“We are friends, that’s the best part. We each get to be married to our best friend. Besides, it would be nice to have kids one day. Do you want kids?” She nodded. It was all happening so fast, just like his enormous success. Zack was someone who moved at full speed and didn’t like to waste time. But she did love him, and she liked the idea of being married to him. She’d never even had a serious boyfriend before. Maybe she had been in love with him all along. She wasn’t sure. But she was now. She looked at the ring then, and then back at him.
“You don’t have to give me a big ring like that,” she said softly. “I would marry you with nothing.”
“That’s why I love you,” he said, and kissed her again.
Her grandparents stopped by the shop then to see how things were going, although they knew Ruby was always conscientious when she was there. They smiled when they saw Zack.
“Are you buying antiques now, Zack?” Alex teased him as he rolled his chair in. Eleanor was right behind him and suddenly stared at her granddaughter’s left hand.
“Good heavens, what’s that?”
“It’s a diamond,” Zack said matter-of-factly. “I just asked Ruby to marry me.” He smiled and Ruby looked suddenly shy.
“Did you now,” Alex said. “And what did she say?” Zack frowned then and looked puzzled as he turned to Ruby, no longer sure.
“What did you say?” Zack asked her and she grinned and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.
“I said yes…or I was going to…”
Zack beamed at her and turned to her grandfather. “She said yes.” Alex smiled at them, and Eleanor laughed as she shook her head.
“Congratulations,” Alex said and shook his future grandson-in-law’s hand, while Eleanor took Ruby in her arms and hugged her.
“And now we have a wedding to plan,” she said with delight. They were young, and Zack was a little odd, but it seemed right for them. And Ruby would be good for him, and he would be for her.
Chapter 15
Once she had gotten used to the idea, Ruby loved being engaged to Zack. She couldn’t think of anything better than being married to her best friend. She could say anything to him, she knew him better than anyone, they understood each other, and once they were engaged, Zack blossomed, and all he wanted to do was spoil her and make her happy. The engagement ring that looked like a headlight was only the beginning. He brought her presents constantly, talked about trips they would take, houses they would buy, things they were going to do. His genius had brought them an incredible fortune, which he couldn’t even fathom yet, and all he wanted to do was lavish it on her. The fact that Ruby didn’t expect it, or even want it, made it all the more fun. She was an unassuming, undemanding woman, which he loved about her. It made him want to spoil her even more.
He assumed she’d move into his ugly student apartment with him until her grandmother gently suggested it might be too small, and Zack realized she was right. Besides, he had gotten his furniture at secondhand stores, and it embarrassed him to have Ruby live there. They realized that they needed a house or an apartment, but they couldn’t decide where. Zack wasn’t sure if he wanted to live in Palo Alto where he grew up, or San Francisco where she had. Ruby said they could always live with her grandparents for a while, in her room, until they figured it out. Zack liked that idea because he liked them so much and they were so nice to him. So once they figured that out, there was no rush to find a place to live and could focus on the wedding, which seemed more pressing to Zack.
The wedding was likely to be awkward on his side. His parents didn’t speak to each other and refused to be in the same room, and he assumed his mother wouldn’t come. She never did. He had grown up with his dad, after the divorce. And his father didn’t have a house where they could get married. They consulted Ruby’s grandparents, who knew the finest homes in the city and had furnished many of them. They thought a hotel would be too commercial. Alex’s old home wasn’t an option. The hotel that it had been turned into had changed hands several