“Didn’t you get married at nineteen or twenty?” Alistair asked, his tone silk-wrapped steel.
“Yes,” she snapped, “but my husband was only two years older.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m financially secure enough to ensure my wife never faces hardship, isn’t it?” he drawled, cool and smug as ever.
A soft throat-clear. My dad.
“Francine, it’s Callie’s choice.”
“Use her full name. You chose it, remember?” she snapped.
I rolled my eyes.
How had I not realised how fucked up my parents were?
“Dad, I know you’re driving, so I made you a fruit punch,” I chirped, trying to distil the tension as I walked into the room.
Alistair stood and took the Prosecco from my hand with a wink. I paused.
He was trying to be a buffer between me and my mother.
No one had ever stood up for me before. Not really.
My mother’s oh-so-holy persona was what she sold—and what everyone usually bought.
I handed my dad his drink, mind elsewhere.
Alistair snagged my hand and gently pulled me down beside him, just as my father launched into a rant about the latest political scandal. It was his way of trying to shift the atmosphere, but my mother’s gaze didn’t follow him.
It landed on me—on the way Alistair’s fingers curled around mine, on the quiet authority in the way his hand rested protectively over my thigh.
Her eyes flicked up to mine, sharp and narrowed, and what I saw there shocked me.
Not just disapproval.
Loathing… and something colder.
Jealousy.
I didn’t flinch.
Instead, I leaned in and pressed a kiss to Alistair’s jaw, letting my lips brush the edge of his freshly trimmed beard. He smelled like aftershave and home. His hand squeezed mine once in return, as if to say I’ve got you.
And he did.
He always had.
He’d given me a safe place to land, a reason to feel brave—and now I was giving him the same in return. A soft vow, made in front of the woman who tried so hard to crush me. I wasn’t hers anymore.
I was his.
And he was mine.
Chapter 22
Alistair
Her father was rambling about some political nonsense, and I let him. I’d take any distraction if it meant easing the tension in the room.
