– say you’re happy.’
‘Can I say delirious?’ I ask with a grin.
She eyes me for a moment with a hint of suspicion, gauging whether I’m taking the mick. I stare back and try not to blink so she can read my sincerity.
‘I’d prefer chuffed. It’s more street and harkens back to Scott’s northern roots. Delirious has some odd connotations. Out of context that won’t work. And believe me, they’ll take every word you say out of context.’
‘How about thrilled?’
‘Bit posh. And steer well away from delighted. Just be natural.’
Right, chuffed or happy. But not delirious or delighted. Got it. ‘I don’t suppose anyone will care about what I have to say about anything anyway,’ I mumble.
Saadi shakes her head. ‘You’ll be hounded like Princess Diana, doll. Get used to the idea.’
I think it’s a bit of a sick and unnerving comparison to draw, considering poor Princess Di’s ending, but I don’t say anything as I’m distracted by Saadi’s next question.
‘Have you had any thoughts about what sort of ring you want?’ She reaches for a slim black leather file and quickly unzips it. She pulls out a number of sketches of engagement rings. ‘We’ve had jewellery designers work up a few ideas.’
The drawings are stunning. The stones are huge and cut in a dozen different ways. Mostly the drawings are of brilliant, dazzling clear diamonds. But one page shows more colourful designs.
‘I like that ruby ring,’ I comment.
‘That’s not a ruby, it’s a red diamond.’
‘I didn’t know you could get red diamonds.’
‘You can get diamonds in loads of different colours, including red, green, purple, blue and pink. They are called fancy diamonds,’ explains Saadi. ‘They’re extremely rare – out of approximately eighty thousand carats of rough diamonds mined every year, only point zero, zero one per cent are regarded as fancy colours.’
‘I bet they’re expensive,’ I mutter.
‘Very,’ she says, her tone making it clear that I can’t overestimate just how ‘very’. ‘Only twenty diamonds in the world have been certified red.’
‘Bloody hell. I don’t want one of those, what if I lost it down the sink or something when I was washing up?’
‘That’s quite unlikely now, the way things have turned out, don’t you think?’ points out Saadi.
‘Well, washing my hands then. I’ll still be doing that for myself. I think I’d better go for the normal white diamond. You know, the see-through type.’
I leaf through the designs. There are rings with princess cut, round brilliant cut, baguette, bezel, opal shapes, heart shapes, oblongs, single stones and numerous stones. I can see the technical excellence and stunning beauty of every design but I don’t really know what to say to Saadi. Whenever I’d imagined selecting an engagement ring I’d thought I’d be choosing it with my fiancé, not his PA. Not that Adam had a PA, obviously, and up until recently it was always him featuring in my daydreams. Saadi fills the silence with a commentary about the sketches.
‘We’ve had three designers work something up. Two who always design for the great and the good – by which I mean the loaded – and one unknown. Some guy straight out of St Martin’s. I like his stuff and it might be a good PR ploy to discover some broke, Brit, arty guy.’
I don’t think the coverage in a newspaper should be a consideration when choosing my engagement ring, but for some reason I haven’t got the guts to say so. I say nothing at all. It’s freaky but I keep losing my voice when I’m with Saadi, like she’s some sort of female Sir Alan Sugar who can silence anyone in a single glance, let alone a wag of the finger. I’m normally reasonably assured and confident but since I’ve been surrounded by Scott’s posse I’ve lost my footing somewhat. It’s always tricky negotiating a new relationship but I honestly don’t think that’s the struggle. Scott and I are fine, or at least we would be, but from the moment we became engaged he’s been surrounded by a wall of others. I mean Princess Di went on and on about how there were three of them in that relationship; at last count there’s about forty-five in mine, not including casual staff.
Saadi probably interprets my silence as some sort of stupidity. She adds, ‘If you are having trouble visualizing the ring we can get mock-ups or maybe you’d like to wander around Tiffany’s or Leviev and buy something off the shelf.’
‘Maybe,’ I mutter.
‘Well, if you can make a decision by Monday