Chapter 31
Thirty-One
DELANEY
Marc was already halfway into his boxers and had thrown on slippers before I’d even processed the sound.
It hadn’t been a normal house noise like the settling of wood or pipes.
It had been a loud, distinctive crash. The kind that yanked you from sleep and dropped adrenaline straight into your bloodstream.
“Stay here,” Marc said, running toward the door.
“Um, no,” I slid my legs into my yoga pants and top. My heart beat erratically from the suddenness of the loud sound. I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand. “If we’re going to get murdered, I want a recording and a way to call 9-1-1.”
“That’s not how safety works.”
“It is tonight!”
He dragged a hand through his hair, frustration and concern etched into lines on his face. “Delaney, please. It might be Chaos, but it might be an intruder. I need you safe.”
Something in his tone reached deep inside me and wrapped itself around my heart.
This man wanted to put himself in harm’s way to keep me safe.
“Screw that, Kingsley,” I said, stepping right up to him.
“Someone ruined our perfect ‘I love you’ moment, and whether it’s the goat or a burglar, I’m prepared to give them a piece of my mind. ”
His mouth twitched like he wanted to argue, but knew it was futile.
God, he really did know me.
“Stay behind me then. Please.”
I nodded like I’d obey. Which we both knew full well I wouldn’t.
The house felt different when we stepped into the hallway. Quieter. Like it was holding its breath.
Marc moved first, shoulders tight, every step careful and deliberate. I followed close behind, trying not to laugh when he motioned down the hall like we were in some low-budget spy thriller.
This was serious. Probably. Maybe. Okay, we had to at least assume it was, but also if we died because the goat had a hand in this, I was going to be pissed and haunt that thing from the other side.
We reached the top of the stairs, and I leaned just enough to see past him. The front door was closed, but the entryway looked like a small explosion had gone off. “Oh my God,” I whispered.
The hall table was flipped on its side, one leg twisted at an angle that seemed impossible.
The bowl Marc kept his keys in had spilled its contents across the floor, coins glinting in the low light.
The vase—the one Grace had given him—lay shattered in jagged pieces, and flowers were strewn everywhere like they’d tried and failed to escape their vessel.
We made our way down the stairs only to see Chaos standing there, chewing a flower slowly. He made eye contact with us.
“For fuck’s sake, Chaos,” Marc said, and it was impressive how much anger he packed into those four words.
The goat blinked at him and continued chewing with a totally bored look on his face. The flower stem disappeared incrementally like a strand of spaghetti being slowly sucked in, like he was making a point.
I pressed my lips together. This was not funny. This was genuinely not funny—the room was a disaster. But I was absolutely going to laugh about this later. I reached out, touching Marc’s arm, feeling the tension still coiled there. “I think we found our intruder.”
He didn’t relax. “Stay here. I’m searching the rest of the house.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Delaney.” There was that tone again—firm and protective with an edge to it that told me he wasn’t asking. And we sure as hell were not negotiating. My brain, deeply unhelpfully, took a moment to note that Marc, in full protector mode, was genuinely, unfairly attractive and sexy as hell.
“Okay,” I said, giving him a fake little pout that communicated exactly how temporary my compliance was going to be. “But if you get murdered, I’m going to be extremely upset with you.”
The front door was intact. I doubted the hallway would be the only point they’d destroy, and Chaos was smart. I couldn’t see him accepting a stranger with negative intentions so easily, but Marc needed to make sure I was safe. And I understood that.
Marc moved past me without even cracking a smile.
Once he was gone, I turned back to Chaos, stepping carefully over shards of broken ceramic to grab a pair of Marc’s sneakers in the corner—something between my bare feet and the debris situation seemed advisable. Every crunch made me wince.
“What did you do, sweet baby?” I asked, crouching down to his level. The evidence was overwhelming, but I asked anyway.
Chaos gently nudged my thigh, like we were sharing a private joke.
