Page 46 of Finding the One (River Rain #7)

Mistake

Dair

T he hug they shared at the station when Blake arrived in Edinburgh was awkward.

The anxious, rattled looks she was giving him were torture.

The silent ride to his house was wildly uncomfortable.

The only thing that happened between them that was sweet and relaxed was, after she took off her coat and he wheeled her bag to the boot room, when they entered his kitchen, Sorcha showed how excited she was to see her and Blake returned that with a full-body rubdown of his pup and lots of puppy cooing.

“Would ye like something to drink?” he asked.

She straightened from his dog, looked right at him, and she didn’t lead into it easy.

“Actually, I’d like to know what’s going on with you.”

No, this wasn’t easy.

But it was good.

They could get into it so they both could get beyond it.

“Aye.” He nodded. “We do have something to discuss.”

“I think I got that with the ambiguous ghosting I’ve been getting from you since your lunch with your dad.” Her eyes narrowed and she tipped her head to the side. “Did he upset you?”

“It wasn’t any easy talk,” was the only way Dair could put it.

He could tell she was getting angry on his behalf when she demanded, “What did he say to you?”

They weren’t going to do this standing in the kitchen.

“Let’s go in and sit down.”

She gave a single, irate nod and stomped out of his kitchen.

Sorcha followed her.

He never wanted Blake to be upset (though, what was about to happen was bound to be upsetting, until they got past it).

But he couldn’t deny it felt good she was so angry, and she was that for him.

She went to Dair’s sitting room, right to the couch, pulled off her heels and sat cross-legged in it. His dog sat beside her and Blake’s hand automatically went to Sorcha’s head so she could scratch behind her ears.

Blake looked comfortable, mildly cute, and completely classy wearing her posh black trousers and jumper and petting his dog.

He loved seeing her like that in his space.

And he hated that they had to have this conversation.

But he had to know.

He couldn’t make the same mistake twice.

He sat down beside her, crossed his legs in front of him, but rested an arm along the back of the couch and turned her way.

“Ye sure ye dinnae need a drink?” he asked.

And, damn.

He was procrastinating.

“Just spill, Dair,” she commanded. “So I can get on with controlling my urge to find your father and throttle him. I’ve been worried sick about you for days, and it seems I had cause to be.”

Worried sick about you for days .

Again, even if he didn’t want her to have that emotion, it felt great she did.

Jesus, this was going to be rough.

“This isn’t about Dad.”

That threw her. “What’s it about?”

“I told ye about Signe?—”

She cut him off by tossing both her hands up irritably and letting them plop on her legs. “So this is about her? God! Now what’s she up to?”

“I need to explain something to ye first, lass.”

Either she finally caught the feel of him, or she realized this was something deeper, because she changed.

She became hyper-alert and hyper-still.

He should have taken that for the warning it was.

Sadly, he did not.

“In the beginning with her, it was perfect,” he began.

Blake said nothing.

Dair did.

“They didnae call it this then, though maybe they did, and I never heard it, but she was all about love bombing. I could do no wrong. She could do no wrong. She read me and ascertained what was important to me, and she became that. Precisely that. If I did something she didnae like or that annoyed her, I had no idea I did, because she gave me no indication I did. She had all the time in the world for me. She’d bend over backwards to give me what I needed.

Be the person I wanted her to be. And she made me believe I was the man of her dreams. I’m not a romantic man, but it felt like a fairy tale. ”

Blake didn’t speak.

“After we were married, that changed. Wholly. I didnae ken the woman I was married to. And life was far from a fairy tale.”

He’d told her all of this, mostly.

But she didn’t remind him of that.

She didn’t say anything.

Dair found this troubling, but he’d begun, and it was important, so he had no choice but to continue.

“Now, I dinnae want to throw Rix under the bus,” he started cautiously. “He thought I knew when he shared how ye treated Alex before your wedding to Chad.”

After he said that, she didn’t move. Not a muscle. Not a nuance of her facial expression changed.

She just kept those alert, violet eyes locked on him, and that was it.

Dair didn’t find this troubling.

He found it alarming.

He kept going anyway, because he had no choice.

“Did ye ken they faked their engagement at first so ye wouldn’t be unkind to her because she didnae have a man?” he asked.

Finally, she broke her silence.

“Alex has shared this story with me,” she said stiffly.

“All right. So ye didnae invite her to your shower, or hen party, and ye waited until the last minute to demand she buy an expensive dress?”

She made no response to that, and Dair reckoned that meant yes.

This wasn’t good, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Mostly because it was clear Alex was over it because they were obviously close now.

And as he had no choice but to forge ahead, he did.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, went to the photo he had at the ready, and turned it to her.

“Did ye sell this to some gossip rag?” he asked.

She looked to his phone.

But outside that, again, nothing from Blake.

“Blake, listen, ye wanted so badly to go to that little girl’s funeral, and you’d never even met her, and we hit socials with that?—”

Instantly, she uncurled her legs and reached to her shoes, Sorcha popping up to get out of her way.

“Blake?” he called.

He watched as she put on her heels.

“Blake,” he repeated.

She got up and walked from the room.

Sorcha was undecided for a moment, and then she followed Blake.

“Fuck,” he bit off and followed them both.

He found them in the kitchen with Blake’s head bent to her phone.

“I’d like an answer, love,” he informed her.

She shoved her phone in her back pocket and looked to him. “I have a car coming. I’ll wait for it outside.”

Wait one moment.

What?

She went to the boot room and collected her jacket.

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—”