Page 48 of Finding the One (River Rain #7)

Cathy and Heathcliff

Blake

S ince I was lying in the dark in my bed at The Edinburgh Grand, I saw the light coming out from under my phone where it sat screen down on the nightstand.

In order to further torture myself, like I’d done all the other times this happened, I reached out, took hold of it, turned it to me and stared at the notification that shared Dair was calling.

I did this until it went away.

I continued to stare at my phone until the notification came up that I had a voicemail.

That was voicemail three.

I had six texts from him too.

None of them I’d listened to.

None of them I’d read.

I needed to book train passage down to England.

Or a flight.

I didn’t.

I put the phone back to my nightstand, face down, turned my back to it, curled my knees to my chest, held them there with my arms and stared into the dark.

Feeling nothing.

Two days later, I sat behind the baronial desk in the study of Treverton, the one where possibly thirteen Marquesses of Norton sat before me, and I watched Christine bustle in.

I’d texted her I wanted to chat.

She had a smile pinned to her face and worry in her eyes as she came to me.

“You good, love?” she asked.

“Peachy,” I lied.

She knew I was lying but sat across from me without saying anything.

“Should I get us some tea?” she offered.

“I need to talk to Alex about this, but I’m thinking about selling the London house,” I announced.

“Oh,” she mumbled.

“It’s my understanding that isn’t a part of the Norton estate I can’t touch.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that, luvvie.”

“Dad explained it to me,” I shared. “Great-grandfather bought the townhouse with some personal earnings and didn’t entail it to the estate.”

“Right,” Christine replied.

“So I can sell it. Give the money to Alex’s charity.”

“That’d be nice, but where would you stay when you’re in London?”

I held her gaze steady, but my tone was soft when I said, “Once I deal with Mum’s personal belongings, I won’t be back to England for some time.”

“I was afraid of that,” she whispered.

“Will you be okay here, on your own, with the help of a maid, seeing to things?” I asked.

“Prefer company, Blake. Yours, to be precise.”

That felt lovely.

Even so, I nodded and said, “I’m sorry.”

Her face got hard. “I am too, and I’ve got the urge to hunt down a notable Scotsman and give him a word or two.”

“We’d only been together a few weeks, Christine.”

“Your eyes are haunted. You’ve got dark circles under them, so I know you’re not sleeping. You aren’t eating properly. You keep yourself busy adding your mother’s clothes to that rolling rail we bought and texting your sister pictures?—”

“It’s not necessary for her to fly halfway across the world to look at some clothes and jewels.”

“I see you’re having a mind to your sister’s state, but, if you don’t mind me saying, luv, this isn’t about your sister being pregnant and having an important job. It’s about you hiding in this big house away from whatever happened to you up in Scotland.”

It really was not her place to speak to me like that.

I didn’t inform her of that fact.

“You need to talk to someone about it,” she carried on. “I know I’m not that person to you, but I could be if you’re willing to share with me.”

“I’m not a nice person and Dair found out I wasn’t,” I told her.

She looked stunned. “How are you not a nice person?”

Honestly?

It just hit me that I was at my happiest when I was in this house.

I felt at home.

I could ride horses.

I liked taking walks.

I could hide in a million (slight exaggeration) different rooms, doing my own thing without Mum bearing down on me.

I’d behaved here.

So she didn’t know the real me.

I wasn’t about to enlighten her.

“Just…trust me.”

“I—” she started.

I spoke quickly. “Since no one will be around to exercise them, the horses need to be sold. Unless you or Erin ride.”

The hardest would be the townhouse. I loved that house. Even before Dair and I made memories in it.

But the horses would be hard too.

Because the estate had always had them.

More, because Dair and I had ridden them.

Not to mention, they were beautiful. Mum had excellent taste in horseflesh.

Then again, from what I could remember, that was a Coddington trait.

“You shouldn’t make important decisions when your heart is hurting,” Christine advised. Her voice lowered. “You need to trust me on that, luv.”

“I need to have all of this done and be away from here.”

Christine nodded. “Yes, I reckon you do. But give it some time, some distance, before you do something you can’t undo.”

This was smart advice.

I was a mess. So numb, it was beginning to frighten me.

I knew I didn’t have my head on straight.

I needed to take a breath and give it some time.

Sure, I’d been falling in love with Alasdair Wallace.

No.

The truth: I already knew I was in love with him. I just worried it was too soon, and this was why I almost told him I was when we were at King’s Cross, but I didn’t.

