Chapter 13: Her Side of the Counter

Isla's POV

I have watched that woman's face for three years, and I had never seen it with nothing on it.

She stood in my foyer in a wet coat and held out a ring to a man I had slept with an hour ago.

I stayed at the end of the counter with my paper cup and did not leave.

It was my box office, and my tea, and my man standing there with his shirt on inside out.

"Demi," Jasper said. "Close the box."

"Not until you tell me the size."

"Why do you need it?"

"Because I'm taking it to a jeweller." She was crying now, without any sound. "I'll have the inside cut out. I'll have it made for your hand."

"It's engraved with his initial."

"I'll have that gone."

"You bought it in March."

"I know when I bought it."

"For a proposal to him."

Demi put her knuckles against her mouth.

"I'm not asking you to marry me," she said, through them. "I know what I've done. I'm asking for one thing of mine on your hand that isn't a lie."

I looked at the band in its velvet slot.

I thought, she means it.

That was the worst part, standing there.

I wanted her to be a fraud, because I could have thrown a fraud out with a ticket stub.

Jasper did not touch the box.

"I'm not wearing a ring that was cut down from his," he said. "I'd rather have nothing."

"Jas."

"I'd rather have nothing from you than that."

She flinched.

Then something happened that I will keep in my head as long as I run a projector.

She looked up, past his shoulder, and her eyes went to the glass of the box office, to the black eye of the security camera over my door.

It was a cheap camera and it had never once been on.

Her look settled there, soft and helpless and sorry, for about a second.

Then she saw me watching and shut it off.

Every muscle in my chest pulled tight.

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