Chapter 11 #3
A kind of fury I’d never felt before knifed through me.
I’d never been disrespectful to Todd’s mom before.
Not when she’d leave Todd depressed after every phone call and visit while we were in college.
Not when she gave him so much shit for starting MaineStems with me.
And not even when she spoke to me with the chill of arrogance in her tone, her displeasure seeming to increase with my success.
Like she’d wanted me to fail to prove to Todd that I hadn’t been worth his time.
Not even then did I break and insult her.
But this…
“She’s wrong, Daze. She couldn’t be more wrong,” I managed to say steadily. “In fact, the only thing she knows how to be is a giant, cold-hearted bitch.”
Her blue eyes turned to saucers, and her mouth opened and then shut. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call someone a bitch before, Max.”
“Because I’ve never seen someone hurt you like this before.” The reply was out before I could stop it, along with the hoarse ache in my tone.
The flush in Daisy’s cheeks deepened, and I swore I felt her body sway toward mine, quaking the invisible wall between us.
“Todd always made excuses for her. For the way she acted. Treated him. Treated me.”
Of course, he did. He was the same way with me. ‘That’s just how she is, Max. You just have to learn to ignore it like I do.’ He ignored it because that was what he was raised to do, how he was raised to think. No matter how hard I tried to break him from that mold.
“That’s how they are, Daze. Do whatever they want, and then when the consequences come up, it’s ‘oh, that has nothing to do with me.’ It’s the Boston Brahmin mentality.”
I remembered the first time I’d heard the term.
Scott and Todd were arguing about something—something that had happened at a party the night before.
I never knew what. Scott told him, “Why would you want anything different? You’re a Boston Brahmin.
You don’t get a choice.” Whatever it was, they got over it.
Meanwhile, I looked up the term that explained a lot.
The Boston Brahmin was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. to signify members of New England’s elite. Those of the highest echelon of society who held themselves to a decaying level of aristocratic virtues.
“The only person she cares about is the version of herself society sees,” I went on quietly. “And that version isn’t looking so good with a son who left his pregnant bride at the altar. You can’t listen to her.”
She sighed, her shoulders going limp in my hands. “It’s not listening to her that worries me.”
“What do you mean?”
Her throat worked for a beat to get the words out. “She threatened me.”
Threat—
“What?” The word cracked with deadly harshness from my lips.
I had a long fuse. Arguably, all I ever had was an almost endless fuse. The only other time I’d reached the bomb was the night Todd came to me when Daisy told him she was pregnant. That night and now.
“What did she say?”
“She said that I needed to fix this. That I needed to go back to the house, and I don’t know, I guess wait there for Todd to come back since I’m to blame for him leaving?
” She wasn’t the only one struggling to understand Mrs. McCormick’s logic.
“She said if I didn’t…if I didn’t keep the doctor’s appointments and make excuses for Todd, that she was going to contact their lawyer and get custody of the baby.
She said she was going to take my baby—”
“No. Not a damn chance,” I growled and pulled her to me. The swell of her stomach pressed to my waist, and the thought of Mary McCormick, world’s worst mom, taking the baby growing inside it made me furious and sick at the same time. “Over my dead body.”
Neither Daisy nor her baby was mine, but so help me, I would protect them as if they were.
“I don’t understand,” she cried against me.
“I don’t understand what she thinks I’m supposed to do—why she thinks this is my fault.
I’m n-not just going to go to the appointments and put the bill on Todd’s card.
God, if I did that, she’d probably still accuse me of taking advantage of him, of using his money without his knowledge.
Or stealing. I can’t—” She broke off, starting to hyperventilate.
“I can’t…she can’t take…she can’t take my baby. ”
My palms slid to her face, holding it firmly to mine. “She’s not going to take your baby, Daisy. You hear me? She’s not. She can’t. She won’t.”
“Max…” Her head swayed, fighting herself, wanting to believe me.
“I’m going to fix this, okay?”
“How?” she whispered, and all I could think was, at least she wasn’t trying to push me away again.
Problem solved. Nox’s words came back to haunt me, and I shuddered.
“Well, the first step is…blueberry cobbler.” I turned her toward the kitchen before she could protest. “No problems get solved on an empty stomach.”
“I’m not hungry,” she murmured when we reached the counter.
I gave her a flat stare and then crouched in front of her, addressing her stomach. “And what about you, baby? Are you hungry for some blueberry cobbler?”
At her soft whimper, my head snapped up, thinking something was wrong, that I’d done something wrong. Maybe I had. Daisy looked on the verge of tears again, and I cursed myself for treading over some invisible boundary I hadn’t seen. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking to her baby. Maybe it was weird.
“Sorry,” I murmured and straightened.
She reached for my arm, a partially bloomed smile on her lips. “You’re right. We do want some cobbler.”
I stared at her for another second, letting the heat of her touch melt into my skin, and then moved away.
Grabbing a fork from the drawer, I went to set it and the takeout container on the counter, and saw she’d taken a seat on one of the stools, one hand cupped under her stomach, and the hem of my shirt riding higher on her thighs.
The plastic crinkled in my grip, my fingers—my mouth—hungering for a different kind of dessert. One that lived underneath that shirt and between her thighs.
