She broke eye contact and focused on her salad. She tensed when she felt him lean toward her. He smelled absolutely wonderful, and she bit back a moan as her awareness of him seemed to heighten even further.
“You should eat real food. Meat, potatoes, corn. I don’t know what that is, but it wouldn’t even satisfy a rabbit.” Startled by his observation, Daff’s envious eyes fell to his sirloin steak and baked potato. A man-size meal for a formidably sized man.
“Spoken like a guy who’s never had to worry about the size of his ass.”
“Hmm,” he rumbled. “I do, however, worry about the size of yours. You continue to eat like this and the nice handful you have there will fade to nothing.”
Her jaw dropped—that was so much more brazen than she was used to from him, and judging by the way his eyes shuttered, he immediately regretted his words.
His body moved subtly so that he was practically leaning away from her, physically putting as much distance between them as he could without alerting anyone else around the table.
“That was uncalled for,” he said, his voice pitched low. “I’m sorry.”
“Uh . . .” Daff wasn’t sure how exactly to respond to his initial observation and subsequent apology and knew she should simply let it go. Accept the apology and pretend it had never happened.
“I’m on a diet,” she confessed and then wondered at the admission as well as the complete lack of artifice in her voice. The prospect of dieting made her miserable, and her voice conveyed that very sentiment.
“That’s bullshit,” he growled, his own voice surprisingly angry. “You’re perfect the way you are. What is it with women and this quest for imagined perfection when there’s nothing wrong with you in the first place?”
His voice rose, and the rest of the table fell silent.
“What’s going on?” Daisy asked warily, and Spencer gestured toward Daff.
“Your sister’s on a diet.” Daff cringed when every eye turned to her, all expressions conveying various degrees of disbelief.
“You are? Why?” Daisy asked, her eyes wide in surprise. “You’ve never dieted before.” Daff knew Daisy often lamented the fact that neither Lia nor Daff ever found it necessary to diet, while she constantly battled with her weight.
“I just . . .” Daff shrugged uncomfortably. “I think it’s best to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It’s a lot harder to keep the weight off after thirty—best not to let it creep up on me.”
“Let what creep up on you?” Lia asked blankly. “You still fit into your high school uniform. Your weight has remained constant since your late teens.”
“Does this have anything to do with the stuff the aunties were saying last night?” Daisy asked, and Daff laughed.
“They’ve had a lot to say over the years and I haven’t let it bother me yet,” she dismissed and refused to meet their skeptical eyes, digging into her horrible Caesar salad without dressing—eww—with pretend relish.
“But you were eating those canapés last night,” Lia reminded her, her sweet face screwed up in confusion.
“I started the diet this morning,” Daff informed her around a mouthful of lettuce. “Look, can we stop talking about this? I’m not the first woman in the world to eat a salad, for God’s sake.”
“But . . .” Daisy began, but her voice trailed off when Mason’s hand dropped over hers and gave it a quelling squeeze, obvious to everyone at the table. Daisy bit her lip and focused her frown on her glass of wine instead.
Happy that the subject had been dropped, Daff crunched another mouthful of crisp, bland, water-flavored lettuce and tried her best to look like she was enjoying it.
“So last night’s party was—”
“Wait, that’s it? No well-meaning intervention for your clearly delusional sister?” Spencer’s incredulous voice spoke over Lia’s, and Daff bit her lip before leveling a glare at him.
“Back off, Carlisle, this is none of your business,” she gritted, and he met her glare unflinchingly.
“You’re hating every bite of that salad,” he stated, so much arrogant masculine certainty in his voice.
“Still none of your business,” she reminded him, and he shook his head, looking genuinely pissed off. She had no idea why he was so offended by her salad. His reaction seemed unnecessarily extreme. She speared a slice of cucumber with her fork, bloodthirstily wishing it was his thickly muscled thigh. Like she needed his stupid opinion. Like she didn’t have enough people telling her what she should be, how she should look, talk, act, and feel. She didn’t need another voice to add into the crazy mix.
Daisy eyed Spencer and Daff apprehensively.
“This isn’t going to be a problem, is it?” she asked bluntly, and both Daff and Spencer blinked at her in confusion until she elaborated. “The best man/maid of honor thing? I won’t have to be refereeing you guys at every turn, will I? Because that would be exhausting.”