Attached At Heart (Wildflower #3)

2. Blake

CHAPTER TWO

blake

D ELANEY WAS NOT ENGAGED.

She was not getting married.

And she was here , in Boston, yelling at me because she’d thought I was getting married.

Had I dropped into some other dimension?

Fuck me, I didn’t know what to make of any of it. I was still processing this earth-shattering revelation that Delaney was once again single. I had questions— so many questions. But I hadn’t wanted to overwhelm her while we stood in the SCMC lobby, especially considering Delaney’s evasion of the details. Normally, she would have offered them up for me without any hesitation, and I hoped that her shift in behavior didn’t have something to do with how I’d left Minnesota—left her when maybe she’d needed me.

But I hadn’t known. All I’d known at the time was that she was marrying Austin fucking Long, and I—well, I’d needed to get the hell away from that.

My thoughts continued to tumble, even as Delaney walked up two minutes before our dinner reservation, wearing the little black dress of all little black dresses. It was the little black dress. The only one that existed in my mind.

Her graduation dress.

The fabric curved over her hips, which swayed as she walked, capturing my attention. Fuck me.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” She reached my side and smacked me in the arm with the small clutch she had in her hand. “You told me to wear this dress.”

“I’m just…surprised you actually found it.” I cleared my throat, hoping she wouldn’t notice the heat rising up my neck at being caught staring. I was usually so much better at keeping myself in check, but I was out of practice. And feeling a little greedy and desperate. I hadn’t seen Delaney in months, and I’d been deprived of looking at her. “You look…nice.”

She snorted. “That sounded convincing.”

I bit my tongue, forcing myself not to respond to that. I could be convincing, but she hadn’t asked for that.

“Nice,” she repeated beneath her breath as she slid past me and into the restaurant. I curled my fingers into fists in my pockets to keep from stopping her and rephrasing myself to make sure she understood just how nice I thought she looked. But before I could do or say anything, Delaney pulled up short after opening the door to Giovanni’s.

“Wow, you want to talk about nice—look at this place. Good thing I wore my dress.”

As I stood staring at her backside, I thought the opposite. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing she wore this dress. Not if I wanted to keep my shit together enough to have a conversation.

“Don’t worry about it.” I placed a hand on the small of her back and gently urged her forward. “Dinner’s on me.”

“I wasn’t worried about it.” She peeked back over her shoulder. “And you don’t need to pay. Unless I find out you’re making more money than me simply because you have a dick. In that case, I’ll allow it.”

I shook my head, biting down on a smile. God, it was so fucking annoying how much I’d missed her. “I know I don’t need to pay. I’m paying because I want to, Lane.”

She turned on me with a mock gasp. “Has Boston turned you into a gentleman?”

I scowled, resisting the urge to demand she tell me at least one time that I had been un gentlemanly. Trust me, where Delaney Delacroix was concerned, I was very much a gentleman. Fucking killed me at times, but maintaining our friendship had always been the most important thing to me.

To no surprise, Delaney ignored my scowl and turned toward the hostess, giving her my name before clasping her hands behind her back demurely. I found it satisfying that although I hadn’t told her I made a reservation, she’d known I’d taken care of it. Meanwhile, I traced the buttons on her dress with my eyes, following them up the straight line of her back and marveling at her perfect posture. When the hostess gestured for us to follow her, Delaney moved with grace in every step like the retired ballerina debutante extraordinaire she was.

“I just want to celebrate the occasion,” I clarified as we settled into opposite seats at a table tucked in the corner of the restaurant. The quaint space glowed with ambient lighting, and I realized how awfully romantic it felt. I knew I could play it off, but this was the kind of shit I should really be more careful about. Especially until I figured out the rest of the details surrounding her broken engagement.

She said it hadn’t been real . What the hell did that mean?

“The occasion?” she parroted.

I shrugged, attempting nonchalance. “You know, you moving to Boston.”

You being single.

She laughed, but it was slightly strained. “I’ve been here for nearly a month.”

I paused at that, the air getting choked out of me as I decided how to respond. A month . How hadn’t I known? After a beat, I settled on, “When the fuck were you going to tell me?”

Chill. Real chill.

Did Delaney not want to be around me? Because that was probably something I should figure out, and quick.

“I don’t know.” Delaney’s gaze lowered as she focused on her menu a little too hard. “I was getting settled and everything, and I didn’t even realize you worked at SCMC. I have no idea how we went this long without?—”

“Oh, I don’t.” I’d forgotten to clarify that earlier. I didn’t work there, but my sister, who was a trauma surgeon, did. “Nat works there, and I was having lunch with her.”

“Oh.” Delaney glanced up from her menu before burying her gaze back inside it. “Well, that makes more sense.”

“I work at Boston Medical.” I raised a brow, mostly at how she was avoiding eye contact. “I’ve still been in Boston, Lane. Like I told you.”

