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“Melinda and Wyatt’sbiologicaldaughter,” Heather felt the need to add, saying it as though it meant she was the only daughter that counted.
I didn’t miss the eye roll my mom exchanged with Harri.
“And you’re Dax Mercier. Addison’s husband, right? Such a shame I wasn’t invited to the wedding,” said Heather with a pout, a tang of bitterness to her words.
I hadn’t invited her because she was a fucking idiot. No one had argued that I should, not even her parents. They loved her, but they weren’t blind to her nature.
Dax didn’t greet Heather. Or hold out his hand. Or nod her way. Or anything.
She pointed one slender, long-nailed finger at him. “You know, I met your dad a time or two.”
She’d probably tried her hand at seducing Blake as well. Heather only ever showed interest in men who were married. She’d been married herself twice, but both her exes were committed to someone else when she first met them.
“You look a lot like him, but you have your mom’s eyes,” Heather told him, a dark curve to her lips. “Buchanan eyes.”
I tensed at the verbal stab—it was a cruel reminder of his connection to a man who’d taken advantage of his grandmother and disowned his mom. “Don’t,” I told her, my voice hard. “Don’t go there.”
She lifted her hands, humor lighting her face. “My apologies. I didn’t know he’d be so sensitive.”
Melinda’s eyes fell shut. “Heather, please sit down and just …”
“Not talk?” Heather supplied.
Works for me.
“Not make comments that might hurt or provoke others,” Melinda corrected. “Have you spoken to Junior at all?”
Heather looked as though she’d fight the change of subject, but then she sighed and said, “Yes, I called him a little while ago.” She gracefully sank into a seat. “He said Harri had already given him the news about Dad. He’s planning to fly over and see him.”
Dax claimed the chair beside mine and checked his watch.
I leaned into him. “You don’t have to stay,” I said, keeping my voice too quiet to carry to the others. “I mean, I’m glad you’re here. But I know you won’t want to miss Sarah’s birthday meal.”
His brow puckered for the briefest moment. “I’m staying.” He splayed his hand on my thigh—a statement, a reassurance. “She’ll understand. She wouldn’t expect me to be anywhere else but here.”
I stared down at his hand. Now that we were officially friends, his casual touches weren’t quite as rare. Still, there was never anyfeelingbehind them.
Light strokes, brief pats, gentle squeezes, warm hugs … those things anchored you. Reassured you. Soothed you. They were a way of—for lack of a better term—touching base, I supposed. A way of nonverbally checking in.
Not for Dax.
He just didn’t do that stuff—not with friends, not with family, not with anyone. I was used to it. What Iwasn’tused to was it in any way bothering me.
I wasn’t sure how, why, or when it happened. I wasn’t sure if it was something that had come on gradually or if it simply sprang up on me over the past week. Whatever the case, I had lately begun to really feel theabsenceof such casual touch between us. I’d somehow reached a point where it had started to bug me a little.
And so, as I gazed down at the hand he’d rested on my thigh, I liked it more than I should.
Maybe it was simply that, unlike him, Iwasa tactile person. Maybe it wasn’t really about Dax at all. Maybe I just lamented that we didn’t have that kind of friendship. Either way, I was not a fan of how much it affected me.
“Well, Vienna,” began Heather, pulling me out of my ruminations, “you must bethrilledthat your eldest went and found herself a rich-ass husband just like her momma.”
Her back ramrod straight, Vienna skewed her with a vacant stare. I could sense it was taking everything she had to not tell the bitch to shut right up. If it wasn’t for Melinda’s presence, she’d have already done so.
Heather examined her nails. “I personally don’t think I’d be so proud, in your shoes. Did you know Dax owns a strip club?”
Surprise flickered across Vienna’s face.
Grinning, Heather sliced her gaze to me. “Didyouknow?”