Boy, was I glad I didn’t now.

And okay, he’d said he was doing the same with me.

But I told no lies to Christine moments ago.

This ending shouldn’t be that sad, because we’d hardly even begun.

It felt that way.

It felt like everything.

It felt like forever.

It just wasn’t.

“Sarah is having the things we boxed up at the London house sent out here so it can all be in one place. Alex has asked me to set all the jewelry aside, and some other things, for her to have a look at when she has the time to come back out. We can put them in storage until she does. She might not want anything, but she’s starting a family, and her children might.

Or at least they could sell it and put themselves through college with it or something. ”

“Yes,” Christine agreed.

“I’ll find an auction house for the stuff we know is going. I’m making some calls this afternoon.”

Christine nodded.

“And outside that, I won’t make any other decisions until…later.”

“I think this is wise, Blake.”

“Okay,” I said. “Good talk.”

She smiled at me and this one wasn’t fake.

I smiled back and mine was.

“Is that all?” Christine asked.

“For now, yes. Thanks for coming up here, Christine.”

“My pleasure, luv. Are you sure you don’t want to come down for a spot of tea? I made a Victoria sponge for your dinner. It’s one of your favorites.”

She was always so kind to me.

Always.

“We can cut into it a little early,” she suggested.

“I’ll wait for dinner. But how about you eat with me? Erin too.”

I could tell she wasn’t entirely comfortable with that.

“We can do it down in the kitchen,” I said. “It’s cozier there.”

She got up and put her hand on the desk. “What I think is that you need to ring your little sister, or someone, and pour your heart out. That’s what I think.” She pushed away from the desk. “But in the meantime, I’ll set up supper in the kitchen for six thirty.”

“Thank you, Christine.”

She gave me a long, lingering look, pushed out a concerned breath and left the room.

I was not calling Alex, that I knew.

She would be lovely. Supportive. Everything I didn’t deserve her to be.

And I didn’t need that.

Especially not now, when the memories were so fresh of what an absolute bitch I’d been to her.

Dad was now so overprotective, he might get mad at Dair, when Dair was just protecting himself.

So Dad was out.

I was close with all of the G-Force, particularly a couple of members.

But they’d now met Dair too, and I could tell, they liked him very much, especially for me. They’d probably lean my way, but all of them knew the mean girl I used to be, so they’d get where he was coming from, and I didn’t need that either.

There was also Hale, who was always there for me, but ditto on the overprotective thing.

The bottom line was, I didn’t have anyone to blame for this but myself.

Maybe someday, I’d find another Chad, and put up with his cheating and neglect, but perhaps I’d be able to raise our children so they didn’t turn out to be assholes.

Like me.

Or maybe someday I’d be like Mum. Foot loose and fancy free, fucking young studs and living it up in St. Tropez.

I made a face at that.

Because I’d earned it, I continued my prolonged and sustained torture and reached to my phone.

It was face down on the desk.

I turned it over.

No texts from Dair since I last checked.

I opened the phone.

The voicemails were up to seven, all unheard. I’d lost count of the texts.

I should block him, but he might know somehow, and I thought that would be insulting, and I didn’t want to insult him.

I just wanted him to stop wasting energy on me.

I thought about texting him to tell him that.

But I didn’t.

There wasn’t much more of Mum’s stuff to go through, but that was the only thing keeping me here.

I had to get it done so I could get out of there.

And far away from Dair.

Thus, I got up and walked out of the room in order to see about doing that.

The phone calls started the next day.

The first was from Alex.

“Hey,” I greeted. “You’re up super early.”

“I’m always up early. So…what’s up with you and Dair?”

God, how did she know something was up with me and Dair being all the way in Arizona and never getting on social media (that I knew)?

Not that anything had been reported about us. The last thing that made the rounds was us going at it at King’s Cross.

I should save some of those photos.

You know, more torture.

“Blake?” Alex called.

“We broke up.”

I could almost feel her shock. “Seriously?”

“We were…we had a big fight. One you can’t come back from.”

“About what?”

About me.

Me being… me .

“I don’t want to be a bitch when I say I don’t want to talk about it.”

There was a massive amount of hesitance in her, “Okay.”

“How did you find out anyway?”

“Davi phoned me.”

Oh God.

I hadn’t even thought about her.

I was losing Davi. And Kenna too.

The weight of that was so heavy, I sunk into the nearest chair and dropped my head.

“Blake, you’re worrying me,” she said.

“Why?” I asked, trying to sound like everything was okay.