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

“Really?” he sneered. “You using our school holidays to have a fuckfest like the total twat and common tart you two arseholes are, doing this every year since we were wee isn’t my business?”

Mum wasn’t preening anymore.

It was the “common tart” comment, I knew. She’d hate that, and she did.

“Blake Charlotte, remove Wallace and yourself this instant ,” Mum demanded.

I didn’t know what came over me.

Oh wait.

I did.

Years of her being a total and complete bitch .

But this…

This took the damned cake.

I broke from Dair’s hold, strode forward, and slapped her across the face with everything I had.

It was so violent, she cried out, flew to the side and bent double, her hand going to her cheek.

I wouldn’t have done it again, and not only because it made my hand sting hella bad, but it was still good Dair caught my wrist from behind, curled my arm around my belly, yanked me against his body and pulled me back several steps.

I might not have been about to strike twice physically, but he didn’t contain my mouth.

“I know this will mean nothing,” I ground out between my teeth. “I know nothing penetrates your utter and complete selfishness. But an assignation with your married lover at your daughter’s wedding? What is the matter with you?”

“What’s going on?”

Fabulous.

Dad was here.

He came up to Dair and my sides and recoiled at the tableau in front of him, his reaction stating plainly he’d translated it without a word of explanation.

In that split instant, several things occurred to me.

One, Dad had it going on. He was older, but he was exceptionally good-looking. He had that Pierce Brosnan thing happening. He’d be hot when he was eighty.

Two, Kenna gave Dair (and Davina) all their good looks.

It wasn’t that Bally was a ginger. I’d seen a lot of redheaded men who were gorgeous.

It was that he had a weak chin (and Kenna did not, Dair definitely didn’t).

She was as tall as her husband (and he was six foot, but Dair was taller, so he got that from his mum too).

And Dair and Davina both inherited the olive undertone of their skin from her.

It was the kind of skin that took to the sun and just got prettier and prettier the more it soaked it up.

Bally, on the other hand, was pale, freckled and ruddy.

Oh, and Bally was totally loaded, but Dad was like, way richer.

Since I was being petty, I might as well pull out all the stops, so I’d add that Dad also had a pedigree.

Mum had totally traded down.

“Christ, Helena,” Dad bit out. “Here? Now?”

“Your daughter struck me,” Mum bleated, hand still cradling her cheek.

Dad looked down at me, eyes wide.

“I’m not proud of it,” I said. “But I’d do it again,” I added.

“Blake,” he murmured, though I didn’t miss that now, he was fighting a smile.

“This is not amusing, Ned!” Mum squealed.

Dad’s head snapped in her direction, and he hissed, “Keep your voice down.”

“Kenna…love,” Balfour was saying.

I lost track of them with the Mum stuff, so I looked that way to see Balfour had his fingers wrapped around Kenna’s arm.

She pulled vehemently away.

Bally went for her again, but Dair let me go and stepped forward.

“Touch her, I’ll ram your fuckin’ teeth down your fuckin’ throat,” he growled.

Bally squared off against Dair, still with lipstick smeared all over his mouth, four inches shorter, having a good thirty pounds (at least) less muscle, a small pot belly, and he couldn’t look more of a fool.

“Ye dinnae speak to your father that way,” Bally stated.

“You’re not my father. You’re a common, piece a’ shite cheat,” Dair retorted.

Bally’s eyes narrowed, but even so, I saw how that blow landed, and it did it hard.

“Men,” Dad intervened, pushing between them both.

They stood down but didn’t lose eye contact.

Dad didn’t bother with them further.

He turned to Dair’s mother. “Kenna, I’ll see to it you’re taken safely back to your hotel.”

“Obliged, Ned,” she said softly, but her eyes strayed to Balfour. “Ye want her so badly, Bally, she’s yours.”

“Darling—” Balfour started.

“Do not come back to our room. Do not phone me. I’ll be gone tomorrow,” Kenna warned, and then she assumed another expression I wished I’d never seen. “What we had never really was, not with her around. And now it just plain isn’t.”

“Kenna,” Balfour groaned.

“Excuse me?” Mum asked him.

Balfour looked to her.

Dad stopped from leading Kenna away, and he turned to Mum.

“Get gone from here, Helena, and take him with you.” He jerked his head toward Balfour. “If I see you anywhere near the reception, I swear to God, I’ll throw you in a car my damned self and tell the driver to take you to the desert, drop you off and leave you there.”

Mum put her hand to her chest in open insult.

“Don’t test me,” Dad stated. “I’m not joking.

You aren’t the only one who can throw a drama in this family.

” His gaze raked her up and down. “And I learned from the best.” He then looked to me.

“You need to distract your sister, sweetheart, so these two can clear the premises.” His piercing eyes hit on Balfour.

“And you’ll be doing that quietly and immediately. Am I understood?”

“I dinnae—” Balfour started.

“I don’t care what you don’t,” Dad cut him off harshly. “Get the fuck away from my daughter’s wedding. And if you,”—another head jerk, this one to Mum—“or her, make even the slightest scene, I will stop at nothing until you’re ruined. Am I understood now?”

It took a moment for Bally to answer, and when he did, he just jutted his chin.

Proof.

Dad totally had it going on.

He also took this as an affirmative and escorted Kenna away.

“Ye can give me the rental keys, Dair,” Bally said to his son.

“Ye can fuck off and walk for all I care,” Dair returned.

I got close to him and said, “I can drive you and Davina wherever you want to go.”

Or, at least, give me an hour or two to drink loads of water and sober up and then I could do that.

Alternately, I’d put them in one of the cars Dad had ordered to take drunk people home.

A muscle was leaping in his cheek when he looked down at me.

But I saw the pain in his eyes.

God, this was such a mess.

He then dug into his trouser pocket and pulled out a fob.

He tossed it to his father.

He looked down at me again. “Go, darling. Order me a whisky. A big one. I’ll see them to their car.”

“I…don’t want to leave you,” I whispered, no clue why, but what I said was the truth.

His eyes flashed, his face got soft (damn, that looked good on him), and he said, “I need a whisky more than ye helping me with this chore.”

“Okay.”

Oof!

I was still whispering.

And obeying.

He tipped his head toward the pergola.

I nodded and started to move away.

“I will not soon forget you struck me, Blake Charlotte,” Mum threatened.

I turned to her. “And I will not forget the lifetime of your neglect punctuated by casual cruelty. Not what you aimed at me. Not what you aimed at Dad. Not what you aimed at Alex, including tonight, pulling this stunt at her wedding. You should be ashamed of yourself, and the worst part, the one that hurts the most, is that you won’t be because you don’t have even a thread of the moral fiber that would tell you, you should. ”

Mum just stared daggers at me.

“Go, lass,” Dair urged.

I glared at my mother one last time.

She glared right back.

I was not proud of the red welt on her face delivered by my hand.

But I didn’t regret it.

I caught Dair’s eyes only for an instant before I walked away.