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 behersolution.
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.”
Chapter 12
Daisy
“Marry me, Daisy.”
I really thought I was hallucinating until Max went down on one knee and proposed again with a blueberry-covered fork.
Whywas he doing this?Why was it making my chest ache?
“Max, what are you doing? Please get up.” My thick tongue fumbled over the words.
I needed him up. Standing. Talking. Handing me the fork. Telling me everything was going to be okay, that he has some magic solution to stop Todd’s parents from taking my baby.
A magic solution that wasn’t marriage.
“I’m asking you to?—”
“Don’t.” I choked out. “Don’t say it again.”
“Marry me.”
I shivered. Marry him.Marry my ex-fiancé’s best friend.It was crazy. “You’re not making sense.”
“If we get married, you won’t have to worry about health insurance,” he said, his voice like fine gravel, filling in all the cracks in my protest.
Marry Max for his insurance. I wanted to laugh. The idea should’ve been so ridiculous. Why was I even considering this? Why was I letting him string up this web, my mind settling in like a fly in a trap? A strangled sound wrenched from my lips, and I turned away.
It wasn’t ridiculous, was it?I wasn’t in a good spot. There was no denying it. If it were just me, if it were only my life affected, it would be different. But it wasn’t.
Little sprout chose then to flutter her kicks into my stomach as though weighing in on the offer.
Say yes.Kick kick.Say yes.Kick kick.
No. There had to be another way.
