Page 125 of The Forever Rule

“I see you’re here,” a cold voice said from beside me, and I realized that maybe I had thought those words too soon. I squeezed Blakely’s hip as we turned to the side. “Hello Mother.”

“Aston.” She looked at Blakely, and nodded tightly, and didn’t bother to say anything to the woman that I loved. Ice practically slid off this woman, and I had to wonder exactly what had happened to her to make her this way. Had she always been this way? Or had Dad’s constant infidelity and lies done it. It was hard to feelsorry for her when she acted like this, but I did. Because I didn’t want my mother to hurt.

“I didn’t know you would be here tonight,” I said. “You look lovely.”

“I’m here with Dorian. I didn’t want him to bring some floozy.”

I raised a brow and looked across the ballroom. I hadn’t even realized Dorian would be here, but there were shadows in his eyes, and I had to wonder exactly what had happened.

“It’s good you’re here, the world needs to see The Cage. Don’t embarrass us.”

I shook my head, wondering why she was like this. “I’m not The Cage, Mother,” I said pointedly, and her eyes narrowed. “I’m Aston. I’m not Dad. And I think Dorian’s doing just fine without you. But you’re welcome to go stand with him. It’s good that you actually like one of your sons.”

And with that, I nodded goodbye, and pulled Blakely to the dance floor. Mother just stood there, fuming, but Dorian was now talking animatedly with Isabella and James, so my mother had nowhere to go, other than to speak to people she didn’t want to.

“Well, that was fun,” Blakely said, with a roll of her eyes.

“Family, am I right?” I said, and she just laughed.

“I love your brothers and sisters. So I’m glad you have the multitudes that you do.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with her, or how she keeps getting colder, and maybe we’ll figure it out, ormaybe we won’t. But I’m done trying to act like Dad to make her happy. Which, sounds far weirder than it should be.”

Blakely held back a laugh, her shoulders shaking. “Thankfully I know what you mean,” she said with a laugh, as I twirled her on the dance floor. And as the music changed, we continued to dance, doing the one thing we hadn’t been able to the first time we’d been here.

Just be.

I had almost lost her, had almost pushed her away because of the man they had wanted me to be.

And I wasn’t going to be that anymore. I was going to be who Blakely needed me to be.

Who I needed me to be.

Whatever Cage that happened to be in the moment.

Chapter Twenty

BLAKELY

Dear Diary,

It turns out, if you take a chance. Sometimes it works.

Sometimes…not so much.

I hummedalong to the music in my head as I walked through the empty building on Avalanche Street. I knew it was named Avalanche for the hockey team, and not an actual Avalanche, but that still worried me some. Cage enterprises had been looking at numerous places for their next endeavor on my project list, and we were thinking of purchasing this one.

We.

It was so odd thatIwas awenow but I was going to lean into it for the time being

However, the building that I now stoodin was a little older but was going to be the home of a future business that one of our loan recipients was going to use. The best part, it was going to be a multiple loan partner establishment. The women had come together with a proposal, and the Cages were going to be the ones that helped fund it. I was really excited to see what they did, because it was going to help the community. However, I probably should have waited for Aston to drive me to the place, rather than meeting him here. The clouds overhead were getting dark, and while there hadn’t been any rain in the forecast, it was Colorado. And that meant weather had no reason.

Aston had texted saying he was on his way, so hopefully we’d be able to get back to his place before the storm.

Everything just felt spectacular. Which probably meant that I needed more sleep. But for the past week, we hadn’t been getting much sleep. Between meetings, each other, the business, and countless other things, I had been too wired and now here I was, bouncing on my feet as I waited for Aston to come.

I still couldn’t quite believe that things were working out. I loved him. And he loved me. And if I kept saying that, I was going to become a Disney princess and start twirling around even though I wore jeans and a top. I was pretty sure Disney princesses wore jeans these days. It was all in fashion.

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