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“Oh, he had every intention of getting married, just not to me. It takes a special kind of assholery to lead double lives, wooing two women at the same time. He claimed he did a lot of traveling for work, which was true. What he didn’t tell me about was the woman living in the other city to where he often traveled who came from high society and would nicely complete his stock portfolio. Just as I started thinking he was the one, Mia brought me an engagement announcement she’d found online. Jonathan’s name was listed…with someone other than me.”
Isaac’s hands fisted. “Seriously? How can a person do that and be able to sleep at night?”
“Dunno, but he did without losing a wink. Needless to say, I wasn’t the most trusting person for a long time. You know, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
“Nothing about that was your fault,” Isaac said.
“Oh, there were red flags with him, just like there were for you with Katrina. I just chose to ignore them, thought I was being paranoid.”
“I can appreciate that.” Isaac looked out over the backyard on a sigh. “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you from the start, Delaney. I was scared for my company, scared for my friends. If M&M goes under because of my failed relationship, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“I know,” she grumbled, leaning into his side. Even now, she avoided his eyes, not yet ready to set aside her anger at the unfairness of it all. “But this whole thing is stupid. And you guys wonder why I hate the internet.”
“It’s not all bad,” he said. “The website we built together might be what saves your family’s bookstore.”
See? Fate.Without Isaac here, the website never would have happened.
So why would fate bring him to her, only to turn around and yank him away?
“How long?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. Could be months, could be days.” He pulled her closer, his chin coming to rest atop her crown. “Funny, a month ago I couldn’t wait for this all to be over. Now, all I want is for time to come to a stop.”
“Why?”
“Because of you.” He shifted to lift her chin, his gaze searching hers. “I thought I was done with dating, done with baring my soul to others. Then you came along in your big ole pickup and marched through my yard like you own the place.”
“And yet you’re not planning on staying.”
His smile saddened. “They need me back home.”
But I need you here. Whoa, where did that come from? She most definitely didn’tneedanyone.
Del rose and started cleaning up their dinner plates. She’d been through breakups before; it’d be foolish to think she’d never go through another. Though, this wasn’t exactly a breakup, now was it? More like a ticking clock.
And she’d be damned if she was going to waste their finite time together moping and being angry at the world. She’d watched her father do that all these years, and his anger had gotten him nowhere. She refused to do the same.
“Then I guess we’d better get this website up and running before Will calls and steals you back.”
“Oh, I promise not to leave before we get that rolling,” Isaac said. “No way am I going to let that masterpiece go to waste.”
“Good, because I promised Aunt Faye I would find a way to save the bookstore. Getting to work on it with you was just an unexpected bonus.”
She flashed him a forced smile, before the image of him leaving had a chance to surface in her mind. That was something she wasn’t ready to process, and honestly didn’t know if she ever would be. Isaac had touched her heart in ways no one else ever had. And while she knew they weren’t headed for the altar, Del sensed this was one relationship she might never completely heal from.
“We haven’t eaten our cobbler yet.” She looked to Isaac. “Still hungry?”
“I mean, itisGina’s famous cobbler,” he answered with a sheepish grin. “I’d sure hate to see it go to waste.”
Del mock-gasped. “Go to waste? Why, that’d be sacrilege.”
His resulting smile had her smiling in return.See?This was the kind of thing she would miss about him—his contagious smiles and shared love of dessert. Even so, she should have known better than to think this would last. They were just having fun, which was far better than the boredom she’d been experiencing for quite a while. She just hoped she could keep her brain and her heart separate on this one.
Del dished out two servings of cobbler and took her seat beside him, then shifted her gaze to the dogs; they’d both been snoozing since Isaac finished telling his woeful tale. Heck, even Louie was becoming part of their family. She hated to see either of them head back to the East Coast, before they’d had time to really give this relationship a chance.
Maybe he didn’t need to go back.
Hadn’t Isaac said he’d been working remotely all these months? From what it sounded like, their company was still afloat. So maybe he justthoughthis team needed him back in NYC because that was their original plan and he’d not thought about it any further.
