Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
That pulled me out of my stupor.
“Trust me, I very much understand about Signe,” I snapped.
“I was looking out for him when I told him what I told him about you.”
“And you did your fatherly duty well,” I returned. “You saved him from being tied to another crap individual.”
“Sorry?”
Oh no.
He didn’t get that.
“What I’m saying is, this is for the best, Bally. For Dair. For all of us. What you did with Mum. Who I am. Dair will come to that realization eventually.”
My son is a wreck.
My son is a wreck.
A wreck.
How could a broken heart beat so fast?
“Who you are?” he asked.
“I explained myself to Dair,” I retorted. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel I need to explain myself to you. It says a good deal you’re trying to look out for him like this, but please, lose my number.”
“Blake—”
I hung up on him, and although I didn’t block Dair, I had no problem blocking his father.
My son is a wreck.
A wreck.
I looked to my phone and even checked it.
I hadn’t had a call or text from Dair since last night.
He was coming to the realization he’d dodged a bullet.
Good for him.
God!
“I’m not going to fucking cry again,” I bit out as I pushed up from the chair.
I stomped to my room where I changed from my slippers to my Jimmy Choo, knit, pearly, lace up sneakers.
I then stomped down to the kitchen to tell Christine I was going for a walk.
She lit up. “Breath of fresh air, even in this mist, will do you a world of good, me darlin’.”
And yes.
I’d been holed up in the house since I got back to it.
Therefore, I resumed my stomping, this time to the mudroom where I tugged on Mum’s Max Mara poncho style raincoat (which was sublime, and totally not going on the auction block).
And I headed outside, through the gardens, to the fields beyond, in my state, not oblivious to the dense fog, but instead, welcoming it.
Cathy and Heathcliff never got together.
And now I understood perfectly why he brooded on those moors.
Chapter 22
Wet Leaves
Blake
* * *
Shit.
“Am I fucking lost?” I asked the misty fog that was hiding the huge-ass house I should be able to see from here. Surely.
I was giving myself one hell of a moisture facial out in this weather.
But for goodness sake, I’d turned back at least half an hour ago, and by now I should be seeing the house forming through the fog.
This just cut it.
Lose my shot at love and life and children with a man who unbuckled my shoes and took them off for me, then die of exposure maybe a hundred yards from my ancestral home.
“I hope Rix doesn’t mind being daddy to the next Marquess of Norton,” I muttered into the mist. “Or Marchioness.”
I kept tromping, pretty sure my cute Jimmy Choos were a loss to the mud and wet, also realizing I chose poorly with footwear, considering the cold and wet was oozing through the knit.
And as I walked, I saw a figure forming in the mist coming toward me.
Oh God.
How embarrassing was this?
Christine got worried about me and came out to fetch me.
Some English aristocrat I was. I couldn’t even take a walk on my own estate without needing a rescue.
But…
Wait.
That wasn’t Christine.
The figure was too tall.
The shoulders too broad.
It was a man.
No, it was the man.
I stopped dead.
Holy hell.
It was Dair.
What was he doing there?
Panicked, I stared at him.
He kept prowling toward me.
Even more panicked, I looked left then right.
All I saw was fog, drizzle and the bleary outline of some faraway trees.
Totally panicked, and not thinking, I turned on my Jimmy Choo and started running.
“Blake!” Dair bellowed.
I kept running.
In my dash, I tripped over a rock (or something), flew forward while careening, nearly went down, jarred my back with the effort not to (and it hurt like crazy), but I righted myself and kept going.
“Oh my God, how do people do this?” I wheezed as the trees started to take shape through the mist.
“Blake!”
That sounded closer.
A lot closer.
I kept running.
I heard him bounding after me.
Trust me to get in a foot chase with a professional athlete.
Someone shoot me.
I hit the woods and zigged and zagged through the trees.
“Bloody hell, stop!” Dair shouted from what sounded like right behind me.
I zigged again.
Then it felt like a cinderblock, or twelve, hit me square in the back, and I went down on my stomach in the wet leaves, a heavy weight landing on top of me, and I did this with an “Oof!”
I hadn’t even begun to get my breath back when he wrenched me lower under his body, turned me then dumped all his weight on me.
“Oof!” again!
“What the fuck are ye doing?” he growled in my face.
“Running,” I panted.
“Through thick fog where ye can’t see a goddamned thing? Ye nearly broke an ankle back there.”