Scars of Yesterday (Sons of Templar MC #8) - Anne Malcom Page 0,27
to make my voice as flat and cold as I could. I needed to prepare for the answer. Needed to shield myself against the truth I already knew.
Ranger didn’t have the arrogance to look shocked or offended. He didn’t have the compassion to look sorry either. Not now, not in the middle of this ugly situation. This horrible period of our relationship.
“I kissed her,” he said, in the same cold, flat tone I’d adopted.
I nodded once, even though the pain was blinding, all consuming. A knife through my belly, tearing through the skin so my insides hit the floor. The kind of wound that killed you slowly, but not before you’d been through the worst pain you could ever imagine.
“Once?”
He narrowed his eyes, his mask faltering as uniquely male rage filtered in. “What the fuck difference does it make how many times I did it? I did it.”
He hated himself. I saw that, beneath all the anger he was trying to use to cover it up. He might not have been sorry—in this moment, at least—but he was neck deep in self-loathing.
Ranger was an honorable man. Lived by his own code. All the Sons did. Now, a lot of those Sons, the ones with Old Ladies, they had different kind of codes when it came to fidelity. Like, if you were in a different state it didn’t count. If she didn’t find out. If you didn’t take off your cut. You get the gist.
Ranger did not have those kinds of codes. Because of the kind of man he was, sure, but also because I’d made it clear that cheating was a dealbreaker for me.
Once I’d firmly immersed myself in the Sons of Templar universe, I’d understood what manwhores they all were. How easy it was for each of them to get laid. There were always women around, clinging to the club, waiting for their moment.
I’d never thought less of those women; they were just doing what they could to get through their lives. Find adventure, whatever. Even the most calculating of them—I didn’t like them, that was sure—but there was no equation without a man’s involvement. It takes two to tango and all that.
Ranger had made his promises that he would never touch another woman. Those promises were made, of course, back when he couldn’t keep his hands off me. When we were gripped by the throat with our intense young love.
We hadn’t loved each other any less over the years since.
But our love had changed with the seasons. We had moments of that intensity. Weeks, months where we were both like horny teenagers. But there were other times that were quieter, when we used the bed to sleep only. To watch movies with our kids.
Pressures of life, the club.
The realities of marriage.
We were going through one of those seasons. A bare one. We had sex, but it wasn’t for passion, more out of routine, obligation. Even the worst sex between us was better than what a lot of people got in a lifetime. But still... It wasn’t anything like what a young woman with fake tits, blowjob lips and legs to her neck could offer.
I hadn’t been stupid enough to think Ranger wouldn’t ever be tempted, he was a man. But I had expected him to show restraint. Loyalty. Honor.
“It matters,” I said on a rough swallow. “Because more than once constitutes a habit. An affair. A continuing deception. Once is different. It’s no less despicable, but it’s different.” I sucked in a breath, preparing myself. “So how many times was it, Cody?”
He flinched.
I never called him Cody unless I was mad. Even then, I hadn’t been mad enough to hit him with the name of the boy who had died when he put on the Sons of Templar cut in years.
I was glad about that flinch. A small shred of evidence that I’d caused him pain. Sure, I wanted to cause him more. I wanted to step forward and kick him squarely in the balls that had tempted him to try to ruin our marriage.
But then again, if it wasn’t just his balls, if it had been his head—the one on his shoulders, that is—that had caused him to do this, then there wasn’t a marriage left to ruin.
Ranger eyed me, a hard stare. Was he considering lying? Was he measuring whether the truth would get him what he wanted?