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 moved so he could see her through the doorway.
“We’re not done talking,” he pointed out.
“Oh, we’re done,” she said to the floor as she flicked her hair out from under the collar of her coat.
She commandeered the handle of her luggage that he’d left there and rolled it into the kitchen.
“Stop it, Blake. We’re in the middle of a discussion,” he clipped.
She grabbed her tote and moved to walk by him.
He caught her with an arm around her belly.
She looked up at him.
“Ye can’t get out of a difficult conversation by throwing a drama,” he warned.
And then it happened.
The mask she’d soldered onto her face cracked, Blake came through, and instantly, Dair realized his mistake.
“Let me go, Dair,” she whispered.
“Darling, we need to—”
She started nodding, fast, and it seemed she couldn’t stop because she kept doing it even as she spoke.
“I get it. I didn’t know it until a few years ago, but Mum did the same thing to Dad that Signe did to you.”
Fucking hell.
That was news.
Not a surprise if you thought about it, but news.
“It affected him so badly, he checked out,” she continued. “Checked out of our family, out of his daughter’s lives. It took an Act of Chad for him to check back in. I know he had lovers, but I never met even one of them. And, as you know, it took him over twenty years to find Marlo.”
“Blake—”
“So, I can understand you’d have issues with trust. I get it.”
“Good, then take your jacket off, come back with me to the sitting room, and we’ll talk about it.”
“I’m leaving.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Let me go, Dair.”
“Lass, I get I might not have handled that—”
She wrested from his hold and walked fast from the room.
Fortunately, he had longer legs, so he caught up to her, he passed her, and he stopped in front of her in the hall in order to bar her from moving closer to the front door.
“We have an issue, we talk it through,” he rumbled when she came to a stop in front of him. “Ye do not have a tantrum and walk out.”
“Don’t speak to me like I’m a child.”
“Dinnae behave like one.”
She shook her head violently, like she was clearing water from her ears, and demanded, “Please, move out of my way. My ride share will be here shortly.”
God fucking dammit.
He lost it.
“For fuck’s sake, Blake, stop blowing this out of proportion!” he shouted. “Ye said ye fucking understood what I was feeling.”
“I do.”
“So stop this shite, take your fucking coat off and we’ll talk through it.”
“You made me believe.”
“What?”
“You made me believe.”
“In what?”
It felt like a building collapsed on Dair as he watched the tear fall from her eye and she whispered, “In me.”
God.
Fucking.
Damn it.
The word was guttural when he said, “Baby—”
“I thought I wasn’t that woman, and you were the one who showed me that.”
“Listen—
“But you don’t believe in me.”
He sure as fuck hadn’t.
He reached for her.
She scuttled back, running into Sorcha, who definitely felt the atmosphere, because she started whining.
“Please, get out of my way, Dair,” Blake requested huskily.
“Love, get your phone, cancel the ride and please, fucking please come into the sitting room with me.”
“I’m not her, but I am. I can’t escape it.”
“What are you saying to me now, darling?”
“Mum. I’m not her, but I am. I always will be. And I see that’s a problem.”
Christ, he’d fucked this.
Huge.
“Fucking please come into the sitting room.”
Another shake of her head, this one not violent, but instead, sad, and it wrecked him. “Like I said, I can’t escape it, and you can’t either. What happened between her and your dad. Who she made me.”
“She didnae make ye anything.”
“She made me who I am.”
“Blake—”
“God!” she cried, lifting both hands in fists crossed at the wrists to her chest, the tears falling freely from her eyes now. “Please! Get out of my way!”
“Where ye thinking of going?”
“Not here.”
“I can’t let you leave like this. I can’t let you leave at all.”
She’d been hanging on by a thread, he knew.
But this was when she lost it.
“Dair, it’s done!” she shouted, leaning toward him. “It’s over. We can’t be. Don’t you see?”
Oh, aye.
He totally fucked this.
“No, I do not see,” he gritted.
“I’m not going to be that woman for you. I’ll never be your Marlo.”
“No, because you’re my Blake.”
“I’m not your anything.”
“Damn it, Blake—”
“Yes,” she hissed, spiking toward him. “To answer your question, yes, I treated my sister like shit. Actually, what Rix didn’t tell you was that I didn’t even tell her I was getting married until a few weeks before the wedding and I only did that because Dad made me. Same with making her my maid of honor. Though, I didn’t have a hen night, because they’re vulgar. But I did have a shower before I even told her I was having a wedding. My own sister.”