“We’ll do that after breakfast,” he replied, getting his own croissant and joining her on the couch.
She looked to her pastry then to him.
“Mum wants us at breakfast in her suite in about five minutes,” he explained.
Her eyes widened and now she was openly panicked.
“Including me?” she asked.
“She expressly said, if ye were here, she wanted ye there.”
“Why me?”
“Maybe because she’s worried about your state of mind?”
“Mine?”
“Ye smacked the shite out of your own mother, hen,” he said carefully.
She nibbled her croissant, looking away, and after she swallowed, said, “I did do that.”
“You all right?” he asked.
She returned to him. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?’
“Ye smacked the shite out of your own mother,” he pointed out.
She waved her croissant around. “You’d think I’d be conflicted. And I am, just not detrimentally. Do I wish I hadn’t done it? Yes. It was unhinged. Not a good look.” She sipped her coffee and then, “I guess I had some pent-up shit to get out.”
“That was lost on no one.”
She pulled a face.
And he was again fucking smiling.
Her tone was different, gentler, when she said, “I think this breakfast should just be for the Wallaces.”
He slid against the back of the couch closer to her and said in the same tone, “I ken it’s asking a lot, but I think Mum should have what she wants to have right now, Blake.”
“Blech. You’re right,” she said into her cup.
He knew he was.
He was just thrilled she was the kind of woman who knew it too.
Signe was a long time ago, but he’d learned a great deal from her. Lessons hard earned that he never forgot.
In this scenario, she would be gleeful she had something to sell to the gossip rags and dish about with her sister-competitors. His mother’s feelings, or his for that matter, wouldn’t factor.
Bottom line, a whisky wouldn’t have been waiting for him after he got back from the car park.
Instead, Signe would have found a way to rescue her mobile from phone jail and be gabbing to anyone who would listen about what she just learned.
Time to move on.
“I called your dad and told him ye were good and with me.”
She choked on her coffee and turned to him. “What?”
