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)
Simple. Sophisticated. Timeless.
I’d been a size four back in the day. Something else my mother beat into me with emotional manipulation and lowkey verbal abuse.
After Chad, I’d stopped making being ultra-thin my top priority in life and now I was a size ten.
This felt better on me (and I could have a piece of cake more than once a year).
But until that moment, I wasn’t sure I wore it well.
“Thanks,” I replied.
“Always had class,” he said. “Dripping in it. Not like your mum. Snooty and obvious. Always just you.”
Oh my God.
I’d never been “just me.”
Hell, I’d never been classy (until, I hoped, recently). I’d always been more brash, and acted like my mother, wanting to be the center of attention because I never got any, not even from Dad who’d checked out of the Mum nightmare just like Alex had done. I definitely didn’t get any from Mum, or not any that was good.
But Dair said that with total sincerity.
That was how he saw me.
And that made me feel…
A lot.
“Dair—”
I didn’t get another word out.
His head dipped close, veered to my right, and he said in my ear, causing a delicious shiver, “Just dance.”
Okay, I could do that.
I could just dance.
He held me close, cheek to cheek, as we danced to the song.
My eyes caught on Chloe, who was dancing cheek to cheek with Judge not too far away, and she was smirking gleefully at me.
Damn.
This was totally not childhood friends.
This said something else.
And bottom-line truth?
If I let myself be in this, how it felt right now, I was there for it.
At the same time absolutely terrified of it.
But in that moment, under the fairy lights streaming across the rafters over our heads, this song playing, it was difficult (nay! impossible) to pull away from him. Put distance between us. Make a statement about where we were at, or where we probably should be.
Not because I suddenly wasn’t sure where that was, but because he smelled good. He felt good. He danced very well.
I felt safe in my skin when I was in his arms.
I felt right in my skin.
I felt right in Dair’s arms.
Oh no.
This was bad.
But it felt so good.
I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on his shoulder.
That felt even better.
He gathered me closer and stroked my spine with his hand.
That felt the best.
Oh yes.
This was so, so bad.
I needed to get a handle on it.
I needed to put a stop to it.
I opened my eyes.
And saw his mother off to the side of the dance floor with an expression on her face I’d never seen in my life and wished I still hadn’t.
I tensed, lifted my cheek from Dair’s shoulder, and twisted my neck to see what she was looking at.
The reception was under a huge pergola (currently decorated by bails and bails of beautiful grass and fairy lights). It was an outdoor event space that had several outbuildings for necessities, like a loo, a massive catering kitchen, and bride’s and groom’s lounges.
And I caught Mum and Balfour ducking behind the groom’s lounge.
I shot straight, moved my attention the other direction, saw Kenna’s face setting to pissed and determined, and her body started moving toward the groom’s lounge.
Oh no!
“What’s up?” Dair asked, and my gaze raced to him, seeing him turn his head to look where I’d been looking.
I caught his jaw and made him face me.
“Nothing,” I said fake cheerily.
The fake didn’t fool him. I knew this when his brows shot down.
Lord, I needed to distract him so I could rush over there and be sure there wasn’t a scene.
Kenna was a nice lady. Pretty (both Dair and Davina got their hair from her, Dair got his eyes from her). Quiet. Not reserved, simply quiet. Stout, in that Scottish get-on-with-it-way.
She’d always been kind to me, even when I wasn’t easy to be kind to.
I couldn’t imagine she’d instigate a scene, though it was clear she didn’t intend to ignore this obvious peccadillo.
Mum, however, would totally cause a scene.
In fact, I didn’t know what she was thinking, guiding Balfour back there. Or what Bally was thinking, for God’s sake.
Except Mum could turn the attention on her and ruin Alex’s day, one she didn’t approve of and was not allowed to meddle in (overly much, outside the guest list).
And that would be something Helena Coddington-Sharp would do.
It also seemed like something she was actually doing.
Damn it, I was going to fucking strangle her.
I refocused on Dair and spoke quickly. “Can you get me a piece of cake? I haven’t had any yet,” that last part was a lie.
“In the middle of a dance?” he asked suspiciously.
Still suspicious, he turned his head again.
I repeated my move of grabbing his jaw, but he fought it this time, and I saw it when he saw it.
Shit!
We were mostly just swaying, but he stopped us doing that when he looked down at me, and his expression wasn’t sexy or sultry or flirty.