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)
He didn’t want her to worry, but even so, he loved that too.
He replied with a red heart.
And two hours later, he got in his car to go have lunch with his dad.
The door to the office was closed, and any additional chairs that normally sat around the circular conference table in the corner by one of the windows had been taken away.
The table was covered in food.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the man he couldn’t repair what he’d done to Dair’s heart and their entire family with hefty sandwich triangles, chicken skewers, samosas, smoked salmon on toast and miniature hazelnut dacquoise and éclairs, but he didn’t want to spend any more time there than he had to.
So he didn’t tell him that.
He just sat, took a plate and filled it.
“I see we’re not bothering with the pleasantries,” his father mumbled as he sat opposite Dair.
“Not feeling pleasant, Dad,” Dair replied. “And I’ve had the opportunity to reread the NDA. You’re right. Signe’s prohibited from sharing private photos. I also looked at her TikTok. She seems determined to paint us as star-crossed lovers with Blake keeping us apart. And it’s pissing me off.”
“I’m glad ye think so.” Balfour was also filling his plate. “Because the solicitors believe she needs something stronger than a cease and desist.”
“That would be?” Dair asked before he shoved a roast beef sandwich triangle with horseradish sauce in his mouth.
“An all-expense paid trip to Edinburgh for a meeting whereupon we’ll share things will become very uncomfortable if she doesn’t stop fucking ye about.”
“That seems overkill,” Dair remarked.
“Then I’ll fly to Denmark and threaten her personally.”
At this offer, Dair froze with a samosa halfway to his mouth.
“No one fucks with my son,” Balfour declared.
He felt something tighten in his chest even as he said, “That’s unnecessary, Dad.”
“We disagree on that, and when you have children, you’ll see why.”
Dair sat back in his chair. “Ye dinnae have to go this extra mile because of what ye did to mum and how that affected our family.”
Bally leveled his eyes on his son. “This isn’t about an extra mile. This is about someone fucking with my son. Something I fully intend to put a stop to. But just to say, ye can advise me on how to make amends for doing something weak and stupid, causing pain to the ones ye love most in your life if you should ever do anything as utterly weak and stupid as I’ve done.” He took a breath into his nose. “I dinnae ken what I was thinking. I look back at it, the years of it, and question my sanity. Though, I’ll say, as long as it went on, I questioned the state of my mental health through the entirety of it.”
Dair had no response.
“These are words for your mother, if she’ll ever speak to me again,” Bally continued. “But you should hear them too.”
“Allow her to guide that and leave me and Davi out of it,” Dair stated.
“Ye ken I almost married Helena.”
At this surprising declaration, Dair sat stunned and still, staring at his dad.
“We were both very young, but that didnae mean we didnae know our hearts. But I wasn’t good enough for her, according to her father,” he went on.
“Bloody hell,” Dair muttered.
“I loved her,” Bally announced. “Deeply. Besotted with it. This meant I was pissed off she tossed me aside because I was hurt when she did it. I was then pissed off when she married Ned. I obsessed about it.” He shook his head. “I ken this seems nonsensical with what I just said and the timing of it, but make no mistake, I fell in love with your mother. She was no consolation prize. She was everything Helena wasn’t, everything I truly needed, everything I actually wanted. She made me very happy. So ye can see, knowing all of that, how I questioned my mental health.”
Oh, aye.
Dair could see that.
Bally continued talking.
“It didnae make it any better, when I realized what kind of woman Helena was, that I did it, and I continued to do it. But these last weeks, you’ll find it no surprise, I’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on my actions, and I realized I did it mostly as a fuck you to her father, who eventually was no longer even breathing. It does not paint me as a decent man, but I’m speaking in truths here. I not only made Helena my whore, I got off on it.”
Dair remained silent.
“And the worst of it was, it made me feel the big man. Beautiful, loving wife at home, beautiful, stylish mistress on the side. Maybe I had something to prove with that, to her father, to myself. Though, as difficult as it is to admit this, really, it was just a fault in my personality to fall into the trap of the stereotype of being that kind of man.”