Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 2(29)

Somehow he’d known that buying me some hundred-thousand-dollar sports car would completely blow my mind, perhaps scare me off forever. He’d gone for a more subtle gesture. He was saying, you can still have your old life, just…upgraded.

Did he think that was what I was worried about?

As I pulled into my usual parking space at my apartment complex, I was acutely conscious of being watched. If one of my nosy neighbors said something about my new car, I was absolutely sure I’d have a complete breakdown right there in the hall. What was I supposed to say? “Oh, yeah, it’s a gift from my fiancé.” All cool and casual, like everybody gets brand new cars as an engagement present?

Once I was safe inside my apartment, collapsed in a chair, the guilt began to set in. I’d been given a really nice gift - maybe “generous” wasn’t the right word considering the source - but it wasn’t fair to Daniel to react like this. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was my own stupid fault I was getting carried away.

I took a deep breath and picked up my phone.

It rang once before he picked up.

“Hi, Maddy.” He sounded tired.

“Thank you for the car.” Oh, God. That sounded so ridiculous.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, and he sounded like he might be smiling a little bit. “But you’re welcome. When I called them to check up on it, they gave me a further laundry list of problems that made it easier and cheaper to just buy something new. I didn’t want to trouble you, so I just took care of it.”

“Okay,” I said. “But could you…not surprise me next time? It was a little weird.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you not like surprises?”

“Well, normally I don’t mind.” I fiddled with my ring. “But usually they’re more like - ‘oh, hey, I brought you this coffee from across the street because I happened to be there anyway.’ Not like, ‘oh, hey, here’s a new car.’”#p#分页标题#e#

He sighed. “Maddy, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I really am sorry. I just wanted to do something nice. I know this isn’t an easy transition for you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s…it’s a nice car.”

“I’m glad you like it.” There was a rustling noise, like he was switching his phone to the other side. “I did want to talk to you about something, if you have a minute.”

“Sure.”

“Next weekend, a few of my family are going to be coming into town. I let them know about you. I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t think my sister and her husband were going to be able to get off work so soon.”

“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that.

“They’ll want to meet you, of course,” he said. “But we don’t have to overdo it. I’ll tell them that you’re very busy trying to get your affairs in order and plan for the wedding.”

“It’s all right,” I said. And strangely, it was. The idea of meeting his sister’s family wasn’t nearly as terrifying to me as it ought to have been. Maybe I’d just maxed out on the amount of stress I was able to process, but I felt very calm. “I’d love to get to know them.”

There was a moment of silence. “That’s good,” he said, sounding a little suspicious. “Well, I’ll try to limit it to a lunch and maybe a shopping trip or two. I don’t know exactly how long they’ll stay.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Really. I’m serious. It’s not a big deal.”

“All right, well.” He exhaled. “I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch, then.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“I love you,” he said.

Did he really think someone might be tapping his phone? I shook my head.

“I love you too,” I said, and hung up quickly.

Well, this was an interesting development. Meeting someone’s family was always the best way to get to know the things about themselves that they weren’t always forthcoming about. I was actually looking forward to talking to his sister. Maybe I’d actually learn something about the man I was going to marry.

I arrived at work the next morning in strangely good spirits. You might even say I was…glowing. Thankfully, that fit right in with my story.

“Oh my GOD!” Florence jumped up out of her chair and enveloped me in a fierce hug as soon as I walked into our cubicle. “Congratulations! I can’t believe it!”

“Yeah, me neither!” I squealed back, extricating myself from her grip with some difficulty. “We were keeping things quiet for a while, obviously, but…”