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)
The woman smiled at me and ducked away.
“Now that you’ve made our waitress feel better,” Dair said. “How about ye do a wee bit of that for me?”
“Can we just have normal date?” I requested.
“How are we to accomplish that if you’re sitting across from me making up shite to keep distant from me?”
I skewered him with another look, because his continued logic in the face of my determined illogic was highly vexing.
“Blake, I think you can see why this is important,” he pointed out.
“I like you,” I stated sourly.
“And?” he pushed.
“That’s it,” I said, cutting into my tenderloin and scooping polenta onto the bite before eating it.
So good.
When I refocused on Dair, he was staring at me like I was crazy.
“What?” I asked.
“You don’t want us to give this a go because you like me?” he asked like I was what he was looking at me like I was.
Crazy.
I put my cutlery down on my plate and leaned toward him.
“You want honesty, bucko?”
His eyebrows shot up at “bucko,” and under them, his eyes lit with mirth, but I ignored both.
“Here it is. I’ve had two dates in four years since Chad, mostly because everyone in the world knows what I did and the heterosexual male component of that wants nothing to do with it.”
“Except the one sitting across from ye,” he corrected.
“Yes. And you’re handsome. And you’re tall. And fit. And you like my cooking, you don’t put up with my shit, you think I’m worthy, and I know you threw that second game so Dad could retain his winning streak. I saw your cards. You could have made several much better plays, and you didn’t. For my dad.”
“Blake—”
But I’d picked up cutlery and was angrily sawing at the tender piece of meat that fell apart at the mildest pressure.
And I kept blabbing.
“So…what? You realize I’m a waste of space and you dump me?” I shoved the bite I prepared in my mouth and aimed my eyes at him, chewing irately and swallowing. “Or, for whatever reason, this doesn’t work out, but still, you dump me? Where does that put me?”
“What I want to know, love,” he said carefully, “is why you’re in that place when that place is not this place. That place might not even happen.”
I rested my hands on the table beside my plate.
“Dair, listen to me. I like you.”
“I like you too, hen,” he whispered, watching me closely.
“Clue in.”
“To what?”
“You know what.”
“Enlighten me.”
“When I lost Chad, I didn’t pine, and I liked him too. I thought I loved him. It came to me quickly, however, that he was more Mum’s choice than mine. I thought he was the key to me finally winning her approval. And maybe he was, and I blew that—”
“Ye didnae blow fuck all,” he stated angrily.
“I get that, but—”
“You remember Signe?”
“Of course.”
“She was a mess.”
I thought it prudent to say nothing.
“Once she had my ring on her finger, she drove me fucking mental. She was a disaster. She married me because I played rugby, made good money and came from even more. She didn’t even try to hide it.”
Oh God.
That had to feel terrible.
“I’m so sorry, Dair,” I said quietly.
“I am too,” he replied. “The thing I’m most sorry about is that I didn’t see that in her. Everyone around me did. Mum. Davi. My mates. Even Dad wasn’t fond of her, and we both know he likes a good-looking woman.”
We knew that for certain.
“I felt like a bloody fucking fool,” he continued, and now my heart was lurching, because I hated that he felt that. “It didn’t occur to me until a lot later that she played me. I saw none of that before the wedding. I thought I was the love of her life. I thought she was mine. I was twenty-five and got my hands on a pretty woman who was great in bed, and full truth, my dick was more interested in marrying her than I was. We were all over everything when we were together. Gossip rags. Social media. We were all over everything again when we split. I felt like a fucking moron.”
“Well, I think I know a little bit about being played and that happening publicly.”
“That’s my point,” he returned. “That guy played ye, and he had game, but ye won the match. Ye don’t take yourself out of play, especially when you’re winning.”
“It didn’t feel like I won.”
“Well, you did, baby.”
“You haven’t been serious with anyone since Signe either,” I pointed out.
“Reckon the fates were telling me to hold until I could get back to you.”
Whoosh.
All my breath left me.
Because…
Did he just say that to me?
It was like he didn’t realize he just rocked my world.
He kept talking.
“My mother and your father like and respect each other, but they’re not mates, though I think they could be. My sister is growing more and more fond of ye the more you feed her.”