3. Delaney
CHAPTER THREE
delaney
“ I — WHAT ?” I SPUTTERED. “Blake, you don’t?—”
“What?” His lips twitched as he pretended to be affronted. “I’m sorry, did you want me to get down on one knee?”
He started to push his chair back, and I reached across the table to put a stop to that immediately.
“Don’t you dare ,” I threatened through gritted teeth.
Blake stilled and put his palms up to signify surrender. I thought maybe I was in the clear and this conversation would get pushed aside completely, but then he leaned forward again, flashing me a tilted smile.
My pulse, which had picked up its tempo as soon as the words marry me had left Blake’s mouth, thrummed loudly. I could hear it pounding in my ears as Blake lowered his voice and asked, “What’s wrong? You don’t want to marry me, Lane?”
“Oh, stop.” I fidgeted nervously with my empty wineglass, really wishing the waiter would make a reappearance with that bottle. I couldn’t believe Blake had the nerve to tease me about this. I mean, maybe I deserved it for lying to him about my engagement, but still. “Blake, this is?—”
“You did tell me I was handsome earlier today,” he cut in, his smirk growing.
“That’s what you took away from that?” I cried incredulously.
Blake lifted a brow, his gaze boring into me, making my cheeks heat. Oh my God, I hoped he couldn’t tell. The last thing I needed was for Blake to remember he had the ability to make me blush .
“‘ Unfairly handsome,’” he added, and I wanted to melt into the floor immediately. “I think that’s what you said.”
“You’re unbelievable,” I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment because I couldn’t keep looking at him when he was staring at me like that.
“True.” Blake nodded solemnly before adding conspiratorially, “And I’m usually nice, too.”
I flailed, trying to find the words to combat Blake’s absurdity.
Blake seemed to be enjoying himself too damn much, which was not helping me collect my thoughts. “All in all, not bad for a husband, huh?”
As the word husband fell from his lips, Blake’s attitude dropped. And in its place was a quiet calm that housed sincerity.
I looked at him, the person who’d been my closest friend for over a decade now. The person who’d kept me alive in med school and let me cry over the phone to him in residency about how I’d never become a cardiologist. The person who told me my dreams were going to be worth it.
And now he stood here, still pushing me toward them.
Because I realized…he was serious.
Oh. My. God.
“No,” I admitted when I found my voice. “Not bad for a husband.”
That was exactly the problem, though.
And precisely why I hadn’t told him about any of this before.
Because of course Blake would offer to fake-marry me if he’d known what I’d needed. I would have thought he’d need at least a little more time to think about it, but he was just that kind of friend. When I’d told him in med school that I was a hands-on learner, he let me draw all over his body and then hadn’t even complained when he realized I’d used a permanent marker. He’d had “frontalis” written on his head for nearly a week. I bought him a whole selection of hats out of guilt.
But I couldn’t fake-marry Blake.
Blake wasn’t the kind of guy you fake-married. He was the kind of guy you married-married. I knew that because he’d been looking for someone to marry since I’d met him. He wanted that life, that settled-down, minivan life. I couldn’t let him postpone it for me.
“So it’s settled.” Blake clasped his hands together in front of him on the table as though it was as simple as that. “We’re getting married.”
The waiter took that moment to reappear with our wine, pouring us both a glass as Blake and I sat staring at each other, a heavy silence hovering overhead. As soon as his glass was full, Blake picked it up almost lazily, an air of indifference in the movement like he wasn’t freaking out at what he’d just proposed. He lifted the glass higher, like a toast. “Cheers,” he said lightly.
I shook my head, struggling to understand how he could be so calm about this.
He understood that he’d just proposed , right?
Oh my God, Blake London just proposed to me.
I mean, he didn’t really propose.
I knew that.
But my mind wasn’t connecting with the rest of my body, which was reacting like he really had proposed. If I could somehow get my rapid pulse to slow, maybe I’d be able to process this like a rational person.
The problem was, though, that this wasn’t rational. This was…impossible. This wouldn’t work. Most of all, it wouldn’t be fair . To him.
Blake wanted to save me. That was the person that Blake was. Someone who wanted to save others, save everyone . But he did not need to do this.
I cleared my throat and said his name with as much authority as I could muster. Because he liked to tease and goad, at least with me, but I needed him to be serious for one goddamn minute.
“Blake.”
He lowered his glass and cleared his throat, mimicking me.
“Delaney.”
His tone was as serious as mine, low and almost gravelly. But something danced in his eyes.
“I know you’re trying to help, but we can’t…” I sighed because I truly wished it could just be that easy. But it just wasn’t. “We can’t get married.”
Blake nodded like he’d expected me to say that and took another sip of his wine as he thought. That teasing spark had died from his expression, and now he was considering me more carefully.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought you needed to get married to access your inheritance. That’s what you told me earlier.”
