Chapter 5
Max
“Wow.” Daisy’s eyes bugged at the cedar-planked mansion perched at the end of the long drive.
The house—with its sprawling grounds, tennis court, and separate six-car garage—overlooked a particularly scenic part of the coastal bluff. On a clear day like today, not only could you see the harbor in town, but also the wink of the lighthouse in Friendship.
“Yeah,” I murmured, holding back that Todd’s parents’ seaside home further toward Portland was at least twice the size. If the owners of this house were even half as stuck up as the McCormicks, I was about to get my ass reamed out for this delivery being over three hours late.
I parked the van next to the line of three Mercedes sedans sitting out front and unclipped my seat belt. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll come with you.”
My hand froze on the doorknob. “You don’t have to do that, Daze. I’ll just be—”
“It’ll be harder for them to give a pregnant woman a hard time about a late delivery.”
My eyes narrowed. She had a point. “Okay.”
Once more, I rounded the front of the vehicle to open her door and help her out.
It was the third time this morning I’d held her hand, and while I’d long been branded by the bolt of heat from her touch, there was no preparing for the ache that slammed into the center of my chest every time I had to let her go.
I didn’t know what was worse—not wanting to let go or knowing I shouldn’t be touching her, however briefly, in the first place.
She was technically still my best friend’s fiancée.
However, technically, reasonably, rationally, literally, figuratively…
whichever way you cut it, Daisy Turner was never mine.
I released her fingers and rubbed my own on the fabric of my suit pants. At this rate, by the end of the day, I was certain that amputation would be the only way to forget the soft feel of Daisy’s fingers on mine.
“Just give me a minute,” I said, walking quickly to the back of the van before she could insist on carrying some of the boxes for me. Like hell I’d agree to letting her do that.
I wrenched open the back of the van, the packages organized in order of delivery in case someone had to fill in who wasn’t a regular driver—a lifesaver right now.
Three massive boxes, the largest for our custom bouquets, were marked for Shelton.
I stretched for the first and immediately heard the firecracker pop of a seam splitting open.
Shit.
I yanked my arms out of my suit jacket, completely forgetting I was in formal wear.
The jacket sailed over the stacks of boxes and landed deep in the van while I made fast work of removing my tie, and then unbuttoning my collar and rolling up my sleeves.
My shirt still protested when I attempted to pick up the large, heavy box again.
On second thought, maybe I should’ve comped the entire order.
There was a decent chance I was going to rip through or sweat through this shirt and be delivering bouquets bare-chested before the day was through.
While there might be a market for that kind of flower delivery service, it wasn’t the market I was catering to.
“Mistakes don’t break you, Max. They give you room to build.”
My grandmother had a way with words, though Gigi was usually more known for her uncanny fortune-telling rather than her good advice.
Her premonition preserves, as they were known to our family, were infamous for revealing a clue to a future love and delivered by way of a scribbled label on a Stonebar Farms jam jar.
At least, that was what had happened for all four of my cousins—Lou, her twin sister, Frankie, and their two older brothers, Jamie and Kit.
I was going to be the one to break Gigi’s matchmaking streak. She’d given me a premonition jar years ago, and I knew with absolute certainty it wasn’t going to lead to love. How? Because it had already led me to heartbreak.
Gravel skidded under my feet, my train of thought derailing when I reached the side of the van. Where was Daisy? I spun in both directions, searching. I was halfway to calling her name when I spotted her.
Daisy stood at the home’s front door, speaking to a woman who was, based on her attire, the owner of the home.
I charged toward them, my pulse thudding wildly. If this woman was rude to Daisy—if she gave her a hard time because of my employee’s fuck up—forget a discount. I’d comp this order and then never service this woman again.
I hardly felt the cumbersome weight of the box in my arms as I ate up the distance separating me from them.
“Oh, my. I can’t believe you came all the way out here. This is—” The woman stopped when she saw me approach, her heavily mascaraed lashes widening.
I could only spare her a glance before all of my attention locked on Daisy. Did she look distressed? Flushed? Upset? After everything this morning, if someone so much as looked at her wrong—
“Max, this is Mrs. Shelton. Mrs. Shelton, this is Max Hamilton, the CEO of MaineStems,” Daisy murmured, flashing an apologetic smile at me for not waiting.
“Mr. Hamilton.”
