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.
