I pick up the charm bracelet and head toward the wrapping station as shoppers mill about, holding steaming blue paper cups while lacy snowflakes dance against the surrounding windows. The air smells like peppermint, warm chocolate and the fine Windsor perfume we sell in engraved silver bottles. Four stories below, pedestrians fill the sidewalks to view the elaborate Christmas windows lining Madison and 5th Avenues while yellow taxicabs crawl slowly past, their bumpers piled high with snow.
One more day. I feel a secret smile tugging at the corners of my mouth while I go over each silver charm with a polishing cloth so the bracelet will look perfect when it’s unwrapped. For weeks, Jeremy has been telling me about all the wonderful things we’ll see and do once we get to Paris—the Christmas market at the Eiffel Tower, midnight carols at Sainte Chapelle, holiday cocktails at the Ritz. It all sounds like something out of a dream. Mostly, anyway.
I just never quite expected Aidan Flynn to have a surprise walk-on role in my holiday plans.
“Ashley!”
At the sound of my name, I drag myself back to reality and see Maya Sanchez dashing across the sales floor at a speed to rival Rudolph’s on Christmas Eve. Maya works on the floor directly below me, selling engagement rings in the lavish Windsor I Do boutique, and she’s also been my roommate and closest friend in New York since the day I started working the charms counter.
I stifle a laugh as she skids to a halt beside me. “What are you doing up here? Isn’t I Do the busiest section of the entire store right now?”
Every year, the marketing team at Windsor designs a holiday ad campaign for its engagement rings that is so whimsically romantic that it rivals a full-length Christmas rom-com movie. A snowy winter proposal just isn’t the same without a diamond from Windsor—that’s what our marketing wizards would have you believe, anyway. I have to admit, the ad featuring a tuxedoed man hiding a little blue box behind his back as the unsuspecting love of his life hangs a perfect blue ornament on a Christmas tree hits me right in the feels every single time.
The ad even includes a floppy-eared puppy romping at their feet. It’s all picture-perfect—though not exactly realistic. I’m just not sure why the man’s fiancée-to-be is wearing a beaded evening gown to decorate the tree. I’m all for glamour, but that seems like an impractical fashion choice. Just saying.
I guess you can take the girl out of Owl Lake, but you can’t quite take the Owl Lake completely out of the girl.
“It’s insane down there. You wouldn’t believe how many couples are getting engaged this Christmas.” Maya’s cheeks flush pink, and her gaze shifts to the bracelet in my hands. “Cute. Let me guess—you helped the customer choose the charms?”
“It’s my favorite part of my job.” I place the bracelet in its box and arrange it just so.
“And you’re absurdly good at it.” She points to the apple charm. “That’s an especially nice touch.”
“Thanks. It’s a reminder of her trip to New York and at the same time, it sets her bracelet apart from one filled with traditional Christmas charms.” I press the box’s lid in place and begin unspooling a section of white satin ribbon for the bow. “The best charm bracelets are the ones with little unexpected touches, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” Maya says, and she appears to be biting back a smile.
I narrow my gaze at her. “What?”
She blinks. “What do you mean, ‘what?’”
“You’re acting weird. Have you been sampling the champagne downstairs? I thought it was only for the customers.”
“Very funny.” She rolls her eyes as she picks up the scissors to cut the ribbon I’m winding into a bow in just the right spot without my having to utter a word. We’ve both tied so many white Windsor bows in the past few weeks that we could do it in our sleep. “I just don’t see how you can be so calm when you’re leaving tomorrow.”
My heart skips a beat. I might seem calm on the outside, but on the inside, I’m counting the minutes until our plane takes off. My bags have been packed for days, which is probably a good thing because an hour or so ago, Jeremy popped into the charms department to tell me he wants us to go out after work tonight for a special pre-Paris dinner.
Jeremy works at Windsor, just like Maya and me. Except instead of putting together charm bracelets or selling engagement rings, he helps princesses pick out tiaras and arranges for Hollywood stars to borrow extravagant pieces from the vault to wear to award shows or movie premieres. He works on the first floor in the fine jewels section, where even a single item in the display cases cost significantly more than my parents’ modest, Adirondacks-style lakeside home. Jeremy and I met on my first day of work when he’d caught me staring, wide-eyed, at a diamond necklace that had once been worn by Audrey Hepburn. A year later, we started dating.
“Christmas in Paris!” Maya sighs. “It’s so insanely romantic, just like those old movies you force me to watch all the time.”
“Hey, you loved Funny Face. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Guilty.”
Finished with the bow, I tuck the rectangular box into a matching blue carrier bag. My little customer and her dad are still sipping cocoa by the windows, watching the bright emerald lawn of Central Park slowly disappear beneath a fine layer of snow. I turn to fully face Maya, and sure enough, her lips are starting to quirk back into a secret smile.
“There.” I point at her face. I’ve shared a tiny fifth-floor walkup with her long enough to know when she’s trying to keep a secret. “Something weird is definitely going on. You look like someone just told you the exact contents of Santa’s naughty and nice lists.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says in a wholly unconvincing manner. “But let’s just say I might know which of those lists you’re on.”
“Maya.” I stare hard at her. Hard enough to peer inside her brain, if such a thing were possible. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?”
My heart pounds so hard that I think it might beat right out of my chest.
Here’s the thing—when you’ve been dating a perfectly nice man for three years and he invites you to the most romantic city in the entire world for the holidays, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that he might be thinking about proposing. I mean, I don’t think I’m being over-the-top presumptuous to wonder. Anyone who’s read a single romance novel would wonder the same thing.
And when said boyfriend works at the most famous jewelry store in the world, you might also have an inkling where he’d purchase an engagement ring. After all, we do get a sizable discount on employee purchases, which would be great if I ever found myself with an invitation to the Met Gala. Sadly, that’s not my reality. But my reality does contain a secret weapon in the form of a best friend who works in the very department where Jeremy would purchase an engagement ring, if and when the time is right.