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)
“Okay.”
Oof!
I was still whispering.
And obeying.
He tipped his head toward the pergola.
I nodded and started to move away.
“I will not soon forget you struck me, Blake Charlotte,” Mum threatened.
I turned to her. “And I will not forget the lifetime of your neglect punctuated by casual cruelty. Not what you aimed at me. Not what you aimed at Dad. Not what you aimed at Alex, including tonight, pulling this stunt at her wedding. You should be ashamed of yourself, and the worst part, the one that hurts the most, is that you won’t be because you don’t have even a thread of the moral fiber that would tell you, you should.”
Mum just stared daggers at me.
“Go, lass,” Dair urged.
I glared at my mother one last time.
She glared right back.
I was not proud of the red welt on her face delivered by my hand.
But I didn’t regret it.
I caught Dair’s eyes only for an instant before I walked away.
Chapter 4
Bouquet
Blake
* * *
I stuck to Alex like glue while keeping a watchful eye on the groom’s lounge, before noting Dair stalking behind Mum and Bally on their way to the parking lot.
Things were crazy, my mind in disarray, but even so, it was not lost on me how good Dair looked stalking.
Ugh.
I only relaxed when I saw Dair walking back by himself.
The expanse between disappearing and reappearing seemed to take him a long time.
Rix gave me an intense look before I finally let myself break away and head to the bar.
He would never know about the drama.
I hoped.
I ordered Dair three fingers of whisky and myself an espresso martini, thankful Dad was rich as all hell, so the whisky was damn good Scotch, my martini was made with Belvedere vodka, and those cars were lined up to take us home.
The bartender had the Scotch on the bar and was preparing my martini when Dair came to stand at my side.
He commandeered the glass, tipped it back, downing half of it. He swallowed, then tipped the second half back.
“Whoa,” I said.
He put the glass down, tapping it sharply on a bottom edge to demand a refill.
The bartender nodded to him and kept at my martini.
“I take it that was even less pleasant than I thought it would be,” I noted carefully.
“Dad dinnae say a word,” he told me, hunching into his forearms on the edge of the bar, staring at the barback. “Your mum, though, bitched the whole way about needing ice for her face.”
Although I was the cause of that need, and it made me feel yuck (still didn’t regret it), I probably should have gotten her some before she took off. It was a good twenty-minute ride back into town. Plenty of time for the swelling to come up.
He tilted his torso my way, not leaving his forearms.
“I texted Mum before I headed back up,” he said. “She told me she needs some space but I’ll be needing to get back to her so I can check in and be close.”
Perhaps that was why it took him so long to return from the parking area.
“Of course,” I murmured.
“There didnae seem to be a lot in your binder that still needs done.”
Wait.
Was he…?
God, who was this man?
“Dair, you can go whenever you want,” I told him. “You could always have done that. But if you’re concerned about what’s left to do, in about ten minutes, there’s going to be a bouquet toss. A driver is then going to take Alex and Rix down to Phoenix, and I made sure they had a car with a partition they could put up because they’re going to be banging the entire way. They’ve got two nights at the Phoenician before they head down to St. Lucia for their honeymoon. Once they’re away, the coast will be clear. But for you, it is already.”
I felt triumphant that my comment about my sister and new brother-in-law banging wrung a small smile out of his mouth.
But I finished, “So you’re good to go. And, uh…thanks for helping me out.”
He simply nodded and watched the bartender put my martini in front of me.
I picked it up and took a healthy sip.
He watched that too.
Then he asked, “When did ye ken?”
Ulk.
I didn’t want to talk about it.
But I felt I had to, because he obviously did want to have this chat, and we were in the same boat, him and me.
Though, I didn’t have a parent’s mental and emotional health to consider.
“Feels like all my life,” I mumbled into my martini glass. I looked over it to him. “You?”
“Same. How’d ye find out?”
I made a face. “Do I really have to say?”
“I saw them fucking in the stables. I was eleven.”
Gross!
The bartender put his whisky in front of him, and fortunately, he didn’t down it in two.
He just wrapped his fingers around it and raised his brows at me in question.