“Max, I can’t. I’ll figure out something…something else,” I said, scrambling to pull together more reasons why it was a bad idea. “I don’t need you to?—”
“If we get married, you’ll be safe from Todd’s parents.”
I inhaled swiftly.
“They won’t be able to pressure or force you to move or see their doctors or do anything?—”
“They could still get lawyers involved.”
“And I can afford just as good ones.”
“Can you? From running a flower business?” I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but the McCormicks were private-jet wealthy, and the way Todd spoke about Max’s absence made it seem like MaineStems needed the extra push, and that was why Max was working so hard.
“Daisy, all the work I’ve been doing…it was for huge contracts. A huge hotel contract in Boston. I have money. Maybe not quite generational wealth, but…enough to fight back,” he said, and I tipped my head, my gaze zeroing in on his face. Was Max blushing?
“How wealthy are you?” I asked, not because I cared about his money, but because suddenly I was learning about pieces of Max that I didn’t know.
His gaze dropped, and he turned sheepish for a second. “Millions, Daze.”
Millions. Max Hamilton was a millionaire who’d spent the last two weeks riding around in a delivery van with me.
A millionaire who was asking me to marry him.
The money didn’t matter. It had never mattered to me. Not that Todd had it, and certainly not how rich Max was. What mattered was that I didn’t know. We’d been so close when Todd was working with him, and now…Now, I didn’t have any idea that MaineStems had become so successful.
“Daisy?” Max said, but it wasn’t until his finger brushed my shoulder that I broke from my trance.
“Sorry, I just…I had no idea. Todd said—” I broke off, feeling stupid. By now, I should know there wasn’t any reason to trust anything Todd had told me. “I just had no idea.”
And then his fingers were under my chin. “Do you trust me less now?”
“No, of course not.”
His gaze darkened. “Then marry me.”
Marry him.
Marry Max.
Get health insurance.
Get the McCormicks off my back.
Protect my baby.
Marry Max.
“God, Max,” I whispered, catching his big body ripple with the words. Was I really considering this? Marrying him for insurance? For safety. For stability.
Was it any less ridiculous than marrying Todd because I was pregnant with his baby? Any less ridiculous that I tried to convince myself it was for something more?
My stomach twisted and twisted, but Max’s soft and steady stare kept any knot from forming. This gorgeous, kind man was on one knee for me. To ask me to marry him.For purely practical reasons,I reminded myself, though that look in his eyes…it was the one he’d tried to hide and the one I’d tried to ignore for the last four years.
“You know, Todd never got down on one knee,” I murmured, detouring to that less-than-fairy tale moment because it felt safer than this one.
That was just the icing on the disastrous cake. He’d panicked when I told him about the baby, went out for a few hours, came back apologetic but reeking of alcohol, and then just…decided. It wasn’t a proposal. It was a declaration. Not of love or happiness or anything I would’ve hoped, but a declaration of duty. I could practically hear his parents screaming at him inside his head.
“A baby outside of marriage, Todd? What were you thinking? How could you be so careless?”