I scratched behind his ears, and he leaned into it, eyes going soft and heavy, with the boneless contentment of an animal who had not just committed significant property damage. “Were you jealous?” I murmured. “We didn’t say ‘hi’ when we got home so you decided to redecorate?”
He glanced up at me with a glare that felt very much like a confirmation.
About ten minutes later, Marc returned carrying paper towels, a broom, and a dustpan. Tension still bracketed the lines around his mouth. He took Chaos by the collar with a resigned sigh. “Back in your room.”
“Baaaaaaahh,” Chaos protested loudly. Marc ignored him.
I watched them go, and a smile tugged at my lips despite everything.
This was ridiculous. It was truly chaotic—broken ceramic, scattered change, and flowers everywhere, and now a goat being marched to his bedroom at two o’clock in the morning—and yet somehow it felt more like home than anywhere I’d been in a long time. The thought settled deep within me.
Everything about this felt right.
When Marc returned, muttering under his breath about animals that belonged in barns, we began the careful work of cleaning up.
I was picking up scattered coins when something caught the light near the baseboard—a flash of green, deep and rich—by the overhead light like it was trying to get my attention.
I picked it up.
My stomach dropped so fast I had to put a hand on the wall.
It was a ring. Not just any ring. A substantial, breathtaking, completely serious ring, emerald at its center, set in platinum with the most delicate leaf-accented detail I’d ever seen, tiny diamonds and emeralds resting on branches like something from a forest. It was the kind of ring that meant something.
The kind of ring that came with a velvet box and a significant conversation.
We had just said “I love you” tonight.
My pulse rocketed from zero to a thousand in under a second.
Oh no. Oh, no, no, no. Was Marc—was he planning to —was this?
—I loved him, I did, I knew that with a certainty that surprised me with its steadiness, but marriage was a huge conversation.
Marriage was a next step that required …
my brain was doing that thing where it ran seventeen scenarios simultaneously, and I hadn’t finished processing the first one yet.
“Delaney?” Marc’s voice cut through my spiral. “What’s wrong?”
I looked up, holding the ring out like evidence at a trial I hadn’t prepared for. “Is this yours?”
His eyes went wide. Then his brows drew together.
His gaze dropped to the floor and traveled until it landed on a small black jewelry box lying open near the wall, and his expression shifted.
“Shit,” he said, moving quickly to pick it up.
A small folded note fluttered to the floor.
He grabbed it. Read it. Let out a breath that seemed to come from the bottom of his lungs. “The ring is Glamma’s.”
The relief that moved through me was so complete I almost sat on the floor. “Then why do you have it?”
He handed me the note.
To my favorite grandson,
Please hold on to ten of my favorite rings. There may come a day when you might need one of them.
Love you always,
Glamma
I read it twice. Then I started laughing—the slightly hysterical kind when the release of adrenaline has nowhere to go. “Ten rings,” I managed. “She gave you ten rings.”
“I didn’t open the box when she gave it to me,” Marc said, in a tone that told me he was clearly regretting that decision.
“Marc.” I looked at him, still laughing, a hand pressed to my sternum where my heart was only now returning to its normal rhythm. “I thought you were going to propose.”
Marc’s hand rubbed along the back of his neck. “Delaney, fuck. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it—” He stopped. “But I was planning to wait. To let us keep getting to know each other. I wasn’t—” He exhaled. “Fuck, will you say something because I think I’m screwing this up big time.”
I gently took the box from his hands and placed the ring back inside.
Then I looked at this precise, careful, quietly extraordinary man who had just admitted he’d thought about it, who had cooked me dinner, and said “I love you” like it was something he’d been working towards for years.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not quite ready for that step yet, either.
And I’d want it to be something we talked about first. When we’re both ready. ”
He cupped my cheek and placed the sweetest kiss against my lips. “I love you,” he whispered against my mouth.
“I love you, too.” If we didn’t have such a mess to clean up, I’d take this so much further than the chaste kiss I’d just received. Then something tickled the back of my mind. “Didn’t the note say ten rings?”
Marc glanced back down at the letter I held, and his face went unnaturally pale. “Shit. Yes.”