“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.”
Her voice hitched, and hearing it, Dair’s chest caved in.
“I also gave her shit about her weight,” she kept at it. “And definitely about her not having a man. And yes,” she hissed again. “I sold that picture and many more to anyone who might buy them. I did a lot of other shitty things too, Dair. That’s me.”
“It’s not.”
“Would you like to know what else I did that’s me?”
“Love—”
“I’d act up. Just to be a bitch. To Mum. To Dad. But also to Alex, who would get in trouble right along with me if I did something horrible, even if she had nothing to do with it, which she never did. And that’s one of the reasons why I did it. I honest to God do not know how she can even stand to look at me.”
“This really?—”
Blake spoke over him. “There are still stores I’m banned from in Manhattan because I acted like such an entitled asshole. Then there was that time I crashed Grant’s family’s boathouse and got sued.”
Crashed a boathouse?
She kept going. “And the many times I had parties at Dad’s house where thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage was done. Dad spent years cleaning up my messes, which, you should know, included me getting arrested. Twice. Suffice it to say, even my own grandmother couldn’t stomach me.”
“I dinnae need to know all of this, lassie,” he said gently.
Her neck turned abruptly like she was looking behind her, then she came back to him.
“My phone is vibrating. My car is here.”
“You’re not leaving.”
She came at him and didn’t stop, like she could push through him, so he caught her by the arms to communicate she could not.
She kept pushing forward against a man who could manage himself ably in a scrum.
“Settle down, lass,” he murmured. “I’ll go talk to the driver and give him a few quid.”
All of a sudden, she stopped pushing against him and looked him right in the eye.
Hers were still full of tears.
“If you care about me at all, you’re not going to put me through this. Put me through eventually being a disappointment to you. Put me through being the one you teethe on for practice before you find the one for you.”
“That’s not what’s happening.”
“No? So the next time you find out some shitty thing I’ve done, we’re not going to sit down on your couch to have a chat so I can explain myself to you?”
He was realizing he hadn’t simply made a mistake with that.
He hadn’t fucked this.
He’d delivered an injury, perhaps a mortal one.
And it had wounded her.
