A jewelry box, and a decently sized one, at that.
Sutton traced her fingers over the soft, velvet exterior before she looked up at Charlotte in question.
“Merry Christmas,” Charlotte murmured as she nodded at Sutton, urging her, “Open it.”
Sutton frowned, though, glancing down at her manuscript. “That’s not worth anything.” She ran her fingers over the box in her lap again. “This…”
She didn’t have to open it to know already that it would be expensive.
Charlotte wouldn’t give anyone—let alone Sutton, and she knew it—cheap jewelry.
But Charlotte’s gaze was insistent as she urged again, “Darling, please. What you gavemeis one of a kind. Irreplaceable. There’s no monetary value on something like this.” There was such a passion in her words that it swept through Sutton, making her cheeks flush all over again.
She’d be delusional to believe that Charlotte couldn’t afford, well, any gift she’d purchased. She didn’t have the bad manners to reject something Charlotte obviously wanted to give her.
And, most of all, she wanted to know. She wanted it.
She didn’t want to want whatever Charlotte was offering, but shedid.
With that, she held her breath and opened the cover of the jewelry box.
And her mouth fell open.
It was a necklace. Astunningnecklace, with a delicate, white-gold chain, a large, teardrop sapphire at the center with small clusters of diamonds surrounding it as well as twists of diamonds glinting along the chain. And because Sutton knew Charlotte as well as she did, she knew very well that every stone was high-quality.
“Charlotte,” she breathed out. It was all she could say as she ran her fingers lightly—so lightly—over the necklace.
It had beenso longsince someone had given her something like this. Layla, when they’d been married, had gifted her with jewelry, sparingly but occasionally. Even then, it had never been something likethis.
Something so very aligned with Sutton’s taste, something so exquisite, something so exorbitant. Something so clearly with the intention of being for her, as a woman. Not “a mother,” not “a daughter,” not “a sister,” not “a best friend,” but a wanted, special, desirable person.
“I can’t,” she managed to whisper, shaking her head.
Charlotte seemed to anticipate that, though; she firmly nodded, resting her hand comfortingly on Sutton’s thigh. “Youcan. And I want you to have it. So very much.”
The words escaped Sutton then as she looked back down.
It was so incredibly beautiful, and it tugged at something in Sutton’s mind, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Only as she landed the tip of her index finger against the sapphire stone did ithither.
Charlotte. Christmas. Expensive, exorbitant gifts.
“The earrings.” The words fell from her lips on a gasp as she blinked down at the necklace, looking at it closer.
Yes. The hue of the stone, the twist with the diamonds, the entiredesign, right down to the subtle and delicate statement of beauty. It perfectly matched the earrings Charlotte had given her the first time they’d been in each other’s lives.
“It matches the earrings you gave me,” she murmured, confused and surprised and—was it a coincidence? “Thirteen years ago.”
Charlotte’s cheeks looked the slightest bit pink, she saw, as she dug her teeth into her bottom lip. “It does,” she affirmed. Certain but soft. She seemed even more nervous as she swallowed visibly. “They were a set. I bought them as a set,” she explained, her searching gaze on Sutton’s.
Flooreddidn’t begin to describe the emotion rushing through Sutton, as the blood pounded in her ears.
“It’s okay if you don’t still have them,” Charlotte murmured, squeezing Sutton’s thigh again. Reassuring.
But Sutton did still have them. She did.
She hadn’t worn them again after Charlotte had broken up with her. It felt too big, too hard, too painful, too stupid, too… everything.
