She rolls her eyes. “He proposed with that?”
“Um, yeah. You know the one I’m talking about?”
“Yeah, I know it.” She looks ticked. “That cheap bastard,” she mutters.
“Is it a zirconia or something,” I ask, confused.
I stand up and glance out the window. Sure enough, Mom and Mason are down by the boats at the waterfront.
“That fucking… grr.” She growls.
“He said you designed that for me. That it was a very expensive one-of-a-kind ring and that you did it at a discount and... is none of that true?”
“The diamond belonged to me, but I didn’t design the ring. He did. With someone else. I didn’t make him pay for it. The diamond belonged to our great grandmother. The one I told you about?”
I nod. Gloria told me that’s how she got into jewelry. It was a family business, she inherited it.
“Oh,” I say, a little perplexed but not totally unsurprised because Gloria has great style, and this didn’t seem like her.
“Is there no chance you two are reconciling?”
“No chance.”
“Are you sure?”
I spit out the truth. “I’m already sleeping with someone else, and he was cheating on me. He also drove drunk the other night, which is an automatic relationship trap door for me, so no. No chance.”
“That stone was one of the ones that was left to me. It’s worth a pretty penny, but there’s a long history of hideousness attached to it, my great grandmother told me all about it, so I had never planned to use it, sell it, give it away, anything. In fact, I had it in a safe for years. Rick and his ex-fiancée designed that ring together,” she blurts. “She loved that stone and the history of it. She was sort of… odd. Considered herself a wiccan or something. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wanted it and Rick wanted her to have whatever she wanted.”
I double-blink as I process this.
“This sounds weird, Amelia, but that stone has bad juju attached to it, and I warned her, but my brother was a skeptic, wouldn’t listen. Nagged and nagged, so in the end, I was like… whatever.”
I never knew Rick was engaged before. I certainly didn’t know he gave me his ex’s ring. But I certainly do believe he nagged Gloria to get what he wanted.
“I wouldn’t have said this to you if there was a chance of reconciling because I know this is pretty unforgiveable and I told her that diamond is cursed. It’s been worn by three women in various forms and all of them had bad luck and untimely deaths, except Tiara. She didn’t die, but she had a horrible burn accident and they split up because shortly after her accident, she caught him cheating on her with her twin. She thought it was cool the diamond was cursed. She didn’t think it was cool after that accident with a vat of hot cooking oil.”
I gasp.
“Yeah,” Gloria says.
I gawk at the screen.
“Oh my god.”
“You know how family politics can get. When I caught wind Mother hired her sister to be the wedding planner, I very nearly told you. I gave him a piece of my mind. But he said she’s the best at what she does, swore he wasn’t sleeping with her still, that it’d been a one-off. He pleaded with me to let it go. I’m so sorry, Amelia.”
“Sheila Crawford?” I choke out. “That’s Rick’s ex-fiancé’s sister?”
Rick hired her, not Carla. He lied. He lied about so much.
“Yes. And now, I’m just fuming for you. Because there’s more.”
“What?”
“Obviously, he rushed the wedding because of Gramps’ and his eccentricities. He told me that he’d already planned to propose but clearly that’s not the whole story. But, Amelia, my brother said he loved you. I never would’ve kept my mouth shut if I hadn’t believed him. I liked you instantly. But if I had any idea that ring was on your finger…” She shakes her head. “He told me you were going to wear a family heirloom from your aunt.”
My God. I’m just reeling. I’m jerked back to reality as she waits on the screen, looking upset.
“Um… explain, please? What did rushing the wedding have to do with your grandfather?”
“The joke will,” she clips.
I’m confused. “The joke will what?”
She shakes her head sharply. “No. His last will and testament.”
Huh?
She elaborates, “Of course he didn’t tell you.” She rolls her eyes. “He told me you knew and had a laugh over it.”
“A laugh over what?”
“Gramps wrote a joke will that had all this silly stuff in it. You know how eccentric he was. He hinted about it for years. Treasure hunts to find some of the things he left to us and some odd requests for his funeral, and … I wasn’t able to be there for the reading because I had to leave directly after his funeral for that showcase our store was being featured for, but he filed the joke will and we don’t know if he did it on purpose as a last laugh or if he filed the wrong one by mistake. Grandma said there were two wills. We can’t find the other one.”