Make Me Yours (Bayshore Book 3)

by Ember Leigh

  Not only a waste of time, but a waste of energy. Energy that I could have spent convincing London to stay.

  It’s not time to think about London. And definitely not about how she should be in your life. Get your head in the game, Dom.

  Not an hour has gone by that I haven’t reread her text in my mind. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider dropping my quest to snag this position. I’ve thought about it too much, in fact, starting from the day I brought her back to my penthouse. But stewing over it that long allowed my rational mind to surface for one last, gasping breath to remind me that I was acting fucking crazy.

  Dr. Dom, renouncing his goal just because of a couple amazing dates? That’s not me. That’s not the man I’ve been struggling to become. And if anything, London has made me realize why I’m becoming the man I am. Why it was important to begin with.

  Because what happens when a man chases a woman the way I was tempted to do mere days ago?

  Everything crumbles. I’ve already lived it. I already know how that story ends. And hell if I’m diving headfirst into it again.

  Realistically, I should be happy that London helped me wake up. Instead, I am the opposite.

  I am—in a word—butthurt.

  “Dominic Daly.” The sound of my name in the cavernous foyer jerks me to attention. This is fucking it. I stand and smooth the front of my nicest dress pants, adjusting my tie for maybe the fiftieth time since seven a.m. A featureless woman leads me into a board room with an incredibly high ceiling and a conference table that could host an entire royal family dinner.

  However, instead of a dining monarch and his clan, there are seven very stern looking physicians. I swallow hard, butterflies staggering to life in my gut. This is somehow worse than my board exams.

  “Dr. Daly. A pleasure to finally meet you.” The monotone voice of the board president, Dr. Humphrey, fills the room. He’s an actual celebrity in the medical world, having been named the country’s top neurosurgeon for the past seven years. The other doctors I only know from photos, when I did enough covert research to warrant browsing in Secret mode. He gestures to the lone chair facing them.

  “A pleasure hardly covers it.” My voice rings false in the room. I wonder if they can tell. If maybe all the men showing up to this final interview today sound the same as me. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment for years.”

  Dr. Humphrey and the other board members smile, but it’s the polite kind, like the Queen of England might use. Because these men are royalty in the medical world. And I’m closer than I’ve ever come to being knighted.

  “Your application has shown amazing promise. We’ve all been quite interested to meet you in person. It seems you’re doing innovative work in your region of Ohio.”

  “Innovative, yes. Consistent, as well.”

  Dr. Humphrey and the other members have papers in front of them, which they refer to at random. It must be my application or some sort of summary featuring my merits. I squeeze my hands into fists below the table. I can only imagine what a most recent breakdown of my merits might look like. Top skills: open heart surgery; spicy scrambled eggs; chasing the one unavailable woman in Cleveland.

  “Dr. Daly?”

  I realize one of the other board members has asked me a question. I don’t even remember what we were talking about.

  “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I’m hard of hearing on this side.” It’s a lie, but a convenient one. Better than the truth, which is that I’m being derailed from the biggest meeting of my life by thoughts of a woman who would rather chase a fantasy than be practical. What I offered her was practical. A promising relationship that satisfies everyone’s needs.

  How could she not see it the way I do?

  Our interview trudges on, full of empty platitudes about service to the medical community and inquiries about my long-term vision of improving medical care. I’m able to bullshit with ease—a master, after all—and I can tell that the board is pleased, though it’s hard to tell just how much behind those most-likely-surgically-altered stern expressions without a hint of forehead wrinkle.

  In fact, all these men are oddly smooth. Like some sort of reptilian alien species came and chose doctor as their disguise du jour. The costumes are passable, but just a few details are off.

  That’s something London would have liked to hear. I’ll have to tell her.

  Except I won’t ever get the chance to.

  “…and honestly, Dr. Daly, in full confidence, you are at the very top of the list at this point.”

  I tune in just long enough to catch this quiet vote of confidence. Dr. Humphrey is grinning.

  “Now, you said that you’re married, no kids.” He shuffles some papers. “Hopefully children are on the table by now. Will your wife be available to attend the acceptance gala?”

  Anxiety constricts my chest. After such a successful interview, I’d been lulled into a false sense of security. Maybe they wouldn’t address the one area I still haven’t figured out in my life. But of course they did.

  “Gala?”

  “You know that we host an annual holiday gala to welcome new board members and thank our donors. Will your wife be present at the event? It’s imperative that wives attend the biannual celebrations each year.”

  “I, uh,” I clear my throat, lacing my fingers together on the table. This might be the moment where it all falls down around me. “This was one aspect of my application that we haven’t had a chance to clarify. I’m not married yet. My fiancée and I have a winter wedding date set.”

  The lie burns through me. The board members consult each other with doubtful looks.

  “I do suppose this is part and parcel of me being potentially the youngest new inductee. My fiancée and I wanted to wait until our careers were set before spending so much money on the lavish celebration that we deserve. But she’s one hundred percent committed to this organization as much as, if not more than, I am.” If this is the case, then my wife can never be London. “You can absolutely count on her being there.”

