“No, I didn’t. Because this is a special shopping trip,” he hints but doesn’t say any more.
After a trip in the carriage around his building, which sees me even waving at some tourists who snap photos with their phones, I still have no idea what he’s got planned.
I think I’ll like it, no matter what, even if it’s just a ride in a carriage through the park.
But after what must be a half-hour, I’m dying to know more. But Foxx stays quiet, only pecking me with a kiss or squeezing me closer, asking if my ankle’s okay.
We finally pull up out front of a plain-looking building, but it’s on the most expensive boulevard in the city.
This part of the city most people don’t hang out in simply because they can’t afford a reason to be anywhere near it.
It’s high-end everything, from the sports cars lining the streets to the designer clothes clad people moving from one boutique to the next. Or sipping twenty-dollar coffees from tiny cups under the tree-lined pavement. Spotlessly clean and oozing wealth.
Class.
Something I don’t think I’ve ever really seen, let alone been in the middle of. Because of all this, it doesn’t look out of place at all for a horse-drawn carriage to pull up first thing in the morning.
“Here we are,” Foxx says, clearing his throat.
Is he actually nervous?
My own nerves startup, but in a good way, as the carriage door opens.
I’m wondering what it is behind the plain-looking door inside the even plainer-looking building.
Foxx gets out first, and after asking if I can walk okay, he contents himself by taking my arm and guiding me up another little red carpet to the entrance, pushing it open as if he maybe owns the place.
He grips my arm a little tighter, stopping me a second before we go inside. Before he lets a lady go first.
“We’ll get everything else you need, promise. But, I just gotta do this one thing first,” he rasps, a hint of emotion in his voice.
My eyes don’t need to adjust from the sunny street outside, which is silenced when the heavy door closes behind us.
It’s the light show I’m getting from all the glittering jewelry cabinets.
With a team of immaculately dressed staff, rows and rows of them are all wishing Foxx and me a good morning.
I’d say it takes about a full minute of me just standing here, my mouth slowly gaping as my jaw drops. The reason we’re here isn’t to buy me clothes, but I think I get what Foxx means now by ‘everything you need.’
As if having him wasn’t enough.
My mouth starts to move in time, with Foxx guiding me forward as if he knows just where to go.
We stop in front of a heavy glass counter with only a few pieces of jewelry in it. If that’s what you’d even call it.
More like the freaking Hope diamond meets the crown jewels.
I half wonder if this is some sort of exhibit, or maybe something tied in with the horse and carriage.
But when it hits me, it hits me hard.
All the dots join when Foxx’s huge hand slips around my waist, and he leans down, whispering in my ear.
“I love you, Mandy. And I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy,” he says, and I feel my knees start to shake. My mouth is going bone dry as it pumps air like a fish as I try to get a breath.
As Foxx guides me right up to the counter, everything feels like it moves in slow motion, pointing at the gleaming treasures.
Rings – Rings made for just one purpose.
“I can’t be apart from you long enough to choose. And I do want this, to ask you something special,” he adds.
I make a little sound, still speechless, but this is giving him taking my virginity and setting me into orgasmic orbit one helluva run for its money.
“I… I want you to choose a ring with me, Mandy. An engagement ring for you. For us,” he says, a crackle of that emotion coming through again.
“I love you more than anything, Mandy. And even though it’s just been a few days… My god, what a few days!” he whispers excitedly.
I feel my hands grip him hard, and not just to steady myself, I cling to him like nothing else as I feel every emotion I have for him welling up inside me.
Wishing there was something, even just one thing, I could do to match his kindness and generosity.
His amazingness. And his love for me.
He takes my chin in his fingers, tilting my head to look up at him, reading my thoughts as if they were written in front of him, telling him what to do.
“Just say yes, Mandy. Just say yes, even before you choose a ring. I can’t live another moment until I know for sure that you’re mine forever and in every way…as my wife. Will you marry me?”