s. Eddie made no secret of his blue-collar roots, while his friend was perfectly at ease in a suit and tie.
They worked their way through a group of tourists before he answered. When he did, his easy manner of speaking had changed, become clipped, the humor gone. “We lived together for awhile when he came back from the army in Iraq.”
Tara guessed the arrangement had not worked well. The confident professional beside her seemed to come from an entirely different world from the one Eddie inhabited. She could not conceive how they met, or rather she could conceive of Eddie initiating a conversation, but not Jack, the employed one, inviting Eddie to live with him. “Was he injured in Iraq?”
“He had been concussed a lot, like those pro football players you hear about, and he saw stuff that’s hard to forget.”
“It didn’t work out, your living together?”
“Ended badly.”
“So he went on the streets?”
“Yes, and he got beat up.” His pace seemed to pick up as they spoke.
She was probing, but instinct told her he needed to be pushed on this. “And you blame yourself?”
“I do.”
Tara swung around in front of him and put a hand to his chest, stopping him. She needed to catch her breath from their charge up Columbus. Their gazes collided, and she read the depth of self-blame in his. “I know Eddie would take his share of the blame.”
“Maybe, but I’m supposed to be the...”
“The what?” Her question came out through chattering teeth.
“Never mind. There’s another place I want to try, but first, you’re freezing.”
“I’m okay.” Her whole body shuddered.
“Come on.”
He stopped at a known tourist trap restaurant and stuck her under an outdoor heat stand by a cluster of tables. “Stay.” He disappeared into the shop and came out minutes later with a black hooded sweatshirt, a red restaurant logo emblazoned across the front. He made her put her bag down.
“Lift your arms.”
She complied, and he pulled the sweatshirt down over her head. The thing came down to her knees and it felt blissful, soft and warm. She looked up to thank him, and he looked down at her with a look that acknowledged a new togetherness between them. He pulled the hood up over her hair, tucking in a few loose strands, his fingers warm against her cold cheeks. His hands cupped her face and lingered there.
Then he let them fall. “Onward?”
She nodded.
They checked the famous Beat bookstore and then the café where so many waves of San Francisco’s Bohemian writers and poets had lingered over espressos. Jack’s suit and tie looked professional, but his easy way of disarming people and entering into conversation with them was something else. It made her believe that he and Eddie could have been roommates after all. Jack had the same affable manner that had drawn her to Eddie. She supposed she shouldn’t wonder at their friendship. Eddie seemed capable of making friends with anyone, except, of course, George or Arturo.
“A few of these guys know Eddie, but no one’s seen him today.” Jack thrust his hands into his slacks pockets, out of ideas. “He’s a mechanic, you know. He can fix anything with moving parts. When his hands aren’t shaking.”
They stood looking into the deepening gloom with the bright glow of the café behind them. Eddie was out there somewhere. Coughing.
Tara pictured him as she’d last seen him with his worn coat and his wool cap, his backpack on his back. “Eddie always makes me think of a backpacker headed for the mountains. He could be up in the trees around Coit Tower. We haven’t tried there.”
That grin she was coming to know flashed on Jack’s face. “You’re on.” He grabbed her hand, and they headed back through North Beach up Telegraph Hill. He was in a hurry again, and she struggled to keep up, stumbling as their quick pace kept jolting her bag off her shoulder, down her arm.
He stopped abruptly at the base of a steep block and glared at her bag.
She clutched it to her chest.
“You’re carrying Santa’s pack there. You’ll never make it to the tower.”
She shook her head. “We’re almost there. I’ve got it.”
“Come on,” he said, reaching for the bag. “Think you can lighten the load?”
Tara closed her arms tighter around the bag. She shook her head. “What if something happens?”
He let his hands fall to his sides, studying her. “Anything irreplaceable in there?”
“I don’t like to lose things.”
“Lost a lot, have you?”
She swallowed. “My house in a fire.”
Once again Jack studied her, and she had the sensation of being seen and understood.
