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“I have to go out to Malibu this week,” Trinity said as she gathered her phone and stood. “I’ll have my dad introduce me to Holden’s parents and get back to you on if an invite is appropriate. But even if it’s not, you could always ask this boy to be your date.”
“She’s not old enough to date!” I growled.
My fiancée patted me on the shoulder as she walked behind me. “I’m going to get dressed. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”
“For the caterer?” I asked, looking down at the food still on my plate.
“Caterer appointment is at 1:30, Jarrett,” she reminded me patiently. “First, we’re checking out the three different venues we decided we liked from the email Mom sent of all the possible places with an opening on the date we picked for the wedding. You two be good. I better not hear any arguing while I’m upstairs.”
“Why would we argue?” Madalyn asked, staring me down with an expression in those hazel eyes that made me twitchy. It was as if she was daring me to open my mouth, to blast her with all the things we both knew I wanted to say. She was too smart for her own good, because she knew damned well that I wouldn’t do anything to risk Trinity’s wrath.
I cut a huge chunk from my stack of pancakes and stuffed it into my mouth. If I was chewing, I couldn’t talk and potentially get in trouble.
Problem solved.
But as I chewed, I made a mental note to email Briscoe and have him do a full background check on all members of the Renchford family.
Chapter 3
Trinity
I popped my trunk, tossed the two tote bags that were so full the seams practically groaned under the strain over each shoulder, and then lifted the box out. At the same time I realized I couldn’t shut the trunk without putting the box on the ground to free my hands, my phone started going off.
“For Christ’s sake,” I muttered. Putting the box on the ground, I shut the trunk and then sifted through one of the totes to find my phone. I’d shoved it in there before leaving the house that morning, and I hadn’t given it much thought on the drive to work. As soon as my fingers finally wrapped around the damn thing, it stopped ringing. Huffing, I pulled it from the bag, spilling a few papers out.
“Shit.” Bending, I grabbed everything before the wind could blow it away. As I reached for the brochure of the wedding announcements we still had to decide on, a stiletto-heeled foot stepped on it.
“Thanks,” I said, my fingers grasping the paper. But the foot remained on top of it. Irritated, I glanced up and nearly fell on my ass from my crouched position when I recognized who it was.
Mayra Dawson stood over me, dressed in a black-and-white jumpsuit. Her hair looked freshly blown out, and her makeup was perfect. The sight of the woman was enough to cause my stomach to churn. I’d only ever met her once, and I’d had a killer migraine at the time. My brain might have been fuzzy back then, but it hadn’t downplayed how beautiful Jarrett’s ex was.
But she was supposed to be out of his life. From what little I knew about the divorce agreement, Mayra was required to keep her distance from the kids or face the consequences. With how Jarrett explained it at the time, I’d figured it was a steep financial penalty, but I’d had the strangest suspicion that it was actually something entirely different. He hadn’t gone into detail, and for some reason, I hadn’t pressed for more information.
What I did know was that I didn’t want to deal with Mayra’s bullshit any more than her ex-husband and kids did. After Madalyn explained to me exactly how bad things had gotten right before she’d moved in with her dad full time, I was ready to throw a few punches and mess up Mayra’s face. She’d put her hands on my girl. It only seemed fair that I return the favor.
Slowly, I straightened, tucking my phone back into one of the totes and leaving the brochure on the ground. I could just look at all the styles online anyway; the brochure had simply been included in the packet my mom had given me when she’d put together a file to help me get started planning my wedding. She knew I preferred doing things for myself, so it was her way of helping me as much as she knew I would allow. I still included her in aspects of the planning. I wouldn’t hurt her by excluding her from helping with one of the most important days of my life, but it was mostly Jarrett, the kids, and me making all the decisions.
“I’d ask why you’re here, but I really don’t give a fuck,” I told Mayra as I bent to lift the box. “Whatever you want to say, I’m not interested in hearing. Your best bet is to turn around and keep walking back to whatever rock you crawled out from under before I forget that assault is a crime and kick your ass.”
“Aw, you’re sassy when you’re not ready to puke all over the place.” Mayra smirked at me. But then her gaze fell to my left hand, and her eyes began to blaze. The jealousy was loud and clear all over her face, but I didn’t know if it was because I was with Jarrett now or because she no longer had access to his money. “Or maybe it’s because you have Jarrett’s ring on your finger and now you’ve been lured into a false sense of confidence.”
I snorted. “I don’t need a man to have confidence in myself. I can deal with you and your crazy just fine now that I don’t have a raging migraine.”
Turning, I walked toward the office building. She wasn’t worth my time, and I had shit I needed to do before I met Jarrett later that afternoon to finalize the wedding invitations. I had a meeting in less than an hour, and I needed to get a little work done in my office beforehand. In the past, that space mostly went unused, and I worked from home. But I hadn’t set up a room to handle business at the house yet. Until then, I would make do with the office, even if I got annoyed by all the distractions from people knocking on my door throughout the day to ask stupid questions or just to chat. It was why I’d begun working from home in the first place, so I could get some quality work done, instead of people aggravating me all day and then having to take the work I wasn’t able to complete at the office home to finish.
“Don’t walk away from me, you home-wrecking bitch,” Mayra snarled from behind me right as I felt her hand wrap around my left elbow.
Her nails bit into my skin, digging into the flesh hard as she tried to jerk me around to face her.
All she accomplished was making me drop the box and pissing me off even more. The lid popped off, and one side of the cardboard split open. Mayra’s hand remained on me, her nails burrowing deeper with each passing second until I felt blood bead. Oddly unaffected by the pain, I looked down at her grasp on my arm as if I weren’t in my own body. All I felt was a weird curiosity at why the bitch with her stiletto-shaped nails and matching heels was bothering me.
And then Madalyn’s tear-filled eyes flashed through my mind as she’d told me about the time her mother had taken the strap of her Louis Vuitton handbag and slapped my girl across her legs and back with it.
I pushed off the tote hanging from my right shoulder, and it hit the ground with a soft thud just as I grasped Mayra’s wrist and gave it a hard squeeze. She cried out in pain and automatically released me as I twisted her hand at an awkward angle and locked it in place. Stepping into the older woman’s personal space, I pressed my face closer to hers and heard her gulp as her eyes filled with the realization that she’d fucked around with the wrong person and was about to find out exactly what the consequences were.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, or even why you thought it was a good idea to fuck with me, Mayra. But I was raised to handle crazy situations at the drop of a hat. You and your brand of stupid? That’s nothing compared to misbehaving rockers.” I tightened my hold, causing her to whimper.
“Please let me go,” she cried. It was loud enough to catch the attention of a few people on the street nearby, and it wasn’t until I saw a few flashes of a camera out of the corner of my eye that I realized one of them was a paparazzi. Nothing strange about that. With our clientele, we had musicians coming and going from the building all day long. The paps were always skulking around like the vultures they were to grab a shot of someone.
