She began to push away but he only held her closer.
She relaxed into him, circled him with her arms and shoved her face in his shoulder.
“Ye dinnae have to go,” he said into the side of her hair.
She tipped her head back and caught his gaze. “I’m fine.”
“We can get room service here and spend time together. We dinnae get to do that much,” he offered. When she was about to reply, he tacked on, “Blake will understand. Ye ken she will. So will Ned.”
Her chin grew stubborn, she pulled firmly out of his hold, and she declared, “I’ll not lose another moment of my life pining over my own husband.”
Dair glanced at Davina.
She shrugged.
His mother drew him back when she spoke.
“I appreciate ye both looking after me, and I will not lie and say my heart isn’t broken. It is. But it has been for years. I’ve wasted enough time and emotion on your father. If I can, I’ll waste no more.”
Dair sighed.
“Your choice, Mum,” he said.
“So we should go,” his mother replied.
He nodded.
His sister got up, grabbed her bag, and they left.
They were in the car and on their way when his mum brought it up.
“What’s going on between ye and Blake?”
“Not certain yet,” he lied.
Davina made a pfft sound in the backseat.
Dair smiled.
“I hope ye ken what you’re getting into, son,” his mother said.
“And what’s that, in your estimation?” he asked curiously.
“She’s a beautiful girl, always was. Then again, so is her mother.”
Bloody hell.
“But Helena did a number on her two daughters,” she continued. “Alex escaped as fast as she could. Even when she was young, Alex was only there physically and only that when she had to be. Blake bore the brunt of it. Perhaps because she was firstborn, and more was expected of her. She got crushed under it and had to act out to assert herself in some manner.”
“She’s not the woman she used to be, Mum,” Davi piped up from the back seat.
“No, I ken. That’s clear enough.” He felt her eyes on him when she said, “But damage was done.”
“Like what Dad did to us?” Davi asked angrily.
He shot his sister a look in the rearview mirror telling her to shut her gob.
Davi returned a mutinous expression and carried on, “Boys and their dads are a thing. Dinnae think ye missed how ragin Dair got with him.”
