“I’m sure when we get there, we’ll find the same in the London house. She vacationed in Cannes and Capri. She skied in Switzerland. She had two lovers, that we know of. She delighted in making her daughters’ lives living hell, and she enjoyed that pastime copiously.”
“Darling—”
“She lived her life, Dair,” she said, her tone suddenly harsh.
No, grating.
And it grated right over Dair’s heart.
“Baby,” he whispered.
“And that little girl didn’t get the chance to,” she went on.
Her eyes were getting bright with tears, so he used his hand on her, engaged the other one, and pulled her to his body.
“I’m not over it. I’m not okay with it. Mom dying,” she announced, her voice having turned husky. “It feels weird to laugh and enjoy time with family and friends when the flowers on my mother’s grave are still fresh.”
“Aye, it would,” he soothed, rubbing a hand up and down her back.
The tears were threatening to spill. “I don’t feel sad. I don’t not feel sad. I don’t know how I feel. Except, I struck her the last time I was in her presence. I can’t think about it without cringing. Physically.”
“I wish I could help you with that,” he told her. “But just to say, words would never reach her, if you tried to explain what she did to you. But that made its mark, and you deserve that, Blake.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tighter to him. “Even if it didnae penetrate, all ye had pent up that you needed to say to her, you deserved to have that moment where ye let it be known.”
“That’s certainly a way to pretty it up, Dair.”
“Makes it no less true, right?”
She looked to his shoulder and took a shaky breath into her nose.
When she came back to him, she said, “I just need to be with that family. I don’t know why. I’m not going to make a big deal about it. I’m not going to introduce myself or intrude on their grief. I just have to…be there. And when I talked to Alex about it, she said she was feeling the same thing. I think it’ll give us closure Mum’s funeral couldn’t. To be around the love that little girl had. To be around love…and loss that isn’t conflicted. Loss that’s just loss. Am I making sense?”
Aye, she was, and he felt for her at how confusing Helena’s passing was emotionally.
Therefore, he gave in.
“All right, lassie, then we’ll go.”
Her eyes lit with hope, but her mouth repeated, “You don’t have to.”
“Aye. I ken. But I’ll not be letting ye go on your own.”
“Alex will be with me. Which means Rix will too.”
“And I will too.”
Both her hands came up to hold his cheeks.
She stared into his eyes.
He stared into hers.
Fucking hell.
It hit him like a bullet.
He already loved her.
And, Christ.