  My heart pounds with the falseness of it all. And in the back of my mind, I’m just hoping they don’t ask me what her name is. Because I don’t know. I’m just hoping this buys me more time to convince London to see me one more time because I’m jonesing for her, or to finally cut out my attraction to her like a malignant growth. One of those has to happen. Immediately.

  “You raise a fair point,” one of the board members rumbles. “Today’s world is different than when my wife and I married.”

  The board members briefly confer about my fudge on the application where I selected “Married, no kids.” They decide that it was the only valid option for me to select, given my intention to marry during the current fiscal year. As my father always said: Ask for forgiveness, not for permission. I hedged my bets correctly.

  After a few wrap-up questions, I am on my way out the door with a bright promise that I’ll be hearing back about their decision within four weeks.

  On one hand, four weeks is an eternity. We’ll be in December by then, for God’s sake. I just want the notoriety already, but this new timeline is the ticking clock on finally biting the bullet. The thing I’ve been expertly avoiding for the past God-knows-how-long.

  Post-interview, I lunch at a Chicago-style pizzeria with views of the river. I walk down some streets before grabbing a ride to the airport, and I stumble upon an artisan pottery store of all places. The pieces are gorgeous and thoughtful. Exactly the kind London would have hanging around. I buy a smaller vase without thinking twice.

  It’s a bright and sunny November day, and the chill in the air reminds me of how much I’d like to have London tucked into my side…or maybe even pulled into the front of my coat, like the night we went to Zimbo’s.

  My heart clenches strangely. The proud side of me refuses to lie down for someone who wouldn’t do whatever she could to help me achieve my goal. London knows that this is what I’ve been dreaming of and reaching for. So why not ju
st make my life easier so we both get what we want?

  I’m mulling over this predicament nonstop, even when I’m napping on the plane, or otherwise trying not to think about it. My flight lands in Cleveland by eight o’clock, and I’m home in bed by nine.

  Nothing feels quite right. Going ahead with Julianne feels unattractive in a way I never could have predicted. Backing out of the running still seems like a non-option, even though more and more I am thinking about when London confronted me about my own words: prestigious bunch of status whores. Not only are they status whores, the most pressing part of today’s interview was whether or not my model-worthy wife would be on my arm at the gala.

  I wish I could tell London how right she was to call me out, but that’s also a non-option. I’m still going through with it. I’ve had my eye on it for too long to back out now, and I am if nothing else a man of his word. My father might have been a competitive slave driver to me and my brothers growing up, but he instilled some basics in all of us that still keep us on track. And one of those basics is that stability is the foundation to success.

  I am as stable as they come. I can make the bedrock of the Rocky Mountains look like a flaky bitch. I am not only stable myself, I stabilize others—during heart attacks, in catheterizations, and more.

  So this board position is the natural extension of my stability. It’s like carving my name into the ancient rock bed so that future generations can also know how stable I was.

  I barely sleep that night, and the whole rest of my week is pretty shitty too. The office is busier than normal because of the holidays: everyone’s trying to get seen before we break. Usually for Thanksgiving, I stay home and take a rare me day that involves lounging on my couch while indulging in maybe one movie before eventually turning my laptop back on to catch up on work. I haven’t gone home for Thanksgiving in three years.

  But this year, everything feels disjointed. Scattered. Maybe imploded is the right word. London haunts me more than I can explain—more than seems logical—and amid all my confusion, it seems like going home might actually be the only step that makes sense.

  I call my mom the Monday before Thanksgiving, once I’ve finally accepted that a trip to Bayshore is right. I haven’t been back there since my grandma Ethel passed earlier this year in June, where I saw all my brothers at once. Staying in the Daly childhood home was a difficult walk down memory lane, mostly because Grayson and I were at each other’s throats immediately, and Connor kept me up most nights while he incessantly fucked his girlfriend Kinsley. I spent a long weekend there, but it was enough to tide me over for the year—or so I thought.

  But this time, the prospect of a walk down memory lane is less off-putting. Something about Bayshore is calling me. I can at least go there for an evening to see what this pull is trying to tell me.

  An email from London arrives on Tuesday. We haven’t spoken for weeks, even though she sent me a follow-up email last Monday that I ignored. The sight of her email address in my inbox makes my stomach drop to my feet.

  Hey again! Just wanted to check in on your progress. I’ll take the silence as a good sign, since I’m sure you’re out there working on your new relationship! I really hope things are going well with Julianne. Just give me an update when you can for my records. You know, with the holiday coming up, it would be a great idea to take her back to Bayshore so she can meet the family! That way, you can establish even more legitimacy before the board decides who to pick. As I promised, I’m seeing this through to the end. I’m invested in the happily-ever-after you’re going after, so you can count on me if you need anything until you set the wedding date.

  Best,

  London

  I scowl at the email for a full ten minutes. I haven’t talked to Julianne in a week and a half. At this point, she’s on stand-by, and she knows it. I was brutally honest with her about what I need and how things might progress, and she was still somehow down with it. I think she’s more excited about using me as arm candy. And isn’t that just perfect?

