“I think I overheard someone mentioning a damaged brake line and possible deterioration before the car reached the cliffs.” Tally was on a roll, and her own anger showing now. “She’s not a child, she deserves the truth.”
“I bet Lucian and Devril don’t spank you for a week,” Ella muttered.
“You and James lied to me.” Marey turned on Ella, fury flaming inside her. “You were going along with it, Ella?”
Ella stared back at her unapologetically.
“For now,” she admitted defensively. “Dammit, Marey, you’re ready to run from Sax at the least excuse. I wasn’t about to see you get an excuse. I don’t want to see you dead.”
“You’d rather see Sax dead?” she yelled back, jumping to her feet as she stumbled from the hot tub, pulling the towel around her as Ella joined her. “What do you think that would do to me, Ella?”
“Well, no one is dead this way,” Ella shouted back as she knotted the towel between her br**sts. “You’re so stubborn, Marey, you’d cut your own nose off to spite your face. Sax can protect you.”
“I don’t need his protection or yours,” Marey spat furiously. “Damn you, Ella, you had no right to lie to me.”
“Why not?” she snapped. “You lie to yourself all the damned time. It shouldn’t bother you so f**king bad when someone else tries to do no more than protect you from your own foolishness.”
“I’m here aren’t I?” Marey nearly screamed. “I’m sleeping in his damned bed and he’s f**king me regularly. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“More to the point, it’s what you want and deny yourself with any and every excuse,” Ella accused her, crossing her arms over her br**sts, her expression mulish, defiant. “I just wanted to make certain you didn’t come up with a new excuse.”
“It was none of your business…”
“The hell it wasn’t. Do you think we enjoyed sitting in that goddamned hospital room with you after he nearly killed you?” Ella yelled, her own voice hoarse with her anger. “Get a clue here, Marey, he wants you dead.”
“Get a clue here, Ella, you’re a nosey bitch,” Marey snarled.
“And you’re a stubborn bitch.” Ella was nearly in her face now, nose to nose, her face flushed in anger. “And if you try to walk out on Sax over this I’m going to beat you myself.”
“Oh, be careful, baby, you might make me hot,” Marey mocked her heatedly. “Wouldn’t that be a new stroke of pleasure for the bastards?”
“Ewww. They’re going to get all pissy and gross now,” Tess announced to one and all. “Someone go find Sax and James to cool them down.”
“Shut up, Tess.” They both turned on her, snarling furiously before turning back to each other.
“Well, I can see we left you ladies alone too long,” Sax spoke from the sliding doors, his voice calm, a shade mocking as Marey turned to him slowly.
His arms were crossed over his broad chest, his teeth flashing in a mocking smile as the others stood behind him, watching the scene outside with varying expressions of disapproval.
Her eyes narrowed on him before she looked to each one in turn.
“Remember me telling you that you were going to piss me off?” she asked him then, her voice sarcastically sweet.
His brows lifted slowly.
“Consider me pissed off.”
She swept into the house, shaking with rage and fear. Fear uppermost. It crawled through her system, twisting her stomach in knots that threatened to send her to the bathroom heaving.
Vince wouldn’t stop, she knew. He was proving it. And dear God, she didn’t know if she could bear losing Sax.
Chapter Ten
“This is a mistake, Marey, please don’t do this.” The driver pulled the limo into the parking lot of the hotel as Ella voiced yet another plea that she return to Sax’s.
“I have to think,” she muttered, staring out the window into the brightly lit interior of the hotel lobby.
“Vince isn’t sane…”