“All right then. Give me the bag.”
She found herself letting go, passing it over to him, trusting him.
He thrust his arm through the straps and headed up the street. Tara started after him, feeling remarkably light footed.
From the top of Telegraph Hill, Coit Tower shone eerily in the fog like some Star Wars special effect. A few tourists still lingered to look at the murals and peer into the mist at distant lights across the bay. Tara took back her bag and extracted her flashlight, handing it to Jack. They walked the perimeter of the grounds peering into and under the foliage.
Tower security approached to question them, and Jack said, “We’re looking for a lost cat. A calico.”
Once they had gone completely around the area, Tara admitted to feeling discouraged. The tourists were gone; the place closed up. She was cold from the inside out. “We aren’t going to find him, are we?”
“Not tonight. I think that’s what he wants.”
“He wants us to wander around worried to death that he’s ill or injured or freezing?”
Jack took her cold hands in his warm ones and held them. He rubbed his thumb over the ring on her finger. “That’s not quite how I would put it. He wanted us to meet, to work together, to get to know each other.” He laughed. “I don’t know why he wanted that. He told me you had a boyfriend.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That he had the girl for me.” He straightened the ring on her finger. “I guess he didn’t know your guy had proposed.”
“Actually, I showed him the ring. Last night.” And he sent the text because of the ring. He sent the text to stop my engagement.
“I’m glad that guy’s out of town. I’m glad I got to be your fake fiancé for a day, Tara Keegan.”
Fake fiancé. The ring felt warm, almost hot, under Jack’s thumb. She looked up into those eyes of his. She could not see the blue of them, but she did not need light to see the warmth in them.
Tell him. He’s the one.
It was her moment, her chance to confess. She leaned toward him. Actually, there is no Justin. I made him up. I’m free. We could start something. But she couldn’t do it. He looked so confident and competent and honest and good, and she felt like such a fraud, and so unworthy of him with her made-up fiancé and her bag of hedges against disaster.
He didn’t seem to realize how foolish she was. He seemed to take her leaning toward him as an invitation.
“Hell,” he said, “Sorry, Justin. This one’s for me.” His hands slid up her arms and closed around her shoulders. And he kissed her. His kiss consumed the cold and disappointment of the moment before. It erased worry and doubt. It claimed the time they’d spent together for them and no one else, forever.
It was her first kiss in years. Tara told herself not to lose her head, not let her brain melt and dribble out her ears. It was a goodbye kiss after all, even if it felt like a hello.
He released her. She wasn’t cold anymore; she was burning up, her face aflame with embarrassment. She ducked her chin into the sweatshirt hood. At least it was dark. He couldn’t see her flushed cheeks. Making up Justin, lying to everyone seemed like the dumbest thing she had ever done. If he knew, he would look at her with mocking contempt.
“Listen,” he said. “Let’s get you home. Do you have to work tomorrow?”
She nodded.
“I’ll text you when I find him.”
“Yes, please. And may I text you if I see him?”
“Sure.”
“Good.” Her bag felt heavy on her shoulder.
Hours later Tara sat in her window seat, holding her bear, trying to figure out how she had gone so wrong in her search for happiness. Before now it had never seemed wrong or harmful to pretend she had a boyfriend. Justin had been her strategy for deflecting her friends’ sympathy and concern. He had been her way of entering conversations about men or relationships, and avoiding having her hopes dashed at the end of a promising evening. She had met no one who made her regret inventing him. Now the pretense came with a price.
Daniel was going to have his “magic” moment. She had settled for illusion. The green stone looked like a dead leaf, a withered green. She ought to put it back in its box and get on with her life. She pinched it between her thumb and forefinger and pulled, but the thing stuck on her knuckle.
Well, she could wear it two more days, until they found Eddie, and until she saw her last Belmont guests out the door, and then she would dump Justin and start over. If she had missed her chance with Jack, that was the price she had to pay for her deception. She looked at the ring to see whether it had brightened at her new plan.
Nope.