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)
Dair said nothing.
“Anyway,” Rix carried on, “Chloe got wind of Alex sharing that with Blake, and in the end, my woman was going to make excuses for me not attending, but Chloe stepped in and suddenly, I was Alex’s fake fiancé.”
“Right,” Dair forced out.
“Safe to say, I was into her, I just didn’t know it. Not sure even for a friend I’d do something like that. We got deep. I got lost. I almost lost her. I figured my shit out and”—he lifted his glass—“here we are.”
“Here ye are, married with a wife who’s up the duff,” Dair said quietly.
Rix smiled big. “Yup.”
Dair smiled back, but it wasn’t big, before he swirled his scotch and took a drink.
He knew the situation with Chad had sparked change in Blake.
But fucking hell, not telling her sister she was in the wedding party, and if he read between the lines, a sister giving her sister shite for not having a man?
He also knew Blake had been careening down the path of becoming Helena, before she stopped herself.
But that shite had Helena written all over it.
It was ugly.
And even cruel.
“Not sure Chloe has to work hard on the whole get-married-have-babies thing she had going on with you two,” Rix remarked. “Seems you guys are tight. And seems you’re good for her. Never seen her this chill since I’ve known her.”
Dair didn’t have a response to that, though he didn’t like it. He was all in to look after his woman. He was not all in for her to lean on him to be her moral compass, or worse, her acting like she didn’t have one.
So he grunted.
“Here you are,” he heard Blake say from behind him.
He twisted to see she and Alex were entering the room.
Night and day, those two. Blake classically beautiful, slim, chic and outgoing, Alex with her abundance of red-brown curls, curves, no-nonsense attitude and quiet demeanor.
Alex was the perfect woman for Rix, as he was the perfect man for her.
Until just minutes ago, he would have felt sure in saying the same thing about he and Blake.
“God, you can still smell the smoke even if neither of them smoking,” Alex said.
Blake sat on the arm of his chair and smiled down at him. “I need to buy you some cigars.”
“Have some at home, lassie,” he told her.
That made her smile bigger.
“How was your date?” he asked.
But it was Alex who answered. “It took us a while, and we had a goal of five, and could only come up with four memories of Mum that were good without any bad attached.”
“We had to call Dad in to figure out number four,” Blake added. “But even with him there, we could only add that one.”
Four unblemished memories in a lifetime of mother and daughters?
Not good.
But Blake seemed lighter, so whatever worked.
“And heads up,” Alex announced. “Marlo is flying to London tomorrow. We’re meeting her for dinner.”
Dair studied Blake’s face.
No anxiety, she just looked excited.
The men finished their whiskies as they all chatted.
They then all went to bed.
The fuck he shared with Blake before they turned the lights out and settled in was no less intense and satisfying.
But even as his woman drifted right to sleep draped down his side, Dair stayed awake staring at the dark ceiling.
He’d read Signe wrong. The woman he fell in love with was nothing like the woman he found himself married to.
But if given a choice of only those two, he would take being married to a fame-hungry, gold-digging woman to being tied to another version of Helena Coddington-Sharp.
He’d make that choice every time.
He wanted nothing to do with a mean girl.
God damn.
Fuck.
Chapter 18
Questioning
Dair
* * *
“All right, we’re done,” Blake said to Rix, who was sitting next to Dair in the first-class carriage of the train taking them to London.
She didn’t say “please” or “do you mind switching seats again?”
She just said “all right, we’re done” with a girl-who-gets-whatever-she-wants smile on her face, and Rix moved from where he was sitting beside Dair to resume his seat across the aisle beside his wife.
Blake plopped down next to him and grabbed her tote so she could tuck the letters inside that she’d brought with her and just spent forty-five minutes going over with Alex.
“What’re those?” he asked.
“Patron requests.”
“Sorry?”
She set her tote aside and looked at him. “Patron requests. Apparently, members of the aristocracy patronize various charities. They want money, of course, but they’re also looking for someone to help them raise more of it, as well as awareness. Unsurprisingly, Mum didn’t patronize any charities, but Christine goes through the mail sent to Treverton. She gave me those letters, and when she did, she told me Grandfather was a patron to several.” She looked beyond him and out the window when she finished, “I suspect I’ll be getting more requests. It’s early days. But Alex works in charity, and I wanted her to help me narrow them down so I can eventually make some decisions.”