36. Delilah
Chapter 36
Delilah
I bury my face further into the pillow and groan when the relentless ringing of my phone wakes me from a sound sleep. I let out a sigh of relief when it eventually stops, but within seconds, it starts up again.
Ugh.
Blindly reaching out, I feel for it on my nightstand. I grumble some weird sound into the receiver without looking to see who’s on the other end of the line.
“Delilah St. James, I thought we were friends!”
“Eloise.” I scramble to sit up, holding the phone closer to my ear. “We are friends! You’re like my best friend.” My only friend.
“Aww, that’s very sweet of you to say, darling … I feel the same. I adore you. You’re like the daughter I’ve always wanted, but your sweet words aren’t enough to get you out of this one.”
I gasp. “Have I upset you?”
“Upset me? That is the understatement of the century. I am positively distraught.”
“Oh, my God. Why? What’s happened? What did I?—”
“Don’t play coy with me, young lady,” she barks down the line, cutting me off. “I can’t even fathom that my only child has gotten engaged and my best friend neglected to tell me.”
“Wait, what?” My heart drops into my stomach. Surely I didn’t hear that correctly. “Spencer got engaged? To who?”
“You.”
“Me,” I squeak. “When?”
“I just saw the status he put up on Facebook. You can imagine how my poor heart reacted to that news? Fancy finding out something like this online? The two of you could’ve had the decency to tell me first … before announcing it to the entire world.”
“Hold on a moment,” I say, pulling the phone away from my ear and clicking on the app to search his page. My heart is racing as I do. There must be some mistake.
I let out another gasp when I see what she’s saying is true. It’s right there in black, white, and blue at the top of his feed. “Spencer Prescott - Got Engaged today - With Delilah St. James”.
I’m going to kill him.
As if the rumour mill at the office wasn’t ripe enough. Although I’ve been back on Spencer’s floor for weeks now, and away from all the drama, I don’t doubt the whispers are still going on.
Placing the phone back to my ear, I say, “Eloise, I’ll call you right back.”
I end the call without even waiting for her reply. My hands are slightly shaking as I open the Messenger app.
Me: Wouldn’t you need to ask me to marry you before posting something like that ?
I let out a tiny growl when I see the three dots appear.
Spencer: You never asked me when you posted our relationship status.
Me: Because I didn’t even know you then.
Spencer: Still.
Me: Still! Is that all you’ve got to say? I can’t even with you right now. Imagine the reaction this is going to get at the office. I really am going to have to quit my job now.
Spencer: Nobody is quitting anything, Delilah. Stop being so dramatic.
I’ll give him dramatic!
Me: You need to take that status down immediately!!!!!
Spencer: That’s rather one-sided since I let you leave yours up.
One-sided? How dare he?
Me: I deleted my relationship post.
Spencer: It’s a moot point, sweetheart, because I never asked you to.
Spencer knows how much the gossip at work upsets me, so I don’t understand why he’s gone and done something this reckless.
Not only does it make me look like a liar for constantly denying that anything has been going on between us, but it also undoes all the hard work I’ve put into keeping our relationship status under wraps.
I throw back my sheets and clamber out of bed to go in search of him. If I’m lucky, I might find him in his room getting ready.
Since I haven’t moved my things into his bedroom, despite his constant insistence, our nights are spent between his bed and mine. I guess it comes down to which bedroom is the closest in the heat of the moment. Last night it was mine.
I’m naked, so I pick up the first thing I see—the T-shirt he put on last night after his shower—tugging it over my head and punching my arms through each hole. Normally, I’d scrunch it up and bring it to my nose to inhale his scent, but I’m too mad.
I open my bedroom door with such force that it hits the adjoining wall with a loud thud. I don’t even get to take a step forward before I release my third gasp of the morning.
“Spencer,” I whisper when I find him on one knee, holding a small velvet box in one hand that has an enormous diamond ring sitting smack-bang in the centre. “What are you doing?”
