Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
So he rolled out and headed to the bathroom.
He did all his business, including brushing his teeth, plucking the bouquet out of the basin and putting it back in when he was done, and he strolled out only for Blake to be lugging her tote in.
“I ordered coffee and croissants to be brought up. Knock on the door when they arrive,” she bossed, then closed the door.
He smiled at it, and it didn’t fly under the radar that he was smiling a lot around Blake Sharp.
He considered himself a mellow guy. He made a point of doing what he enjoyed as often as he could. He was born to wealth and made his own. In his mid-twenties, he’d had a short-lived, high-profile, unwise marriage to a vain, celebrity-hungry woman whose sole desire was to be a WAG, something she accomplished with him, which ended in a messy divorce, so she accomplished it again with some other poor arsehole (that one ended in divorce too).
But other than that, he had good friends, a loving mother, a close relationship with his sister, and a father he did not respect.
However, outside the man being an inveterate cheat (Dair suspected Helena wasn’t the only other woman, though he didn’t know this as truth), and too hard on Dair in the “a man’s gotta learn how to be a man” department while he was growing up, he wasn’t a bad dad.
In fact, in the times Dair could forget all that shite, Balfour was gruffly loving and intensely protective.
To put a fine point on it, Balfour was nothing like Helena.
In short, Dair had a good life. He intended to keep having one. He didn’t take it for granted. He recognized it and put the work in to nourish it.
But he still couldn’t remember the last time he smiled this often.
He hadn’t showered so Blake could have the bathroom. He’d do it after she did whatever she was going to do in there.
But he had to get these suit trousers off.
He switched them out to some track pants and went to his phone.
The text from before was from his mum.
It was to him and Davi.
He read it.
Breakfast in my suite at 9:30. If Blake is still here, bring her as well.
Dair sighed, uncertain about taking Blake to this particular family breakfast. He checked the time (it was twenty before nine) and sat on the side of the bed to answer.
Blake’s still here. We’ll be there.
He then checked his email, deleted a bunch of them and phoned his sister.
She didn’t pick up.
She was probably still passed out.
He’d put on a shirt and go knock on the door later.
But for now, he searched his contacts, wondering if he even had the man’s number.
He did. He didn’t remember when he got it, but he had it.
So he called it.
Ned Sharp picked up on the second ring.
“How are you this morning, Dair?” he asked in greeting.
“Better than your daughter,” he told the man. “Calling to let ye know she’s safe and she’s with me.”
“I saw you all leaving together last night, but I appreciate the call. And thank you for looking after her. She delayed her celebration, but when the time was ripe, she committed to it.”
She certainly had.
A hesitation from Ned then, “I hate to bring her up, for reasons I’m sure are obvious, but I must. Do you know if Helena has been in contact with her?”
“I dinnae think Blake looked at her phone all night.”
“Again, I hesitate to discuss her, but I’m afraid you’re involved in one of her dramas now, and you should know, Helena is not good when she’s on her back foot.”
Was she good at any time?
“Noted.”
“Please find a way to share this information with your mother and sister.”
Bloody hell.
“I will,” he grunted.
“I’m very sorry, Dair.”
“She isn’t yours to apologize for.”
“I’m still sorry.”
Ned Sharp was a good man.
Dair didn’t know him all that well, but he’d always liked him.
He’d seemed solid, yet distant in the very rare circumstances when Dair had been around Ned when he was a kid. Christmas holidays, the few times he stiltedly shared them with his wife and daughters when they were in England and Dair’s family would come down on Boxing Day. Blake’s birthday, which was during the summer holidays, and Ned would fly out.
More when they were older. The girls’ graduations from high school. Alex’s college graduation. Dair’s ill-fated wedding (his mother had insisted on inviting Ned, probably partly because she liked him—mostly, Dair reckoned, because she knew Helena was sleeping with her husband, Helena was invited too, and Ned drove Helena around the bend). Also, Blake’s aborted one.
Though, it was only this visit where Dair witnessed true warmth and love shared between the three of them.
Shite happened for a reason.
And he wasn’t close enough to know for certain, but it seemed like Blake’s wedding fiasco had a profound effect on the emotionally functioning members of that clan.