Page 15 of Attached At Heart
I trailed off as my gut twisted at the thought of our fraud being exposed.
What if I put Blake through a fake marriage only for all my plans to fall apart? I’d prepared endlessly for this, but all it took was one slipup.
But Blake simply shrugged. “No risk, no reward, Lane.”
“That’s easy for me to say. Butyou?—”
“Don’t worry about me,” Blake interrupted, sounding solemn and sure. How was hesosure? “Why do you think marriage was so important to your grandparents?” he asked, quickly changing our conversation’s direction.
I shook my head because it was a question I’d asked myself a million times. My grandparents both passed when I was still in the early years of med school. And before their decline, despite how close weweren’t, they’d still been incredibly disappointed in my decision to ignore all the “womanly” pursuits my mother had imposed upon me growing up so I could chase my dream of becoming a doctor instead.
I couldn’t really be upset about their stipulations. It was their money to do with what they wanted, and I was still grateful to them. But it really was unfortunate that their way of thinking was just as old as their money.
So sadly, the answer to Blake’s question was just as simple as “Because, in their world, women aren’t cardiologists. They’re wives.”
Blake sighed, just as annoyed by that reasoning as I was.
“Well, Lane. I guess you’ll just have to be both.”
My lips pressed together in a silent reaction as flutters tickled my insides. Whether it was anxiety or anticipation or excitement that the doors to my dreams were open again, I wasn’t sure.
But I could figure that out later.
“I guess I will.”
Our food showed up a moment later, and the waiter put a plate of something that smelled alarmingly fishy in front of me.
Blake looked from my food to my face, one of his brows rising in amusement.
I grimaced. “Is this really what I ordered?”
“I was going to say something, but…” He shrugged. “I thought maybe you developed a sudden taste for uncommon seafood.”
He gave me a look like he couldn’t wait to watch me suffer through dinner.
“I can’t believe I actually missed you,” I scoffed.
Blake’s lips curved into a familiar smile.
And then, he offered to switch meals with me, which I politely declined.
He’d already offered marriage tonight.
He wasn’t allowed to do me any more favors for the rest of the year.
ten years ago
BLAKE
“Bold move sitting in the front row of a lecture hall that has a capacity of several hundred people. You could sit anywhere, and you chose right here in the middle, huh?”
The voice was close to me. Too close, actually. I usually sat in the front row in lectures because it meant no one dared to sit next to me, but a backpack clunked down in the chair one over from mine, and I had a feeling this girl was here to stay.
“I’m not paying thousands of dollars for this course just to fuck off in the back during lecture,” I muttered without looking up from my computer screen. “I don’t think that makes me bold. Just makes everyone else look like they don’t take shit seriously.”
A soft laugh rang through the air, trickled over me like a spell, and I couldn’t help it; I lifted my gaze to see who plopped down next to me. And damn, what I found was not going to be good for my GPA.
Looking over at me was a sapphire-eyed goddess with an ironic twist of her lips and long, blonde braided hair that hadme dumbfounded. I’d never seen a woman this gorgeous in my entire life and certainly had never had one talk to me before.