  But what doesn’t feel perfect is how London has reverted so quickly back to business-as-usual. And that’s the root of it. What I felt burbling to life inside of me doesn’t allow for business as usual. While it’s my fault for even allowing it to happen, I can’t deny that she woke me up to something I had decided to leave in my past.

  She clearly wasn’t affected the same way. She could walk away. She could turn down a perfectly logical proposal, even when it made all parties happy.

  It’s my turn to forget what sprang to life between us, since she clearly already has. And sitting in my penthouse over Thanksgiving isn’t the way to do that. I need to be distracted by new and different methods.

  My head needs some fucking clarity.

  And my heart?

  It only needs London. Which I need to fix. Immediately.

  Chapter 24

  LONDON

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t reconsider Dom’s least-romantic-of-all-time proposal to me on the daily—sometimes hourly—for the two weeks after he made it.

  I’m as incensed by the marriage proposal as I am inclined to double back and accept his offer. Not like it’s still valid. I’m sure that my break-up text to him was enough to drive Dom away forever. And really, that’s what I wanted. That’s what I was shooting for. So why aren’t I happier about the distance?

  I thought two weeks would break me of this unnatural infatuation with Dr. Dom. I thought his proposal alone would be enough to show me that we’re on different pages and that we can’t continue reading this book together. But these details only prove to me that I am hopelessly lost.

  Forget my happily-ever-after. Apparently all I can focus on is the unhappily-ever-practical of Dom’s obsessive quest to medical stardom.

  So more time. That’s what I need. Two weeks is nothing in the spectrum of nursing broken hearts. I need to let two months roll by, and then see where I’m standing.

  Operation wait it out: activated.

  Operation fantasize about Dom’s dirty mouth: cancelled.

  Dom’s radio silence has been a pretty clear signal that he’s either still pissed about that text or has solidly moved on with Julianne, or maybe both. And goddammit, I wish I could talk about any of this with Hazel. But I’ve reached my limit of faceless advice-seeking. At this point, my issues involve aspects of Dom that are heavily Daly-centric. I can’t fathom explaining the family dynamic of the Dalys using anonymous identifiers, only to chuckle with her about how similar it sounds to Grayson’s family.

  Surprise, Hazel. All this drama revolves around the man who made your boyfriend’s adolescence a living hell.

  All this ridiculous lovesickness would be enough. But Carl hasn’t stopped emailing during the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. I’ve read most of them, out of morbid curiosity, but the recent ones I haven’t bothered opening because his earlier emails made his thoughts clear. He still thinks I was wrong about what I did. Carl wants to “put the past in the past” and “move beyond the professional suicide,” because he believes he can “help me rebuild.” He hopes I “recognize his forgiveness,” because not every lover or employer would be willing to do the same.

  His words look less like forgiveness and more like a reminder that he’s the big man doing me a favor. Which is what it always was with him. Always.

  How many more weeks will it take to wait out these unwanted spam emails? I can’t be avoiding two different men for two different reasons for the rest of the year.

  Thanksgiving is going to be a welcome disconnect. I built out my week so that I can head to my parents’ house in Bayshore on Wednesday and stay through Sunday. Not like I need to stay so long when I live just an hour away, but I’m treating it like a mini-vacation. No work.

  Just friends, family, and food, as God intended.

  Hazel is the first person I see when I get into town. I go straight to her office, in fact, walking down the sidewalks of downtown Bayshore with childlike wonder. They put
the Christmas decorations up early this year—usually they wait until after Thanksgiving—but I’m not mad about it. Right outside Hazel’s office, they hung an enormous wreath that says Tis The.

  Hazel is seated at her desk, typing on her computer when I walk in. A big grin lights up her face. “There you are!”

  “Finally. Hey, did you know your wreath only says ‘Tis The’?”

  Hazel snorts as we meet in the middle of her office for a hug. “That’s a city-supplied wreath, I’ll have you know. I would never leave my seasonal greetings hanging like that.”

  “Maybe we should finish it for them. I’ll find the materials and fix it and then bill the city.” I follow Hazel toward her desk and sit down in the plush chair facing her workspace. “Except the message might be different when I’m done with it. I’m thinking, ‘Tis the Sneezin’.’”

  “In honor of flu season,” Hazel confirms.

  “Exactly. Now tell me, O Master of Real Estate. What are our plans for tonight?”

  A mischievous look crosses her face. “Well, you know how downtown goes wild on the night before Thanksgiving. There are a few cocktail parties I’ve got my thumb on. I think we should have a healthy sampling of all of them.”

  “I love healthy samplings. Whatever you choose, I’m there. Just tell me the dress code.”

  “I think we should go all out.”

  “Does that mean we dress like actual turkeys? Because I didn’t bring that onesie with me.”

  Hazel snorts. “Do you really have a turkey onesie?”

  “Target,” I say. As if that needs any additional explanation. “So you’re saying heels, enormous earrings, and my tightest dress.”

  “Tis the Sneezin’,” she confirms with a wily grin.

  “Oh, please. No flu season for me tonight. I need to look good enough to snag Henry Cavill while also honing my spinster vibes.” My cheeks flush at the inadvertent celebrity-lookalike reference to Dom. Ugh, if only they didn’t look so similar.