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“What is this?”Kyle asked Hadley.“You said it was over with him.”
“Bryson and I are friends.”
“Friends, huh?”Kyle released a derisive chuckle.“That’s why you pushed me away.You’re screwing him for payback?”
“Kyle!”
“Watch yourself,” Bryson ordered, trying to play it cool but his fists ready to fly.
“I get it now.He finds out he’s got some blue in his blood because Mary Elizabeth played the whore, and suddenly he’s acceptable?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Hadley said.“You know nothing of the situation.And how dare you call Mary Elizabeth that!”
“A spade is a spade,” Kyle said.“That’s why I’d barely made it out of the car before you started nagging me about getting tested.”
“I didn’t nag you.I made a request.”
“And if I don’t do your request, what then?”
“Kyle, calm down.Bryson and I are friends.Just because he’s Mary Elizabeth’s son doesn’t mean—”
“That I’m going to have look at his ugly mug and know he wants mywife?”
Bryson grinned.He couldn’t help it.Let the good doctor swim in his jealousy.
“He’s part of the family now no matter what happens between us.”
“You are coming back to Raleigh with me.This ends right now.”
The patio door opened and Cheryl and Jerry walked inside.
“What is going on in here?”Cheryl asked.“We can hear you shouting outside.”
Probably not well enough, Bryson mused, otherwise she wouldn’t have had to come in to hear things firsthand.
“Now that Mary Elizabeth’s secret baby news is out, he thinks he has a chance with Hadley,” Kyle said.
Cheryl seemed to notice the cake on the floor for the first time.
As though sensing her mother’s disapproval, Hadley dropped to her knees and began scooping the cake back into the container.
“I’ll help you,” Cheryl said, knowing the kitchen well enough to know what cabinet the paper towels were in.
She knelt next to her daughter only to pause.
“Hadley...”
The woman’s shocked murmur drew Bryson’s attention along with her father’s.And even though he’d figured Hadley would sport bruises from her ex’s tight grip earlier on her upper arm, he wasn’t prepared for the dark marks to be quite so vivid so soon.
Bryson shifted his gaze from the bruises to Hadley’s father to Kyle before stalking toward the man, grabbing him by his expensive shirt, and relishing the sound of seams ripping.“You like to hurt women?”
“Hey!I’m a surgeon!Jerry, stop him.I can’t fight and ruin my hands.”
The pitiful excuse was said in such a high-pitched, panicked voice that Bryson laughed.He shoved the man backwards so hard his head whacked the wall with a satisfying thud Bryson had a hard time not wanting to repeat.“Get out.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Bryson said.“Get out.”
