Rachel cleared her throat.
“I’m sure it’s wonderful,” she said, picking up her dessert spoon, dipping it into the ice cream … “Oh.” She smiled with surprise. “There’s a chocolate shell under the—under the—”
“Something wrong?”
“No. Well, maybe. There’s something inside the shell. It’s—it’s—”
She went very still.
Karim put down his fork. His heart was racing.
“Cake?” he said, trying to sound calm. “Strawberries?”
She shook her head. “It’s—it’s …” She looked up again.
Why couldn’t he read the expression on her face?
“It’s a box,” she whispered. “A little blue box.”
Suddenly his carefully crafted, oh-so-romantic plan seemed full of holes. Hell, what did he know about what a woman would or wouldn’t find romantic?
“Rachel,” he said. “Rachel, sweetheart, look, if you want to leave—”
Rachel swallowed hard.
She put down her spoon. Lifted the little blue box from its chocolate shell. Opened it …
A burst of blue-white light seemed to leap from the box to her eyes.
“Karim,” she said. “Oh, Karim!”
It was a diamond ring—but that was like saying that the sun was just another star.
The diamond was huge. It looked as if all the fire that had created the universe had been captured within its blazing heart. It was set in white gold, flanked by sapphires that were the exact shade of the sky on a perfect June morning …
Karim watched Rachel’s face. He waited for her to say something.
She didn’t.
The silence grew.
He wanted to die.
He’d been so careful, selecting the ring when he’d supposedly made a third trip to his office. He knew his Rachel. She would not want anything ostentatious but he wanted something special.
He loved her, and he wanted the world to know it.
He’d spent most of the morning choosing this ring.