Page 124 of Attached At Heart
It was a whole-body sigh. A shudder.
“I like this one.” She tapped on the puzzle box—the new one I bought on our trip. “Thank you for getting it for me. I needed to replace the other one.”
“Of course.” I spoke softly, afraid to spook her, afraid that she might stop talking again. “You don’t have to get rid of the original one, though. It carries a lot of memories.”
She finally looked up at me. And what I saw in her gaze terrified me because I didn’t understand it. “Yeah,” she said finally. “It does.”
I tucked a limp piece of hair behind her ear and then trailed my fingers down one of the thick braids she wore in her hair. “How was your day?”
She pursed her lips for a moment. “Not great.”
That didn’t entirely surprise me, but her next comment did.
“I missed you.”
My heart leapt into my throat.
“I missed you, too, sweetheart.” I cupped her cheek, rubbing my thumb beneath her eyes to wipe away the moisture there. “I’m so sorry it got late. But I thought about you all fucking day. Couldn’t wait to get home to see you.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s good that you went with Natalie. She needed you more than me.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Because you haven’t told me what these tears are about.”
“Thank you for packing me a lunch today,” she responded, avoiding my comment. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I want my wife to get enough to eat at work, so yes, I did,” I said solemnly. “But I’m more than happy to do it. No need to thank me.”
She sighed again, but it was heavier. It wasweighty. Delaney carried so much weight around on her shoulders.
“Lane, please,” I pleaded, begging her to let me share the burden. “It wasn’t that nurse, was it? Jack or John or whatever? If he got too close to you again, I’m going to?—”
“Not Jack.” Delaney stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “He’s been fine, actually. It’s more—” She dropped her gaze again. “It’s just that I made you do all this for nothing.”
“All…this?”
She waved her hands around like I was supposed to understand her gestures. When I didn’t, she added, “The marriage, the honeymoon, everything.”
A harsh laugh burst through my lips. “That honeymoon was notnothing, Lane. You and I both know that.”
Fuck that idea.
“I know, but—” She broke off with a tiny, frustrated growl. “Ophelia let our marriage slip to my parents. She assumed they knew. And I found out today why Anderson was so worried that they knew. Apparently, we needtheirapproval in order to get the inheritance. It was included in an addendum that,fuck—” She tipped her head back, closing her eyes. “How thehelldid this slip past me? I looked at that goddamn will so many times. And now there’s no hope of me ever seeing that money. Of ever opening my clinic.”
Shit.
“You don’t think we can convince them that this is legitimate?”
Something inside me hurt. I hated any topic of conversation that reminded me that thiswasn’tlegitimate. It felt so fucking real to me at this point, and it killed me that Delaney might not feel the same way.
“I don’t think they care to be convinced.” Delaney opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “But they still want us to come to dinner on Sunday.”
I nodded. “Okay, so, we’ll go to dinner on Sunday.”
“Blake…” She leveled her head and gaze to meet mine. “You don’t understand.”
“I do. I do understand. But give me a chance.”
Give me a real fucking chance, baby.
