“It’s a date. So, are you going to be okay until then?”
No.
“Yes.”
“Pretty liar,” she murmured. “I’m a phone call away, okay?”
“Okay. And Marlo, lie to Dad and tell him I’m fine. Please? Tell him he doesn’t have to worry. Hearts mend, right?”
“They do, my sweet. It takes time, but I promise, they do.”
It took Dad decades.
But he did it.
“I’m glad he has you, and I swear that isn’t selfish, because I’m glad I have you too,” I said.
“That isn’t selfish. A woman falls in love with a man who has children, she falls in love with a family. And I knew when you walked into the restaurant wearing that fabulous outfit, I’d fallen for you.”
Damn.
I was crying again.
Because she was amazing.
Because I was so, so happy Dad had found her.
And because Dair picked that outfit.
“I’m not helping,” she remarked.
“Oh, you are,” I sniffled.
“Good. Chin up, Blake. You’ve got this until you get home,” she bid. “And then we’ll have you.”
We’ll have you.
She was just the best.
“Thank you, Marlo, and I mean that. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, honey.”
We rang off, and I sat there sniveling and weeping in the pretty morning room that was one of the few totally feminine common rooms in the house, a room I wasn’t sure Dair had ever stepped into (which was why I was in it).
I was pulling myself together, my thoughts on finding some tissue, when my phone went again.
I looked down at it.
It was a number not programmed into my phone.
But since I’d contacted three auction houses two days before, and I was expecting callbacks, I took it.
I wiped my eyes, sniffled again, and answered.
“Hello?”
“Blake. Balfour,” Bally grunted.