I pursed my lips before admitting, “You’re not wrong.”
“And that’s why you were going to marry Long, correct?”
I didn’t miss the slight bitterness with which he said Austin’s name but decided it was better not to comment on it.
“Correct.”
“But you can’t marry me?” Blake questioned, giving me a look that, if I wasn’t mistaken, harbored a bit of wounded pride.
Fuck.
He didn’t understand. If I could have picked any man under the sun to fake-marry for a year, it would have been Blake. But there were reasons I never said anything about it to him.
“Correct.”
Blake narrowed his eyes on me, but he didn’t say anything more than, “I see.”
The waiter returned, interrupting me before I could say anything further to explain myself. I tapped my fingers on the pristine white tablecloth as Blake ordered a cut of meat I didn’t recognize, and then I hurriedly ordered the first thing I spotted on the menu because I hadn’t even had a chance to look at it. I hadn’t seen Blake look at it, either, but knowing him, he’d probably checked it online before we came and already had the whole damn thing memorized.
I felt his eyes settle back on me when the waiter left, and I took a deep breath before leveling him with a look.
“You don’t want to marry me, Blake London.”
His brows lifted in surprise at that, as though I had said something utterly shocking and not the simple truth of the matter.
“I’m your friend,” he said as soon as he recovered. “Friends help friends when they need something. You need a husband for a year. I happen to not have a wife. I don’t see what’s so wrong with the idea.”
“Because,” I said, trying not to grow frustrated with him when I knew he was just trying to help me. “You can try to hide it all you want beneath that big brain?—”
“I’ve never heard you give me so many compliments in one day, Lane. Are you sure you don’t want to marry me?”
“—and teasing grin of yours, but I know you’re a romantic softie who wants a wife to settle down with,” I finished, ignoring him.
“I mean, I believe I just asked you to be my wife.”
I rolled my eyes. “A real wife.”
He leaned forward and flicked my arm before brushing his fingertip to my wrist and lightly circling the bone there.
“You feel real to me.”
“That’s—” My words descended into a growl of annoyance that hopefully covered up the way his touch made me shiver. “That’s not what I meant.”
Blake chuckled, and his hand dropped to the table next to mine.
God , he was irritating sometimes.
“I’m being serious , Blake.”
He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Right. Serious. You’re very serious today, aren’t you?” He took another sip of his wine before smacking his lips lightly and adding, “It’s just you called me a romantic softie, and it’s pretty hard to take you seriously when you say ridiculous shit like that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I damage your street cred?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not the hopeless romantic you seem to think I am.”
“The twenty dating apps you’re on with the bio ‘ looking for someone to build a life with ’ could have fooled me.”
“I do not have twenty , Jesus Christ.” Blake shook his head while muttering, “She stalks my dating apps but doesn’t want to marry me.”
“Yes,” I said before going on to clarify, “I don’t want you to give up a year of your life that you could be using to meet someone who you really want to marry. Like, actually . Someone you can start a family and build a life with. I can’t ask you to make that sacrifice for me.”
Blake shrugged. “I need a break from the dating scene anyway. It wasn’t getting me anywhere.”
“You don’t need to do this for me,” I said more forcefully since it wasn’t getting through his thick skull and into that big, or so I thought, brain of his. “I can’t ask this of you. It’s way too much.”
“Well.” Blake paused, tapping his finger on the table thoughtfully. “Maybe I want to. Because maybe I want you to get that inheritance money just as much as you do. After all, you want to start your own cardiac clinic. And I just so happen to be a cardiologist, too.”
“You want to…” I cocked my head to the side, unable to keep the surprise from my voice. “You’re interested in the clinic? But your plan has always been to?—”
“Plans change, Delaney,” he said, cutting me off.
He wasn’t wrong; he’d already changed the plan he’d always recited to me. He’d already left Mayo, his dream hospital, prestigious and close to where he’d grown up. He was already here in Boston instead.
“I mean, of course. I’d love to have you on board at the clinic if that’s what you want.”
He gave a solemn nod. “I want to work somewhere that’s innovative and leading change in the medical community. Is that not what you’re aiming to do?”
“Of course it is.”
He clasped his hands on the table again, as though things were settled. Which they were beginning to feel like maybe, just maybe, they were.
“You have to stop telling me what I want,” he said, and there wasn’t even the tiniest teasing glint in his gaze anymore. “I want what you want. We’re friends with similar career goals who work well together as a team. We push each other to be better; we always have. We can spend the year doing just that, and when we come out on the other side, we’ll be in a position to take big, life-changing steps. This is a good idea, Delaney. You don’t need to feel guilty about it. You can just accept it.”
