Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk 3)

Michael’s hands flexed on my waist. “Okay. But I’m here if you need me.”

“I know. Thank you.”

He pressed a sweet kiss to my nose. “It’ll all work out, dahlin’. We’ll get through this.”

To say the night took an awkward turn was a goddamn understatement. Michael wouldn’t acknowledge me, but I didn’t want to be rude to his date. Her name was Nina, and she looked a little younger than me.

That didn’t hurt at all.

Nope.

My stomach roiled as we sat around the table with our drinks. My family and Bailey were great and chitchatted through the awkwardness, despite Michael’s less than loquacious terseness. Nina seemed not at all concerned by his attitude and tried to make conversation with Bailey a lot.

It turned out she worked as a police sketch artist, and that’s why she looked familiar to Dermot. Also, Bailey asked what age she was, and the chatty blond declared she was twenty-five.

He’d brought a twenty-five-year-old as his date, and by the very little attention he was paying her, I knew it was deliberate.

Now and then, I’d feel his attention on me, but when I’d turn to look, he was glaring sullenly into his water like a teenager.

The longer we sat with his treating Nina like a ghost and not talking to my family, the more the ball of emotion tightened in my throat. This wasn’t the Michael Sullivan I’d known and loved. This guy was bitter and selfish and needed to grow the fuck up.

The remorse I’d felt for leaving him eased a little every time I saw him. Or maybe it was the chat with my dad. Or years of therapy kicking in. All I knew was that, yes, I was at fault for leaving him, for not coming back. It was a big mistake, and I was sorry. However, he’d never given me a chance to fully explain. And he’d made mistakes too. Dating Dillon was the catalyst in everything changing so dramatically. I’d let that go because it was the right thing to do. Yet he was sitting there seething.

Who was this guy?

“I do hate you.”

“Do you blame her?”

I wanted to confront him. I wanted to scream at him. Make him listen!

“Let me buy the next round.” Nina’s voice drew me out of my angry inner diatribe.

She was staring at Darragh, who was half standing from the table. I assumed that while I was lost in my thoughts, he’d offered to get another round of drinks.

“Oh, that’s—”

“No, let me.” She frowned at Michael. “Mike, another water or do you want a tonic or something?” He’d already told us he was driving so he was foregoing alcohol. That meant he didn’t even have a depressant to blame his foul mood on.

He shook his head. “You’re not paying. I’ll pay.”

That was the old Michael. Old-fashioned to the core. I curled my lip in annoyance.

Nina shrugged nonchalantly. “Not going to argue with that.”

Either she was very laid-back, or there was something I was missing here because who acted like they didn’t care if their date was behaving like a total asshole?

Giving a reluctant nod, Michael stood from the table as Nina asked everyone for their order. When she got to me, and I said I’d have another soda water and lime, she cocked her head and frowned at my glass. “Are you the designated driver tonight too?”

Usually, whenever anyone asked me why I wasn’t drinking in a social situation, I told them I didn’t drink alcohol. No explanation. It was nobody’s business but mine.

The tension I felt from my friends and family, however, choked a response in my throat.

“Dahlia doesn’t drink,” Michael answered, his eyes cool and flat. “She can’t handle her drink. Turns her into a lush who betrays everyone around her, isn’t that right, dahlin’?”

His words prickled all over me like tiny, biting bugs. They were meant to wound, to eviscerate my emotions.

And just like that, I was determined to kill whatever feelings I had for him. His hateful words made that easier than it sounded. Maybe there was more of his father in him than he thought.