I looked back at the middle-aged woman, who was manicured as nicely as her lawn. “Mrs. Shelton, I want to personally apologize for the delay this morning. I take full responsibility for the mishap, and I greatly appreciate your patience.”
Her gaze raked me up and down.
Thankfully, I’d been friends with Todd long enough to have grown calloused to the scrutiny of the kind of people who ran in his family’s circles.
Todd wasn’t like that. He was a lot of things—a lot of unfortunate things—but he wasn’t a snob.
Maybe it was because we were friends, or maybe it was just a miracle, but somehow he managed to be cocooned in an elitist world but not molt into that persona.
“Well, I can’t say I’m not severely displeased by the delay. However, given that you’ve postponed your own nuptials to personally ensure my flowers still arrived in time for my dinner party, I’m inclined to look past it.”
Postponed…my own…
“Please, you can place them in here.” Her heels clicked off into the distance as I turned and stared at Daisy.
Her eyes weren’t as wide as mine.
She let her think…
“Daze,” I hissed under my breath.
“It doesn’t matter right now, Max. Just go along with it,” she muttered back and strode inside.
Go along with pretending this was our wedding day.
Goddammit.
Biting hard into the side of my tongue, I hefted the box higher, buried my protest deeper, and followed Daisy. Mrs. Shelton directed me to her dining room, the table long enough to easily seat twenty, though I didn’t count the exact number of chairs.
Carefully depositing the box on the floor, I peeled off the tape and unpackaged her arrangement, unable to hold back a smile of pride when I saw the bright, full blooms. All healthy. All perfect. All grown in our greenhouses.
“On the table?” I confirmed, waiting for her nod before lifting the flowers by their vase.
This wasn’t your average arrangement. Our largest option was close to twenty-five pounds of a dozen varieties of flowers, prearranged in a thirty-inch crystal vase that required two hands to hold.
It wasn’t to suggest a sentiment but to make a statement, and damn, did it do exactly that in the middle of her dining table.
I stepped back to admire the final product when Mrs. Shelton’s voice bounced off the room’s high ceilings.
“So when are you due, dear?”
“Just after Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, lovely. What a wonderful time to welcome in a new addition. You and Mr. Hamilton must be so excited.”
Like magnets colliding, my stare crashed into Daisy’s, and all my muscles tensed. I wondered what she was thinking, if she was imagining how I would’ve reacted to news about her pregnancy if we were married—if her baby were mine. Maybe that would explain the bright red splotching her cheeks.
Or maybe it was simply embarrassment that she’d encouraged Mrs. Shelton’s assumption to go this far and couldn’t turn back now. That would better explain why her head jerked away.
“Yes, we are,” she answered and turned her back to me.
I was sorely tempted to interrupt and claim I needed Daze’s help at the van, but what kind of man needed help from a pregnant woman on her wedding day?
Locking my jaw, I gathered up the garbage and headed back outside. The best thing I could do for Daisy right now was get this delivery over with as quickly as possible.
By the time we walked out of the house, sweat sheened my brow, and my chest heaved. For anyone considering working out in formal wear, zero out of ten, do not recommend.
Somehow, miraculously, Daisy had steered the conversation toward Mrs. Shelton’s dinner party plans, and the woman, like most people in her position, was only too happy to talk about herself.
I’d like to think I was happy to have saved the customer relationship since, as we were leaving, Mrs. Shelton swore she was going to be ordering more arrangements this coming week, but the relief was heavily mitigated by what the delivery had cost me.
“I’m sorry,” I said as soon as I started the van and cranked on the AC. Ridiculous since it was fall, but cool wasn’t cold enough right now.
“Don’t apologize. I asked to go with you. I went up to the door first.”
And you let her think it was our wedding day, but I kept that to myself as I started to pull down the drive.
“I know, but I should’ve thought…” That her pregnancy wasn’t the only thing one would notice about Daisy today.
“It’s really fine,” Daisy said, though her flushed cheeks told a different story. “When she saw you coming over, she just assumed that you…that we…”
Were getting married.
“Yeah.” My voice cracked, the thought burning through my chest like it had dipped my broken heart in vinegar. Clearing my throat, I continued, “You were right, though. It was better not to correct her given the circumstances.”
“It was nice, you know. To have a fiancé for a few minutes who hadn’t jilted me on our wedding day.”