Heaving a loud sigh, she put down the menu. But instead of meeting my eyes, she began toying with her water glass, sliding the tip of her finger around the rim and watching it with an annoying amount of concentration.

“Yes, but that’s all you told me. Just…Boston. We left things weird, Blake.” She flicked her gaze to mine—all accusatory—before adding with a mumble, “Or rather, you left things weird.”

I shifted slightly in my chair before clearing my throat. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“Yes, you do.”

Okay, fine. I did.

Delaney’s expression dripped with exasperation. “You clearly didn’t support my engagement to Austin?—”

“You’d only been dating him for like a month, Delaney,” I interjected dryly. I mean, come on. What friend wouldn’t point out that it was moving a little too fast? Especially when she’d spent years telling me she didn’t even want to get married one day.

“Okay, yeah,” she conceded. “But also…no, because we never actually dated at all.”

“It certainly didn’t seem like it,” I agreed. “You went to, what, like one football game with him? Dinner twice?”

I ran into her at one of Noah’s football games in Minneapolis, and finding out she’d been there with him had put a damper on the whole goddamn day.

But she shook her head. “No, Blake.” She took a deep breath before releasing it slowly. “That’s not what I meant.”

I frowned, feeling a knot form in my gut. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Her eyes shifted away from mine. “We never dated. We were never engaged. It wasn’t real .”

“You keep saying that, Lane, but I don’t know what that means. Did he do something? Because if he did, I swear to God?—”

“He fell in love with someone else,” she blurted, and I reared back, assaulted by the thought.

“He what ?”

My brows drew together as I raked a hand through my hair, needing to do something to keep from running out of the restaurant to find Austin Long and demand to know what the hell was wrong with him. Fell in love with someone else? Fell out of love with Delaney ? When he had her?

How could he so easily do the one thing I’d tried all my goddamn life to do? The one thing I’d failed at so miserably.

“He fell in love with someone else,” Delaney repeated calmly. Why was she so calm? “Which is fine , Blake.”

I blinked at her in disbelief. “It’s fine that your fiancé fell in love with someone else? What are you talking about? That’s absolutely not fine. It’s the opposite of fine, Lane. It’s—it’s impossible.”

Literally impossible. And if she wasn’t going to be angry about it, I would be. Because what the fuck ?

She sighed. “It’s fine because it was…” She dropped her head back, and my breathing suspended while she figured out how to end that sentence.

“Because it was what?” I probed, anxious.

Delaney looked up again, startled to find that I had leaned in, moving closer. A sort of shiver worked through her before she threw her hands up and confessed, “Fake. It was fake.”

“Fake?” I repeated, sounding hollow.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Falsified. Fictional. Like I said…not real. That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

I mouthed the word one more time silently, attempting to understand it.

“My inheritance…” Delaney hedged, and the puzzle pieces slowly started to fall into place, causing my heart to pound. “I actually have to be married for a year to get it. Because in the dictionary, next to old-school , you’d see a picture of my grandparents.”

I shook my head, trying to keep up.

“So you have to turn thirty-five and then get married for a year?”

“No, I, um…” She scratched her head and winced. “I made the birthday thing up. It was only ever the marriage thing. By the time I told you about it, I just knew both would coincide, timing-wise. Austin was simply a means to an end.”

Something about my expression—probably my jaw that had dropped—made Delaney quickly add, “But he knew. He knew about it. He was going to get a cut, and then we’d get a divorce after a year, and he’d get to pay off his student loans and run happily into the sunset debt-free. He was a very willing participant, I promise.”

Of course he fucking was. He got to be married to Delaney while getting paid for it. I was sure he thought he’d won the goddamn lottery.

“So, what I’m hearing is you were never really engaged.”

“ Yes .” She slumped in her chair, looking both relieved and exasperated. “Thank you for finally understanding.”

“Jesus fuck, Delaney,” I swore beneath my breath, my eyes fluttering shut at her affirmation.

I massaged the back of my neck, trying to get a grip on this new reality. One where Delaney had never been in love with Austin Long, where she’d never even wanted to marry him, not in a real sense, and one where she wasn’t going to marry him. But most importantly, a reality where she’d needed a husband, and for some goddamn reason, she hadn’t asked me .

Austin was just some guy from our cohort in med school who’d also ended up at Mayo for his fellowship but in a different specialty. All I really knew about him was that Delaney had thought he was funny and kind because he bought her lunch, like, one time, and if that was the bar to ask someone to marry them, then Christ, what had I been doing wrong for our decade-long friendship? Did I need to tell more jokes?

Delaney worried her bottom lip, and I internally groaned, trying not to look at her mouth. Now was not the time. So not the time for my brain to go there.

She drummed her fingers on the table anxiously. “Can you please say something else?”

