enough to know she’d never believe me. She’d taken a chance only to end up feeling like a fool. She wouldn’t make that mistake a second time. I could have simply walked away eight months ago, but I had to ensure that she would never forgive me. Not in this lifetime or the next.
Mission accomplished, asshole.
I didn’t reveal my true thoughts when I spoke. “The price has already been paid.”
Her whiskey gaze roved over me before she snorted and looked away. “You still have all of your limbs. I’d say not well enough.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Are you kidding me?” she screeched. “You’re the one on trial!”
“So which limb would you have me lose?” I asked, my tone lower and deeper now. “My throwing arm? My leg?” Settling between her legs, I pressed my hips against hers. “Or the one you couldn’t stop thinking about even while wishing I was dead?”
“You’re delusional.”
“I’d say you are. You wore this skirt for him, knowing you only get wet for me. I can’t compete with that.”
Growling, she tried to buck me off as if I didn’t have a hundred pounds on her. When that failed, she began wriggling up the couch, uncaring or unaware of the fact that her short skirt was riding up her thighs. In no time, I could see the crotch of her panties and the arousal wetting them. Still, she kept going. I had no intention of fucking her if she wasn’t willing, but seeing her like this didn’t stop my dick from getting hard. Tyra was nearly free when her skirt cleared her hips, bunching around her waist and displaying the waistband of her panties.
My focus, however, was fixed on the scar right above it.
Five inches long and red.
It couldn’t have been more than a few months old.
The questions racing through my mind kept me from noticing much else, such as the fact that Tyra had gotten free and was now lunging for the centerpiece decorating the coffee table. I didn’t get the chance to react or demand to know who’d hurt her before she brought the vase full of her favorite flowers crashing down on my head.
I regained consciousness sometime later and found Jeremy Antonov standing over me with his eyebrow perked and amusement shining in his dark gaze. “You won’t survive two seconds in this business if a little thing like her can take you out that easily.”
Ignoring him, as well as the ringing in my head and ears, I sat up from where I’d been slumped on the couch and looked around the room. My vision hadn’t quite cleared, but it didn’t matter. I knew she was gone.
“So, you let her go?” I snapped.
He shrugged, his expression and tone matching his disinterest in my love life. “She wasn’t my fucking problem.”
It didn’t escape my notice that he didn’t offer me a hand as I slowly rose to my feet, not that I would have taken it. We didn’t agree on much, but our mutual dislike was the one thing we had in common, that and our deep-seated hatred for my father.
“Boss wants to see you,” he announced once I was on my feet.
I felt my blood turn to ice in my veins, but I didn’t bother arguing. Nothing short of killing my father would change anything. It would only end with me being buried next to him—together for all of eternity. I would have snorted if I were still capable of feeling humor.
Following Jeremy to his car, I couldn’t help replaying what had gone down between Tyra and me. I never dreamt of being reunited with her, but if I had, I sure as shit wouldn’t have imagined it going down like that. I wasn’t surprised by her anger, but I expected cold detachment rather than murderous rage. Had I been naïve, or was I missing something?
Remembering what I’d seen before she knocked me out cold, I stopped in my tracks, drawing Jeremy’s attention. I could feel him watching me over the hood of his car as my mind raced.
“She had a scar.”
“Really? What kind?” The sick fuck actually sounded interested in something for once.
I forced myself to answer. “I don’t know.” Yanking open the car door, I slid into the passenger seat. Jeremy followed me inside and started the engine. He wasted no time pulling off. “It’s healed, but it looked like it was pretty serious. Like someone had cut her open.”
“Where was it?”
“Her lower stomach. I thought maybe someone had hurt her,