The tightness in my body began to relax, and I melted back into my seat, doing exactly what Blake told me to. I started to accept it. It made me feel a hell of a lot better knowing that he had a vested interest in my goals and that his proposition wasn’t just charity. Working together as a team because this was something he wanted too made it a lot easier to get on board with the idea.
The idea of getting married.
Holy shit.
I’d obviously already gone down this road with Austin, but that marriage was nothing more than checking off a box on a list. Marrying Blake was major. There was so much more at risk.
But with what Blake just said, it also left me feeling like there was so much more that could go right . And while that was terrifying, it was also exhilarating. Blake made my pushed-aside dreams feel attainable again. He put things into a perspective I could understand, which shouldn’t surprise me. He’d always been able to do that.
“You’re right. It’s a good idea,” I finally said, agreeing with him.
His lips spread in a slow smile. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He lounged back, crossing one leg over the other and draping his arm over the back of his chair like he owned the fucking room. “I’m right?”
Ah, that was why.
I pursed my lips but decided to give in to him.
It was the least I could do, considering what he was about to sacrifice for me.
“You’re right.” I raised my glass to mimic the toast he’d given me earlier. “Cheers, Dr. London.”
He happily clinked his glass to mine, took a sip, and then set it back on the table.
“Excellent.” Blake steepled his hands in front of him. “So tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” I parroted, my head spinning from the decision we’d just come to.
“Marriage license,” he prompted. “That way, we could be married by this time next week if you wanted.”
“Uh, sure. I mean, there’s no…” Feeling flustered, I stopped to clear my throat before continuing. “Yeah.”
Okay, so maybe I didn’t quite know what to say. I was going to mention that there wasn’t a real rush, but that would have been a lie. I already had to wait a year from the date of our marriage before I could access my inheritance, so the sooner we could start the clock on that, the better. When Austin and I had come to an agreement on our version of a fake marriage, he’d asked to have a little time to spend together ahead of eloping—just to test the waters. It had been a reasonable request.
But Blake and I didn’t need that.
Clearly, considering how he was trying to expedite the process.
“Are there any other stipulations in your grandparents’ will that we should be aware of?” Blake asked, cutting into my thoughts.
“There is a line about approval,” I admitted. I hadn’t looked at the will in a couple of months, not since Austin and I had made our plans, but I’d all but memorized the damn thing. I’d spent months picking it apart—first to try to find ways around what I eventually recognized as the inevitable and then to ensure that there would be no hiccups once I tied the knot with someone. “My grandparents were supposed to approve the match for me to obtain the inheritance, but since they’ve passed, their executor will make the call. And I think Mr. Anderson will do anything to get me off his back. I suppose there’s always a bit of risk, but…”
I trailed off as my gut twisted at the thought of our fraud being exposed.
What if I put Blake through a fake marriage only for all my plans to fall apart? I’d prepared endlessly for this, but all it took was one slipup.
But Blake simply shrugged. “No risk, no reward, Lane.”
“That’s easy for me to say. But you ?—”
“Don’t worry about me,” Blake interrupted, sounding solemn and sure. How was he so sure? “Why do you think marriage was so important to your grandparents?” he asked, quickly changing our conversation’s direction.
I shook my head because it was a question I’d asked myself a million times. My grandparents both passed when I was still in the early years of med school. And before their decline, despite how close we weren’t , they’d still been incredibly disappointed in my decision to ignore all the “womanly” pursuits my mother had imposed upon me growing up so I could chase my dream of becoming a doctor instead.
I couldn’t really be upset about their stipulations. It was their money to do with what they wanted, and I was still grateful to them. But it really was unfortunate that their way of thinking was just as old as their money.
So sadly, the answer to Blake’s question was just as simple as “Because, in their world, women aren’t cardiologists. They’re wives.”
Blake sighed, just as annoyed by that reasoning as I was.
“Well, Lane. I guess you’ll just have to be both.”
My lips pressed together in a silent reaction as flutters tickled my insides. Whether it was anxiety or anticipation or excitement that the doors to my dreams were open again, I wasn’t sure.
But I could figure that out later.
“I guess I will.”
Our food showed up a moment later, and the waiter put a plate of something that smelled alarmingly fishy in front of me.
Blake looked from my food to my face, one of his brows rising in amusement.
I grimaced. “Is this really what I ordered?”
“I was going to say something, but…” He shrugged. “I thought maybe you developed a sudden taste for uncommon seafood.”
He gave me a look like he couldn’t wait to watch me suffer through dinner.
“I can’t believe I actually missed you,” I scoffed.
Blake’s lips curved into a familiar smile.
And then, he offered to switch meals with me, which I politely declined.
He’d already offered marriage tonight.
He wasn’t allowed to do me any more favors for the rest of the year.