I released a slow breath before pinning my gaze on her and asking, “Why?”

Her brows pulled together. “Why was I getting married? I told you?—”

“No.” I shook my head, running a hand over my face. “No, why didn’t you tell me? Or better yet, why didn’t you just ask me?”

“You were dating someone,” she said, hasty to clarify that.

Only it didn’t clarify anything.

Someone?

I crossed my arms over my chest because we both knew she was being vague on purpose. I’d taken girls on dates, if only to see if anyone might break through the spell Delaney had on me, but I’d never seriously dated anyone.

Fine, though. We could go with that reasoning for now. I wasn’t going to risk pushing her for the truth about this when I’d just gotten her back. It wasn’t the important thing at the moment.

“Well, who are you going to marry now?” I asked instead.

Because that was the important thing. I knew Delaney still had plans to get that inheritance money. And I needed to know what those plans were. Needed to know what I should brace myself for.

Delaney blew out a breath between her lips. “I don’t know. I decided to move closer to home and focus on work for a bit while I regrouped. Maybe push my grandparents’ executor, see if there’s any other workaround. Thought it might be easier to do while I’m here since he’s local to Boston.”

“He does know you want to use the money to do a good thing, right?”

“He knows,” she said, and I pursed my lips in irritation.

“I see.”

I hated that Delaney had to go through this just to follow her dreams of making the world a better place. But at least I knew about it now. And I wouldn’t let her go through it alone, even if there were still some things up in the air between us. Even if maybe there were certain aspects of this situation I still didn’t understand. I understood enough. Enough to make up my mind about what I was going to do next.

The easiest decision I’d ever made.

“So…” Delaney tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, giving me a side-eyed look. “That’s why I’m here.”

Then she stared at me expectantly. Waiting for me to pick up where we’d left off in the conversation before, as though she hadn’t just shattered my world in some of the best and worst ways possible.

But fine.

“You know why I’m here,” I said.

“Do I?”

“I told you my reasoning for moving to Boston,” I said with a sigh. “I wanted to be closer to my family.”

“You lived an hour away from your parents and two brothers in Minnesota,” she countered.

“My other family.”

Delaney flicked the corner of the menu, chewing her bottom lip in contemplation. “It just seemed so sudden. So…insincere, in a way.”

“Like your engagement?” I muttered, but she ignored me.

“Blake, don’t hate me for saying this, but you rarely even visited Noah or Natalie before. And now you’re so compelled to be close to them that you abruptly changed your career plans and moved across the country?”

Shit, she hit the nail on the head. And it kinda hurt. “That’s exactly why I moved.” Well, not exactly. But it was exactly the reason I would be telling her. Because she knew all about the big, loving London family—of which I might have been the worst member in the last years—and it could be an excuse she believed. “I realized I’d been a shitty brother,” I explained when she furrowed her brows in confusion. “Okay, I didn’t really realize it. Gemma might have called me on it.”

Delaney stilled. She was almost always in motion in some way, so when she stopped, it was like the whole world stopped, too. Her intense gaze wandered my face. “Gemma?”

“Noah’s girlfriend,” I reminded her.

“Oh.” Delaney perked up at that, sitting back in her chair with a contented look. “Now I’m feeling bad for misjudging her. She sounds exactly like the kind of sister-in-law you need.”

“She is,” I agreed. “Noah better get to proposing soon.”

“Why hasn’t he? I mean, considering they have a child together.”

“Delilah is not Noah’s biological daughter, but he’d hate I’m even mentioning that. He’s stepped up to be her dad in every way that counts, and I think they’re just focusing on being parents at the moment. But I know it’s only a matter of time before he pops the question.”

“Wow. That’s great.” She smiled, and it was soft. “I can tell you’re really happy for him.”

“I am,” I said honestly. “Now, if only I could find some of that happiness for Nat. I’ve actually seen her and Chloe more than Noah lately.”

As a recently divorced single parent with an incredibly busy work schedule, Natalie had relied on Noah a fair amount to help with her nine-year-old daughter, Chloe. I hadn’t realized how much until Noah bowed out of uncle duty for a bit to focus on dad duty, and I’d stepped in to take his place.

“That’s sweet that you were getting lunch with her today.”

I nodded, not really wanting to get into the thick of my conversation with Natalie and the reason we met up for lunch, which was to talk through a legal mess involving her shithead ex-husband.

“How’s your family?” I asked instead.

“Oh, you don’t want to hear about them.”

“Fine.” I chuckled and amended, “How’s Bry?”

Delaney’s whole face lit up at the mention of her brother, the one family member she adored with everything in her. Bryan was born with Down syndrome and consequently had experienced a myriad of heart trouble growing up. Now in his early adulthood, he was doing well health-wise, which was a relief. But regardless, he was the entire reason Delaney was a cardiologist.

