Taylor, the reporter, is waiting for me in the hall. She’s wearing a chic outfit—vintage Levi’s, leopard-print pumps—and box braids that cascade halfway down her back. I check her hand when she holds the door to the elevator bank open for me: no ring. That’s a good sign. It means that, hopefully, she won’t ask gushing questions about my fiancé. Maybe it’ll be strictly focused on the company.

She takes me downstairs to grab coffee. I follow Taylor through the cream-colored granite cafeteria with soaring, double-height ceilings, we each pour ourselves a cup, and we take a seat at a round table.

When we sit, she asks for permission to record our conversation. I feel a rush of nerves. For the first time, it’s possible that the story about my “engagement” will be in someone else’s hands. I can only control what I say—I’ll have to choose my words carefully.

“Of course, you can record,” I tell her.

To my delight, Taylor runs through the questions I’ve always imagined a reporter would ask. I tell her that Sophie and I grew up underfoot at my parents’ store, watching them run a business. I tell her about everything Helen gave us: inspiration, an education, a vision for my career. I explain that after Nana and Pops passed away, we were left with a sizable chunk of money that we’d each gain access to upon turning twenty-five. So we hatched a plan—we’d go into business together.

That fall, I enrolled at NYU to study entrepreneurship and marketing. When I graduated, I landed a well-paying but criminally boring sales job. I could leave the office at five on the dot to read books on startups, attend lectures by entrepreneurs, and study the hell out of the jewelry industry. I wrote a business plan and submitted it to competitions that offered seed funding for startups. Meanwhile, Sophie had been working as a graphic designer in Portland and living at home to save money. She moved to New York to study diamonds and jewelry design at GIA (the Gemological Institute of America). By the time we were twenty-five and thirty, respectively, we were ready: Sophie knew how to create beautiful pieces, we had two years’ worth of funding locked in, and we signed a lease on a storefront in Brooklyn.