She could no longer avoid the horrible truth: She didn't love James after all. She couldn't marry him. She was going to have to give the four-carat ring back.

And just like that, the fairy-tale love story she'd been trying so desperately to hold on to shattered into a million pieces.

"No!" she shouted, yanking the beautiful ring off her finger.

Well, she should have yanked it, but she couldn't. It was too beautiful. Instead, she slowly slid it off, fighting back tears at the thought of willingly giving up such beauty. Even if it was the right thing to do. Could she help it if turning down six-figure engagement rings made her a little weepy and shallow? She tried to hand it to him across the table, but he was still holding the cell phone to his ear and frowning at her. Before she could close her fist back around it, the ring dropped onto the table. It bounced off the pristine white tablecloth and rolled beneath the stiletto heel of the woman sitting at the table beside them, who looked to have undergone one face-lift too many.

Clearly irritated with her, James said, "Sorry, Mummy. I'll have to call you back;' then scooted back his chair to retrieve the precious ring.

But Carrie felt that it was her responsibility to be the bigger person here. To act like a lady, one last time. Besides, she wasn't angry with James. She just didn't want to marry him. The least she could do was give him back his ring in a civil manner.

A moment later, she was on her knees, with her butt way up in the air and her hair hanging in front of her eyes. She reached for the ring just as Ms. Extreme Makeovers stiletto pierced the back of her hand. "Ouch;' she cried, smacking her head on the bottom of the table as she sat up too quickly. Suave as ever, even in the midst of an embarrassing situation that involved approximately one hundred strangers, James held out his hand to Carrie. All out of options, she allowed him to escort her back to their table. He slipped the ring back on her finger and said, "Why don't you hold onto this until Monday, when your PMS isn't quite so bad."

At that moment Carrie knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was making the right decision. She stifled a scream and fled the restaurant into the streets of Union Square. She was desperate to put as much distance between her and her ex as she possibly could.

Thank God she was leaving tomorrow for a weekend of wine tasting in the Napa Valley with the girls. If there was ever a time for late-night wine and chocolate-inspired advice, it was now.

CARRIE WAITED to spill the news until her two best friends, Rose and Vanessa, were buckled into her silver Mustang convertible

and the wind was whipping through their hair en route to Napa Valley. "James proposed:' Vanessa, unromantic to her very core, cut right past congratulations. "Where's the bling?" she asked, tucking a few long, red strands of hair that were flying around her face back into her chic black cap and kicking off her Manolos.

''I'm not wearing it;' Carrie said as she reached into her beige linen slacks for the ring that was burning a hole in her pocket. The ring that had haunted her all night long. "I didn't know what else to do with it:' "My God;' Vanessa said as she grabbed the ring and stared at it with big eyes. "I've got to try it on:' The band was a perfect fit on her left hand, the yellow diamond nicely offset by her deep tan. "I can't believe you get to wear this ring every day, you lucky bitch! Which begs the question, why the hell aren't you wearing it? Afraid you'll blind the other drivers when the sun sparks off it and they crash into the center divider?" Carrie laughed. "Yeah, that's exactly why;' she said, wondering if they were going to think she was crazy when she told them how she'd panicked at the thought of a life sentence as a perfect little society lady. Rose held her unruly black curls down, having lost her scarf five minutes into their drive, and yelled from the backseat to be heard over the engine noise. "Does that mean you said yes?" Her over-sized white blouse flapped in the wind, and her blue eyes were full of concern.

The song "I Will Always Love You" came on the local pop station, and Carrie temporarily avoided answering Rose by fiddling with the tuner. In the best of circumstances this song made her want to puke. What she needed right now was a female power song. Something like Aretha Franklin's "Respect." Despite her moment of clarity at the restaurant, she'd been up all night wondering if she was making a mistake snagging the catch of the decade and then, in the eleventh hour, deciding to throw him back. Which was why she'd tucked the ring into her pocket before leaving the house. Maybe her friends would make her see the light and she'd want to slip it on her finger.

The digital tuner landed, ever so helpfully, on "Ironic:'

Carrie gave up. The radio programmers were out to get her.

Over Alanis Morissette's catchy, but so awfully appropriate tune, Carrie finally replied.

"I didn't exactly say yes."

"Under any other circumstances I'd encourage you to play hardball for a bigger ring. But in this case," Vanessa said as she held her left hand up and salivated over the diamond some more, "even I'd say that's going too far. This baby is big. Nice and heavy. Just the way a girl likes it. She winked to send home her none too-subtle double entendre.

Carrie playfully smacked Vanessa on the shoulder. "Holding out for a bigger diamond is something only you would do."

Vanessa sniffed. "That's because I'm the only one with the panache, not to mention the balls, to carry it off." "You said no?" The.shock in Rose's voice was strong enough to carry over Alanis and the road noise. Heat flooded Carrie's face. "I didn't say no, I yelled no:' Now that the dam had broken, everything came spilling out. "He was talking about Mummy and Bora-Bora and I wanted to smack him. He didn't even wait to hear if I said yes before he was naming our children."

In a show of solidarity that Carrie couldn't have predicted, especially since she knew firsthand how difficult it was to take the diamond off, Vanessa slipped the ring off her finger and shoved it back into Carrie's pocket. ''At least now you don't have to give up your career to be a trophy wife:' Vanessa said, in her characteristically blunt manner.

Carrie's mouth fell open and she spun around to face Rose, putting their lives in jeopardy for several seconds. "Vanessa just called me a trophy wife. A trophy wife! Aren't you going to make her apologize?" Rose bit down on her lip. With great reluctance, she finally said, "She's right, Carrie."

Vanessa reached across Carrie to take the wheel as they swerved into the fast lane and Rose let out a highpitched yelp of fear.

"Sorry I'm almost killing us here:' Carrie said, turning back to the road. "I just can't believe this. Why didn't you guys ever say anything?"