I wanted to taste her. I wanted to give her a taste of pleasure that I knew Todd hadn’t.
I wanted to give her new memories of a man who wanted nothing more than her pleasure, and then slowly wipe away all the ones of the man who’d only been concerned with his own.
And effectively erase the friendship we’d formed, the trust I’d earned from her over these last four years.
“All yours.” As soon as my hands were free, I shoved them into my pockets, dragging my gaze anywhere but her.
That was when I noticed the line of mason jars running the length of the counter, each filled with…water and flower petals?
“What are all these?” I bent and squinted.
“Oh.” She paused, having just popped open the box. “I’m just…it’s an experiment.”
Looking at her, I lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m making perfume.” She licked her lips. “It’s vodka and different flowers. The alcohol pulls out the scent. It takes a few weeks, but then I’ll strain them, and it’ll be perfume.”
I picked up the closest one, turning it as she dug into the dessert like it was the first meal she’d had all day.
And there it was. The throaty moan, the flutter shut of her eyes, and the sultry tip of her head as she savored that first bite.
“Oh my god, Max, this is so good,” she purred, and the sound burrowed straight to my dick.
Gritting my teeth, I shifted my weight, trying to ease the strain of the fabric over my groin. The last thing I needed was for her to notice how her enjoyment affected my cock. That definitely wouldn’t help the situation right now.
“I thought you’d like it,” I said and roughly cleared my throat, staring into the jar like the alcohol could wipe the sound from my brain too. Rose petals. And was that hypericum? I tipped the glass. “Daisy, these flowers…they’re all from one of our fall arrangements.”
A few seconds passed without an answer, and when I looked at her, she gulped and then sent her tongue darting out over her lips.
“Yes.” A blush rose to her cheeks. “I was talking to Erica, telling her how I made peony perfume using my bouquet and that the blend of the fall flowers would smell nice. If it comes out good, she said it would be a great add-on offer for your customers. Small batch perfume.”
Flowers and perfume.
I stared at her, the idea exploding in my mind. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? We’d done so many other options—chocolate, Frankie’s candles, for spring last year, we even did some jams. But perfume…custom blended to match the arrangements…
“You don’t have to if you don’t want—”
“No.” I shook my head roughly, replacing the mason jar back into its position.
“No, it’s a great idea, Daze. You’re incredible…
your idea is incredible.” I fumbled over the words.
Her idea was brilliant, but hearing—seeing—how she’d thought of me and my business when her world was crumbling at the seams. Damn, if that wasn’t enough to bring me to my knees…
Problem solved.
I sucked in a breath. Dammit, Nox.
“I’m glad to be able to do something for you after everything you’ve done for me,” she said, her flush deepening, and I couldn’t hold back my groan.
There were a few other things she could do for me—take off my shirt, spread her legs, let me eat my own dessert—but nothing business-related.
From the outside world, I imagined how this must look. Daisy in my apartment, working with me, bouncing ideas off me for my business. Wearing my shirt. Eating the dessert I brought her. Pregnant. Mine. From the outside world, it would look like she was mine.
Problem solved.
I shook off the thought and forced myself to figure out a way to be helpful. Unfortunately, that meant asking questions that would lower the slight lift to her spirits. I didn’t want to bring it up again—god, it was the last thing I wanted to do—but I had to.
“Daisy, did his mom say she’d heard from him?”
Daisy paused mid-chew, looked at me, and then finished her bite with a slow swallow. “No. I mean, not that she mentioned. Though I can’t say I heard the very end of the voicemail, because when she mentioned lawyers and…all that…I dropped my phone into the tub.”
“Got it.”
“He’s not coming back, Max.”
My heart crashed against my ribs. “If he did…if he knew what his mom was saying—”
Her cornflower-blue stare found mine. “Even if he did and even if he knew, I wouldn’t…I couldn’t marry him now.”
I stilled, the words like an audible unicorn.
“As horrible as this is right now, Max, as scared as I am, I won’t go back to that. To him. Not even for health insurance.”
Problem solved.
The seed Nox planted burned in my chest. The fantasy I’d plucked continued to sprout higher and higher, fervently clawing up the column of my throat.
“It’s not your fault,” she trudged on. “It’s my fault for not asking before I took the position, and it’s okay. You don’t have to do this. I’ll figure something out. I just need a little time to process. To think. To figure out a way to protect my baby—”
“Marry me.”
Daisy jerked, her eyes flung open at me like the offer was a freight train speeding toward her.
She waited for me to take it back. For me to tell her she hadn’t heard what she thought she did. But I wouldn’t—couldn’t. I knew her problems weren’t my fault, but that didn’t change that I wanted to be their solution. I wanted to be her solution.
Problem solved.
For a single, stunning second, the world stopped spinning, waiting for her answer like I did.
“You’re joking,” she said weakly, her voice knocked right out of her.
“I’ve never been more serious.”
The fork slipped from her hand, clattering to the floor. Without thinking, I dropped to my knee in front of her to pick it up.
All the people around her ever did was leave. I didn’t want to be one of them. I wouldn’t be. Looking up, I extended the blueberry dessert-covered fork back to her and repeated more firmly, “Marry me, Daisy.”