Page 4 of Attached At Heart
“I’m sorry.” Both of Blake’s brows lifted like he couldn’t believe those two words had fallen from my lips so easily. “I jumped to conclusions, and I’m sorry.”
I would have beenmoresorry if he didn’t look so damned pleased with himself. I was sure it had to do with the slight competitive streak we’d harbored for years. He clearly felt like he had just won a point in the imaginary years-long game we always seemed to be playing, but I couldn’t even care at the moment. Because I’d never been happier to be wrong.
Blake nodded, accepting my apology without wasting another breath on the subject. He was a man of few words on most occasions, so it didn’t surprise me. Instead of talking, he looked over me again, like he was still struggling to believe we’d bumped into one another. His eyes stopped as they lowered, zeroing in on my hand.
My ringless hand.
His smile fell, his mood shifting. His gaze was unreadable when it lifted back to my face, but I could feel it, sharp and acute. Intense.
“Why are you here, Delaney?”
I swallowed hard. “I work here.”
He took a moment to work through that fact in his head. I could almost see how he repeated it to himself, maybe once, maybe twice. And when he finally spoke, it was slow and measured. “You told me I was acting rash when I decided to leave Minnesota, and now here you are, too?”
“You know my plans were always to return to the East Coast.”
“But you were going to stay on at Mayo as an attending for a few years first. Did you already get your inheritance?” he questioned, because he did know—he knew exactly what my dreams had always been: to use my grandparents’ inheritance to found a cardiac clinic close to home. Close to my brother. “I thought you wouldn’t get the money until your next birthday.”
“I don’t have it yet,” I admitted. “But I wanted to be closer to home.”
“You wanted to be with your family.”
His words were stunted, confusion lingering in them. Fair, considering the poor relationship I had with my family outside of my brother. Something else he was well aware of.
“Yes,” I said. Better to keep it succinct.
“And Austin?” Blake’s gaze flicked down to my ringless hand again. “Did he want to be closer to your family?”
“He…” I shifted on my feet before clearing my throat. I never felt more guilty than when talking about Austin with Blake. Because I should have told him the truth about my fiancé a long time ago, but I’d always talked myself out of it. “Did not. We’re not engaged anymore.”
Blake’s eyes met mine, his stare hard, and I suddenly really wished they’d taught mind reading in med school. There was a noticeable tick in Blake’s sharp jaw as he slowly unfolded himself and stood again. His tall, built frame towered over me, but like usual, I drew myself up to match him.
“What the hell did he do?”
A low tremor ran through his words. I’d never been afraid of Blake London before. Not once in my whole life. But if I didn’t know him better, I might be right now. His usually light complexion had flushed red, and his eyes had hardened with a brand-new intensity.
“How do you knowhedid something? MaybeIdid something.”
I felt immediately defensive over Austin because none of this was his fault, and I didn’t want him to seem like the bad guy. It wasn’t fair to him. I didn’t love Austin, but I liked him well enough.
Blake scoffed like the idea was preposterous. He muttered something under his breath that I didn’t catch before taking a step closer to demand answers from me. Answers I knew I owed him.
“Either way, it doesn’t matter,” I said quickly.
Blake didn’t like that response, either. “Of course it fucking matters, Lane?—”
“Because it was never…real, Blake,” I confessed with my heart in my throat.
God, that felt good to get out. Not telling Blake that had been eating me alive for months.
Blake’s brows furrowed as he tried to decide what to make of that statement. Some unnamed emotion flashed across his face, and I let him absorb my words while I breathed in the scent of woody vanilla and musk. It was familiar, it was warm, it was Blake.
The bustle of the hospital surrounded us, but no one noticed the two doctors standing in the middle of it all. We blended in. Just a few more people in scrubs, looking like any other exhausted physician in this building.
When he finally spoke, his words were careful. Like they were the weightiest ones he’d ever said.
“Whatwas never real, Lane?”
