“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, it’s lovely. It was made for you. Wait there, and I’ll go get the sales assistant.”
When Terri found the woman, she offered up an apology. “Sorry about that,” she said, smiling. “We just needed a minute to chat about it, but I think we’re ready now.”
“Marvelous.” The saleswoman started to walk back to the fitting room to take Rachel’s measurements. “Has your friend decided what she wants?”
Terri sighed despondently. “Well, she seems to think so, and I guess that’s all that matters.”
Chapter 46
Rachel was truly going out of her mind. It was over a week since she’d lost her engagement ring, and she’d long since run out of places to search.
She’d turned every room in the house upside down, checked the pockets in all her clothes, and gone over every nook and cranny in the restaurant. The only explanation she could realistically come up with at this point was that it had fallen down the sink drain when she was washing her hands or been swept into the bin at work with a pile of garbage.
At this stage, though, what had happened to it didn’t seem to matter nearly as much as what she was going to do about it.
Gary didn’t appear to have noticed anything amiss just yet, although he had commented on its absence during a recent visit to the bistro. She’d quickly made up an excuse about not wearing it at work in case she lost it, which was the truth of sorts.
“I just don’t know how I’m going to tell him,” she confessed to Terri now. They were in the kitchen getting ready for the lunchtime trade.
Her friend shrugged. “It’s not as though you lost it on purpose. These things happen. I’m sure Gary will understand.”
Rachel looked at her. While Terri had been sympathetic initially, Rachel also got the feeling she wasn’t taking the ring’s disappearance seriously enough. Didn’t she know how much it meant to her or, more importantly, how much Gary had spent on it?
“I really don’t think he will,” she replied, somewhat testier than she’d intended. “When I think of how much he must have paid for it…it makes me sick to my stomach.”
“Well, maybe it didn’t cost as much as you think,” Terri ventured. “Anyway, the ring or indeed the price isn’t the important thing. It’s the sentiment behind it, isn’t it? I’m sure Gary gets that.”
But the comment got Rachel thinking. Maybe it wasn’t so expensive that she could replace it herself without Gary realizing?
Before confessing to him that she’d lost the ring, she’d first see if she could try and replace it. That way, he’d be none the wiser. Okay, so it would be an unexpected expense on top of all the others they were facing this year, but wasn’t it her own fault for not taking good enough care of it?
There was a small Tiffany & Co. concession store in Brown Thomas on Grafton Street, and she could pop down there after the lunchtime rush and see if she could find a replacement, or at least a reasonable alternative.
And not that it mattered, but she was also slightly curious as to exactly how much Garyhadspent on the ring.
Which would no doubt correlate exactly with how bad Rachel would feel about having lost it.
***
“Can I help you with anything?” the smiling Tiffany’s assistant asked as Rachel perused the display later that afternoon. Her eyes eagerly took in the glass case and the stunning jewelry laid out. Rings, bracelets, and earrings that colored the dreams of women around the world, jewels so beautiful that they were really only a fantasy to most.
How lucky was she to have been gifted something so precious, and how idiotic to have lost it!
Her heart sank afresh.
“I’m looking for a diamond ring,” she told the assistant. “It’s a style from your Fifth Avenue store, but I don’t think I see it here.”
“Because of our size, we can only carry a select range here, but all jewelry is available to order. Maybe you’ll recognize it from our catalogue?” The woman reached under the counter and brought out a copy of Tiffany’s famed Blue Book. Rachel felt an automatic shiver of delight at the instantly recognizable robin’s-egg blue on the elegant catalogue’s cover. “Was it three-stone or solitaire? Or perhaps a diamond band?”
“Solitaire,” Rachel told her, and her breath caught a little at the ensemble of diamond rings of every shape, setting, and design. The photographs were so vivid and the jewels looked so real, she almost expected them to sparkle on the page as they did in real life.
The woman turned to the solitaire section, and Rachel immediately recognized her own platinum marquise design. “That’s the one,” she said, pointing to it.
“Classic marquise,” the assistant clarified with a smile. “Yes, that’s a very popular one for us—gorgeous.”
Looking at the image afresh, Rachel felt sick to her stomach to think she had truly lost something so beautiful. But perhaps with luck, she might be able to recover the situation.
