Plan B (Best Laid Plans #2) - Jana Aston Page 0,71
with you, Daisy. I fell in love with you on the sidewalk in Boston like a lovesick teenager, and it terrifies me, you must know that.”
“You love me?” Her head is tilted to the side and she’s examining me like this is all so very interesting to her while I’m bleeding my guts out on the floor.
“Of course I love you. I’m crazy about you.”
“Hmm,” she murmurs.
“Daisy, do you love me? Could you… love me?”
“Did you knock me up to gain an heir for some bizarre corporate takeover scheme?”
“Jesus, no. I’m sorry, I should have told you about that before.”
“So you did know about it?”
“I did. But it’s never been relevant to me.”
“Until I showed up pregnant.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s never been relevant to me because I was never going to have a child simply as a means to gain company stock. That’s ludicrous. If I’d been willing to do that I’d have gotten married a long time ago. I don’t need the shares, Daisy. And even if I did, I’d never do that.”
“MoneyWeek seems to think you need them.”
“MoneyWeek is trying to sell magazines. And I wasn’t interviewed for that story or I’d have set them straight. I didn’t even find out about it until ten minutes before the meeting to extract Margo from the company and honestly, I thought the chances of you reading a financial magazine that hit the newsstands just that day were small, or I’d have rescheduled the Margo meeting and come straight to you.”
“Hmmm.” Again.
“I don’t need the shares, Daisy. I promise you that. The board is aligned with my business plan and no one is challenging my role as CEO of the company. The only person who’d have a real vested interest in doing either would be Wyatt, and he doesn’t even care enough to show up for board meetings—or work, actually. Honestly I’m not even sure he has a job at the company.”
“He doesn’t? What does he do with himself?”
“Who the hell knows? Lives off his inheritance and enjoys life, I assume.”
“How nice for him.”
“It’s something,” I say, not really interested in discussing my wayward cousin. “Daisy, you can’t believe I planned all this to trap you into having my baby. For a corporate scheme, as you put it. You can’t believe that. I’ve done everything I’m capable of to show you how I feel about you.”
“Fine. Maybe you didn’t plan it. But you’re one of those honorable guys who just makes do with the hand he’s dealt.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“You say you were in love with me from the start, but you left me. You stole my camera and left me in a hotel room. We’re only together because I’m pregnant and I tracked you down.”
“That’s not entirely true. I looked for you. For weeks. I hired an entire team of investigators to find you. I’m not even sure I want to know the lengths they had to go in order to find a gorgeous brunette named Daisy when I didn’t have much else to go on. I didn’t even know where you worked, just that it was travel-related. I think there may have been some illegal obtaining of security footage to make it happen. But they found you.”
“But I found you first,” she protests.
“No, you didn’t.” I shake my head. “The blogging conference. Once I knew who you were I ensured you were invited as a speaker, expenses covered. And then I prayed you’d come to me. I thought it might seem a bit more organic than me showing up at your doorstep like a deranged stalker, asking you for another chance. We were a corporate sponsor of the event. I was going to show up and just happen to bump into you.” I exhale. God, I sound lame, even to myself. “I read your entire blog three times in the two weeks between them locating you and that damn event.” I shake my head—it was a bit of a sad-sack move, to pine over her at that point, but the blog offered so much insight into her as a person, a four-year history of her travels and likes and dislikes. How stalkery of me.
“And then I threw you for a loop by showing up at your grandfather’s retirement shindig.”
“And then you threw me for one hell of a loop when you showed up at my grandfather’s retirement shindig. As my fiancée,” I remind her. “I had no idea what to think at that