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She clicks her tongue. “I need to keep busy. I bet the women messed up everything while I was gone.”
I stare after her with a smile as she disappears into the reception hall.
“How’s Banga?” Garai asks.
I pull a hand over my brow, feeling the strain from the last few days. “He’ll pull through. They’re keeping him under observation for another few days before he can come home.”
“Good,” he says, wiping a sleeve over his sweaty face. “Do you want me go check on Cas?”
“No.”
Reflexively, I take my phone from my pocket. I’ll give her a call just to reassure myself. This moment had to come sooner or later. I can’t keep her tied to me forever. She’s my girlfriend, the woman by my side, the woman I intend on very soon making my wife, not my prisoner. I remind myself of that as I stalk back to the office to make that call.
Ruben follows, stretching his steps to keep up. When I enter the office, he slips in after me and closes the door.
“I thought we were done,” I say, my jaw tight with irritation.
Lately, I’ve been irritated a lot with his presence. Most of that has to do with his attitude toward Cas. Things are going to have to change, or Ruben will have to go. As I’ve realized before, cutting him lose will be a dangerous complication, but Cas is here to stay, and she comes first.
“Ian…”
The way he rolls on the balls of his feet only agitates me more.
I go around the desk, sit down, and boot up the laptop, sending a not-so-subtle message that I’m busy. “Spit it out or let me get to work.”
“Cas didn’t go to town for supplies. She’s at the Elephant Hills hotel.”
I still. The accusation heats my veins. Something tells me he’s only the messenger, but that makes him a snitch no less.
Deep inside, I know my anger isn’t directed at him but born from premature disappointment. An ugly feeling grows in the pit of my stomach. I pray Cas is having her hair cut or getting waxed at the spa, but I already know differently from the I-told-you-so look on Ruben’s face. I already know I’m going to want to kill him for what he’s going to say.
I’m shaking with a rageful need to know but trying to delay the explosion brewing in my gut by putting off the truth. “How exactly do you happen to know that?”
“I had her followed.”
My rage turns red. “You did what?”
“I never trusted her. I told you that. Just as well, because you’re not going to like it when I tell you who she’s meeting there.”
Who she’s meeting there. My jealousy is the spark that ignites that explosion. It burns white-hot through my insides as I imagine her with another man, but this part of us, of our life, is private. I don’t show Ruben that anger. I don’t want to ask, but I don’t have a choice. He woke a monster in me, and now I need to know.
“Who?” My level voice doesn’t betray how close I am to committing murder for the first time in my life.
“Detective Jim Wolfe.”
I can believe many things, but not this. Not after I’ve been inside her so many times her body feels like home. Not after she’s said my name like a prayer when she comes. As long as there’s no proof, I can pretend he didn’t just say this, but he produces his phone, flicks a finger across the screen, and turns it toward me.
“The guy I put on her tail just sent me this.”
I take the phone and stare at the image of them sharing a table overlooking the falls. They’re facing each other, sitting cozily together like a couple. The wind has caught a whisp of her platinum-blond hair, blowing it across her temple. She looks feminine and hot in a simple tank top and oversized jeans. She looks so beautiful, so mine, as she sits there and talks to him. To him. The camera caught her in the beginning of a smile, her lips tilting in the corner. I can’t begin to imagine how that smile ended for the fear of wiping everything off the desk.
The edges of the phone squeeze painfully into my palm. I make a conscious effort to loosen my grip. The picture burns into my mind. The knowledge shatters me. The pendant she offered me hangs with a heavy weight around my neck, the symbol resting over my heart.
“You have to deal with her,” Ruben says.
I catch his gaze. If he has any idea what’s going on inside me, he’ll run, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he just destroyed me. I keep my voice toneless. “I will.”
He widens his stance. “Will you?”
I shove his phone back at him. “Are you fucking challenging me?”
