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“He is.” I smiled.
“I suppose if you were immersed in music from the age of eight, you were the type of teenager who didn’t get into too much trouble?”
“Ha.” I chuckled. “Don’t be so sure about that. I gave my father many sleepless nights—getting into cars with boys, sneaking out of the house, et cetera.”
He flashed me a mischievous look. “I’m curious about the et cetera.”
I shook my head. “Why do I feel like I’m being interviewed for the privilege of massaging you?”
“That’s not what this is about. I’m just interested.”
I tilted my head. “Then it’s only fair if I turn the tables a bit, Bambi.”
He crossed his arms. “Depends on what you want to know.”
I came out with it. “I want to know about your wife.”
You could’ve heard a pin drop.
Dax swallowed. “Okay…”
“I know she was older than you. I’m curious about how you met her, I guess.”
“That’s all you’re curious about?”
“No. I’m curious about a lot when it comes to you, but I haven’t had the balls to ask about most of it. But since you’re being so intrusive…”
He looked down a moment. “When I met Maren, she was my boss, actually. I was successful in my own right at the time, but she was a little further up the chain. She didn’t pursue me until I left the company for another job.” He poured himself some more wine and lifted the bottle toward me, but I held my hand up. I wasn’t going to have any more.
“I had a great deal of respect and admiration for her from the moment I met her. It wasn’t love at first sight for me, but it was a very strong like. She made no secret of the fact that she was interested in me once it was appropriate for her to express that, and I was flattered to be the object of her affection. In time, our relationship grew romantic. But I always viewed us as more of a partnership of mutual respect than your typical fairytale love story. We had our issues. A lot of them—mostly having to do with the fact that I wasn’t completely ready for marriage when we eloped one crazy weekend. But I was determined not to fail and convinced myself that the connection we had was strong enough to make a marriage. I have an issue with failure, so I vowed to make it work. We were still a work in progress when she died.” He exhaled. “She was an amazing woman, and her death was a tremendous loss to this world. She truly cared about people, myself included. I didn’t deserve her. And she certainly didn’t deserve to die.” He shut his eyes and muttered, “That’s the very short version of the story.”
As brief as he might have been, it was a lot to take in. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
His voice was barely audible. “Thank you.”
“The fact that she adopted Rafe proves what a wonderful person she was. You said he was eight when she got him, right?”
He nodded. “When she set out to adopt, she insisted on an older kid, someone who might otherwise not have been adopted so easily. She really loved him. And he loved her. I think that’s why his relationship with me got off to such a rocky start. When I moved in, he saw me as a threat. That certainly wasn’t my intention, but he was very protective of her.”
“That’s sweet, though.”
Dax stared down into his glass. “This is the most I’ve opened up about it, sadly.” He looked up at me. “I don’t know what it is about you that makes me want to do that. Maybe it was the cello—some kind of weird musical hypnotism.” He shook his head. “You seem too good to be true, Wren.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re very balanced for someone who lost her mother so young. That makes me hopeful for Rafe, I suppose. The musical talent. Good girl who loves her dad. You appear to have a decent head on your shoulders. What am I missing here?”
I laughed. “I don’t have any dead bodies hidden or anything, but good girl is not exactly a fitting description.”
His eyes filled with mirth. “I’m intrigued.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not getting my whole life story over one glass of wine, Moody.”
“You can tell me more during the massage, then?”
“Nope. I don’t talk to clients during the massage. That would impair your ability to shut out the world and relax.”
“What if I want to talk because I don’t like silence?”
“Then you’re out of luck.” Feeling suddenly anxious to get started, I checked my phone. “I should probably set up. Where do you want me?”
A look of disappointment crossed his face. I think he wanted to keep talking.
“We can do it in my office, like the first attempt. You’re not allowed to touch anything but me, though,” he teased.
