Page 5 of From Best Friend to Bride
“Right, you’re the manager there now. I forgot that.”
It was nice to know I occupied such a big part of my mother’s life that she forgot my promotion.
All right, so I was only the manager of a pub and not heading up some fancy conglomerate, but a promotion was a promotion.
“I can’t believe you work in a bar and can’t meet a man,” Nana said, turning back to her tacos. “There must be something wrong with you.”
Well, she hadn’t seen the kind of men I encountered.
She sighed. “My dying wish to see you married seems further and further away.”
I kissed both her and Mum on the cheek. “I’ll see you later. Let me know when you’ve spoken to Lucy.”
“Let me know when you’ve found a man!” Nana cackled.
“How do you know I’m not just keeping one a secret?” I shot back, then stilled when I saw her eyes light up. “I—”
“Oho, a secret lover,” she crooned, grinning at me. “I want to meet him. Bring him here.”
Mum shook her head slowly. “She has things to do, Mother. Deli, you should go.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
Why on Earth had I said that? I knew that woman jumped to conclusions with breakneck speed, and I wasn’t surprised she’d taken my words in such a way.
Then again, was there any other way to take them? If one of my friends had said that very same line to me, I’d have assumed that exact thing—that she had a secret lover.
Damn it.
I’d walked right into this.
2
DELILAH
There were no two ways about it.
I was screwed.
I’d spent the last two days trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get out of this little predicament I’d gotten myself into, and I had nothing.
I wanted to say I couldn’t believe that my grandmother’s dying wish was to see her granddaughters both happily married, but I really could. The woman had been trying to matchmake me for years, but she was far too easily swayed by miserable mothers trying to get rid of their lazy sons and hadn’t conducted too much research into them.
It’d made for some rather miserable dates on my part.
Now that I was over my initial shock of her diagnosis, my flippant parting comment about having a secret lover was positively haunting me.
There was no doubt she would demand to meet this non-existent man. I wouldn’t be surprised if she insisted that we should get married just to grant her wish, regardless of our feelings on the matter. I loved my grandmother dearly, but she was a true master of manipulation.
After all, my sister had already fulfilled her side of this. She’d gotten married two years ago, was four months pregnant, and was as happy as happy could be, and I…
Well. It was pretty bloody obvious that I, Delilah Elizabeth Peters, was the farthest thing one could be from getting married. Hence why I’d let those dumb words escape me.
Not that it mattered. Nana was now under the impression I was in some elicit secret relationship, and I’d had to hide in my room this morning until she’d left just so she wouldn’t endlessly question me on my way out of the door.
I had to figure out a way to get out of this before she decided that my secrecy was because I was dating a married man or something equally as ridiculous.
As it was right now, she hadn’t asked who my supposedly secret man was.
