My face heated at her words.
“And if you keep eating that ice cream, you’ll end up alone. No one wants to fuck, let alone date, a pork chop. Hollywood is fickle like that, right?”
It had been years since I’d had to listen to a woman degrade me.
I breathed in, my hands shaking.
“I’m sure you’re just struggling with your own insecurities right now, Jade, because you’re only an assistant while I’m the center of everyone’s world and was once the center of Enzo’s. I get it. That sucks to know you lack talent and have to marry rich because you can’t hack life on your own. I am happily married, and I’m not here to intrude on Enzo’s life. He’s all yours.”
She scoffed at me, her cheeks red.
“Listen, you little bitch. The last thing I am is insecure. I’m the one Enzo wants to fuck. I’m the one in his bed. If he didn’t want me, I’d not be on his arm tonight. You were his pity fuck. He told me himself.”
I swallowed hard at her words. I knew they weren’t true, or at least part of me did. But he even said sex with me had been mediocre. And who knew? Maybe he’d just been with me because the guys wanted me, and they had thisall inbullshit they did.
“Truth hurts, huh?” Jade smirked. “He told me all about your mediocre pussy. I just didn’t expect to find it sitting in his kitchen.”
Before I could disengage from the conversation, her hand shot out, and she knocked my ice cream against my chest. It made a mess on my top.
The fact that she’d called me mediocre made me realize Enzo truly did talk to her about me since he’d basically said the same thing to me days before.
“Hey, Red,” Ryder said, sweeping into the room.
I squeezed my eyes closed at his words. He was trying to protect me like he always did.
He must have heard the things she’d said.
His arm winding around me immediately relaxed me, and I sagged against him.
“I don’t think we’ve met. I’d have remembered someone so fucking hideous,” Ryder said, giving Jade a dazzling smile.
Jade sputtered at him, but he moved to stand in front of me, blocking me from her.
“Listen. You’re clearly here for Enzo. That’s cool, but what’s not cool is accosting his guests and belittling them. I’m pretty sure he’d hate to find out that the woman warming his bed is giving his guests trouble. Especially Rosalie, who was, despite his insistence, the love of his pathetic life. So you are free to takeLorenzo back to whatever hole you crawled out from and keep him there. Rosalie doesn’t need, nor does she want him. Keep your claws to yourself because now you’re fucking with me, and I don’t mess with claws. I’ll shoot you in the fucking head before I fuck your corpse. Got it?”
She visibly swallowed before she backed away, a hard glare on her face as I peeked around Ryder’s arm to look at her. Ryder turned back to me and immediately grabbed a napkin to clean me.
“Pay no attention to her, Red. If you want her dead, just say so. I’ll beat her bitch ass to death with her ugly as fuck shoes.”
I let out a blubbering laugh, my hands shaking. He paused and thumbed my tears away.
“Eyes up here,” he murmured.
I stared up at him, swallowing hard.
“Nowhere else. Just on me. I got you, OK?”
I nodded, my throat tight.
“What’s going on?” Enzo demanded, sweeping back into the room. He moved past Jade and came right to me. “Rosalie. You’re crying. What’s the matter?”
“Eyes on me,” Ryder murmured.
“Nothing,” I whispered, not looking away from Ryder. He always kept me grounded like this. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d stared into his eyes as stage fright gripped me or any sort of anxiety and panic. It was always the same.
Eyes on me, Red.
“Let me help.” Enzo clearly understood I’d somehow made a mess with my ice cream. If I had to guess, he was thinking I spilled on myself and was embarrassed in front of Jade.
