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I gave a brief shake of my head. “I’m good, thanks.” I would have stuck around and chatted with Blake awhile if his body language wasn’t so stiff and … not quite unwelcoming, but unreceptive. He might be perfectly civil toward me, but he hadn’t quite accepted me yet. “I’ll be in my office if you need me,” I told Dax. With a quick wave to Blake, I left the room.
In my office, I set down both my satchel and purse and then roughly kicked off my shoes. Though I’d known to expect this, it was somewhat annoying that both my father and Blake persisted on withholding their blessing when it came to the marriage. What was the point in it? Any silent protests would amount to absolutely nothing—the deed was done, the papers were signed, the vows were taken.Done deal.
I reached into my purse to dig out my phone … and failed to find it. Remembering I’d left it in one of my car’s cupholders, I padded out of the room. As I neared the kitchen, Blake’s voice drifted to me …
“I don’t have a problem with her, son. She seems like a nice girl.”
I stopped where I was, placing my hand on the hallway wall.
“My problem is you’re both stuck in a marriage where you’re each competing with a ghost,” Blake added.
I frowned. Uh, I wouldn’t have said that. I didn’t compare Dax and Lake at all. I didn’t cling to Lake to avoid moving on. But … I couldn’t be sure Dax operated the same way, could I?
“That’s not good for either of you,” Blake went on.
“Neither is wandering through life alone,” said Dax.
I silently winced. His failure to deny the whole “competing with a ghost” thing … yeah, ouch.
A sigh. “Couldn’t you have at least picked a woman from your past who actually feels something for you? Like Angel, or maybe—?”
“Dad, what’s done is done. There’s no point to this conversation.”
Absolutely no point. And who the hell was Angel?
“It can be undone,” Blake persisted. “There’s such a thing as divorce, you know.”
“Yes, there is. But I don’t want one.” A long pause. “What’s your real issue with Addison being my choice?”
“Look, Dane doesn’t have a healthy respect for all laws, but can we say the same about his daughters? Your mom gets that I’m never going to turn to the cops for shit. She accepts it. She accepts that there are things I won’t tell her—whether it relates to my businesses, my contacts, or how I make a problem go away. You don’t know Addison well enough to be sure she can do the same for you. You don’t know you can trust that she won’t betray you.”
Actually, yes, Dax did. He knew better than to think I would ever do something as—
“Time will tell, won’t it?” said Dax.
The comment was a slap. Okay, I got that he didn’t trust easily. I wasn’t expecting him to have total faith in me—especially after all Brooks had told me. But I would have thought that Dax would know I was far too loyal to fuck him over in such a way.
It stung, but I hurt for him as well. Life had taught him to expect betrayal and condemnation. And that was exactly what he did.
I crept past the kitchen, retrieved my phone from my car, and then returned to my office.
It must have been about half an hour later that Dax came striding into the room. Lounging in my armchair, I looked up from the book I was reading.
His hands in the pockets of his slacks, he arched a brow. “You ready to eat yet?”
“Whenever you are,” I replied, injecting a breezy note into my voice as I strived to hide the hurt I still felt. “I’ll go with meatloaf and the usual trimmings I like.”
His mismatched eyes drank in my face, narrowing slightly. “Are you all right?”
Ugh, there was rarely any fooling him. “Yup,” I lied. “Your dad left, I take it?”
Dax nodded. “Just now.” He paused. “I made it clear that he needs to stop acting so distant toward you. He assured me that he would. I believe he meant it.”
“Time will tell, won’t it?” Shit, I shouldn’t have said that. In doing so, I’d pretty muchannouncedthat I’d eavesdropped on his conversation.
He went motionless, his eyelids dropping even lower as realization dawned on him. “Addison—”
“I’m not mad,” I assured him. “Offended, maybe, because I’m a loyal person—no one whose loyal likes to be seen as anything else. I get that you don’t know me well enough to trust me. I get that it’ll take time for you to realize that you can. But in the meantime, I ask that you try not to expect the worst from me.” Fuck my voice for cracking just a little.
