Masquerade

‘One second after I woke up, but it was fun to pretend.’

‘I brought something for you,’ he says softly.

‘Is it small and expensive?’ I joke, to cover my surprise and elation that he has thought of me while he was away and bought me something.

‘Yeah,’ he says and switches on a table lamp. I blink in the sudden glare. With a smug look he straps a bracelet on my wrist.

I lift my wrist and look at it. Even in the dim light of the lampshade it shimmers like blue fire. ‘Jesus. Is it real?’ I gasp.

‘Of course.’

‘My God.’ I exclaim, and sitting up stare at my wrist in shock. ‘It’s…stunning.’ I turn to look at him.

He smiles indulgently. So this is what mistresses the world over feel. They get showered with pretty stones by men wearing indulgent expressions. It might bore me later but at this moment I can see the attraction of the job.

‘I want to say you shouldn’t have, but I can’t, because I fucking love it.’ I throw my arms around him and whoop with joy. Holding aloft my hand, I admire it. I pull away from his neck. ‘What kind of stones are these?’

‘Blue diamonds.’

‘Oh, Lana has a pink diamond that cost the earth itself, but I’ve never seen a blue diamond before.’

‘Now you have.’

‘Oh, darling. I could so fall in love with you, when you behave like this,’ I quip. It’s a joke, obviously, but it doesn’t come out right.