He gives me the most beautiful full smile, and my anger melts away instantly. “What does it look like?” he asks, flicking his head behind him. That’s when I notice his beautifully decorated backdrop.
Giant lit-up letters, about three feet high, spell out “Marry Me”. They’re framed by hundreds of pink and white balloons that have more lights threaded through them. Numerous pink lanterns containing lit candles, flank either side and rose petals are scattered everywhere in the vicinity.
My first thought is for poor Sandra. She’s going to have a busy day today, cleaning all this up. My second thought is, Oh my God, Spencer Prescott is proposing to me!
Snapping my eyes back to him, I notice the large heart—made up of more rose petals—that he’s kneeling in the centre of.
“When did you do all this?” I ask with wide eyes.
He winces slightly. “I told my mother I was going to propose … she wanted to help. She may have gone a little overboard.” Well … maybe a little, but I think it looks lovely. “She and her little minions snuck in earlier this morning, whilst we were sleeping.”
“Your mother knew? She just called me on the phone and chewed me out for not telling her.”
“I know. I’m sorry about that, but I had no choice but to ask her to intervene. These old weary bones of mine … I wasn’t sure how much longer they would hold out in this position.”
The smile on my face grows. “You’re finally admitting you’re old?”
“I’m admitting to nothing,” he grumbles. “I asked her to call you because I thought taking our relationship to the next level, in a similar way to which it started, was a novel idea.”
“I love you,” I say, taking a step forward.
“I love you more,” he counters as he rises. “What do you say, sweetheart? Will you spend the rest of your days by my side?”
Tears rise to my eyes as I leap into his arms. “There’s no place I’d rather be.”
When our lips finally part, Spencer places me back down on my feet and reaches for my hand. “I take it that is a yes? ”
“It’s a big, fat, giant yes,” I reply as a knot forms in the rear of my throat.
Is this really happening?
Is this beautiful man going to be mine for keeps?
He slides the ring onto my finger and it fits perfectly. “That was a great guess with the size,” I say, bringing it closer to my face to admire the way the diamond shimmers under the light. It’s a single solitaire around the size of my fingernail. I do not know what that is in carats, but it’s huge. Like mega. A vast difference to my last one, which I loved just as much at the time.
“Remember that costume jewellery my mother had you try on the day of your sister’s engagement party?” he asks.
“Yes.”
A sheepish grin is his only reply.
This moment hasn’t been done on a whim. It was a perfectly calculated plan. It has nothing to do with the rumours at work because he didn’t know they were even a thing back then.
“Come, future wife,” he commands, threading his fingers through mine. “Our feast awaits.”
“Feast?”
He leads me towards the kitchen and my eyes bug out of my head when I see the seemingly endless number of platters, laden with fresh food, laid out before us. A variety of fruits, pastries, quiches, croissants, muffins, breakfast sliders … the selection is extensive.
“Are we expecting company?” I ask.
He leans down and brushes his lips against my forehead before picking up a plate and passing it to me. “You should know by now my mother does nothing by halves.”
“I adore your mother.”
“And she adores you right back. We both do. ”
I’m still grinning as I pop a big juicy grape into my mouth.
How did I get so lucky?
While I continue to pile my plate with all the deliciousness, Spencer retrieves a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and grabs two wine flutes.
“You realise it’s not even eight yet?” I say as he removes the cork from the bottle.
He lifts one shoulder. “It’s not every day you get to toast a momentous occasion like this.”
After pouring a small amount into each glass, he holds one out to me. I place my plate down and take it from him.
“Thank you.”
I hold my breath as he raises his glass in the air. “To the gorgeous, heartbroken woman who manifested an online love story with a stranger, that turned out to be one worthy of the pages. May our days be filled with laughter, our nights with shared dreams, while our hearts remain forever bonded by the beautiful adventures that await.”
Cue the tears.