“He’s great. I mean, my mom isn’t very happy with him at the moment because he tried to sneak out of the house this past weekend to go meet up with his girlfriend, but I told her that was actually the best news she’s told me in a long time.”

I watched her continue to talk animatedly about her brother and knew, without a doubt, that even though what I planned on doing would fuck me up from the inside out, it was the right thing to do, considering the circumstances.

And also considering the determination that fueled this woman from the moment she woke up until the moment she went to bed.

If I didn’t marry Delaney Delacroix so she could get her goddamn inheritance and chase her dreams of opening a specialty cardiac clinic, she’d find someone else to attach herself to for a year. Fake or not, I had no interest in going through that again. I’d have to find a new city to move to, and despite how much my fucking brothers liked to tease me for running away from my feelings, I was starting to like Boston.

The waiter interrupted Delaney before she could finish talking about Bryan, and Delaney sheepishly ordered a glass of chardonnay before falling silent.

I chuckled to myself. “What other mischief has Bryan been getting into?”

“Oh, nothing. You know, the usual. I don’t want to ramble too much about it.”

The waiter returned with the wine, and she immediately picked it up, all but downing the chardonnay.

“Since when do you care about what I think of your rambling?” I asked with a frown.

She flicked her eyes up in pretend annoyance and traded her wine for my glass of pinot noir—since I hadn’t drained my drink the moment I got it—and took a sip, making a face.

“I don’t know.” She put the glass back down with more force than necessary. “Maybe you moved to Boston to escape my rambling. Otherwise, you would have at least called.”

I sighed and took a drink of the wine myself, hating that hurt look in Delaney’s gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”

She watched me expectantly, no doubt waiting for an explanation. But I didn’t have one that I could give her.

I was trying to get over you.

“You know I’m not really a phone person,” I added because it was the best I could do. “I don’t know, there’s something about not seeing a person’s face when you’re talking to them.”

“Blake.” Delaney put both her hands on the table and leaned forward conspiratorially. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of this or not, but there’s something called Face?—”

“Okay, okay .” I threw my hands up in defeat. “You’re right. I’m sorry .”

She sat back again, looking smug as hell.

“Say it again.”

I pursed my lips, trying not to let them curve into a grin at how victorious she looked from hearing me say those two magic words. But it was a losing effort, so I picked my wine back up instead and took a long sip, studying Delaney over the glass’s rim and drawing out the moment.

Her eyes met mine, bright and alive.

“You can’t hide in that wineglass forever, Dr. London.”

I raised a brow, taking another slow gulp of wine. Her eyes flicked down to my throat as I swallowed before lifting back to my gaze again.

If she could chug a hundred-dollar glass of wine, then so could I.

Delaney leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand as though watching me down this glass of wine was the most interesting thing she’d seen all day. One of her brows lifted as if to say, “ Are you done yet? ”

But I was a fucking glutton for her attention, so no, I wasn’t done.

When I’d drained the last drop of wine from the glass, I set it back on the table and licked my lips, feeling a dribble of pinot escape. Delaney’s lips parted as she stared at me in some kind of unspoken disbelief before she abruptly sucked in and repeated herself, her voice lower.

“Say it again, Blake.”

The waiter returned, saving me from repeating the words Delaney desperately wanted to hear. He looked at our drained glasses of wine with surprise but was well trained enough not to say anything.

“Another glass of pinot?” he asked me first, a placid expression on his face.

“I think maybe we’ll just take a bottle of the chardonnay she’s having for the table,” I answered, and Delaney made a face at me. One of those you didn’t have to do that faces.

If she was making that face at me now, I couldn’t imagine what kind of face she would be making in the next few minutes.

“What’s your schedule look like tomorrow?” I asked after the waiter left.

“I’m pretty booked with being right all day.”

“Hmm,” I pretended to consider. “No breaks in the day to do something a little bit…wrong?”

Because that was no doubt what this proposition was. Wrong, for so many reasons. And maybe rushed, but I didn’t want to take my chances and let her slip away again.

But Delaney’s brows shot up, and I realized too late what my proposition had sounded like.

“What did you have in mind?” she questioned.

Fuck, she really didn’t want to know the full answer to that question. So I stuck to the one that would shock her the least.

And that was saying something.

“I’m thinking I could sneak a visit to the government center into my schedule.”

“The government center?”

“For a marriage license, of course.”

“For a—” She broke off, her eyes growing wide. “ Blake ?—”

“But I guess I should ask properly first.” I cleared my throat, both reveling in this moment and hating it in one breath. This was not how I ever imagined proposing. To anyone. I wasn’t exactly a creative person, but proposals were supposed to be…better. So much better than this.

This wasn’t a goddamn fairy tale, though. And I knew better than to imagine anything other than reality. So I flashed my best friend a grin and did my best to play it fucking cool.

“Delaney Delacroix, will you marry me?”