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As I stepped into the music store, alarm bells rang in my head before I realized why. Don was talking to Onyx, whose face was twisted in fury.
I didn’t need the contest to push me over the edge of insanity if Don kept showing up in my life.
“Hey.” Onyx’s smile slipped in easily, and was calming. He stepped out from behind the register, crossed the distance between us, and rested his hand at the base of my neck. The way he kissed me, claiming my mouth and swallowing my gasp, made my mind blank for a few blissful seconds.
“Hey.” I let out the breathy greeting when he pulled away.
He pressed his mouth to my ear, and whispered, “Remember, I always have your back, Bunny.”
I knew it. Whatever was going on here, he’d explain now or later, and there was no doubt he wanted Don gone as much as I did.
“Honey Pot. Hi.” Don’s too-bright, too-friendly greeting scraped over my nerves. “Listen, Onyx, I hate to be the one to tell you this…”
“I doubt that.” Onyx faced him again, but never let go of my hand.
Don clucked. “You should’ve seen it coming, given who you’re with. Your girl is seeing another man. Boy? Not sure he’s old enough—”
“Stop.” Something inside me snapped, and I stalked toward Don. I wouldn’t scream or shout or argue—he always had a counter to those reactions. He was a master at twisting angry words. But that didn’t mean I’d let him insult Maddox or continue to spread bullshit lies about who I was.
And if he did push back, which I assumed he would, I’d keep going. I wouldn’t listen to him anymore.
All of that rolled through my head in less than a second, and I stopped when I was only a few feet from Don. I adopted my sweetest, most neutral smile. “You haven’t spent a lot of time around town recently, have you?”
“Not nearly as much as I’m hoping to.”
Gag me with a fucking spoon. “Onyx knows I’m fucking Maddox. He likes to watch.”
Don’s eyebrows twitched, but otherwise he didn’t show a reaction. “So you finally made some poor man your cuck.”
“No.” Onyx’s short reply helped my own clarity.
Hurt cleared away. The clouds that usually flitted in when Don was around. The fear and self-loathing that showed itself. I could handle this.
“Did you lie to one of them about having their baby, too?” Don asked.
“No.” I intentionally kept my answer as brief as Onyx had. The less I gave Don, the less he had to work with.
He turned to Onyx again. “You know she’ll take advantage of you. Ruin you. If she’s the reason you decided not to sell—”
“You’re not talking to him, you’re talking to me.” I stepped between them.
“No. I’m talking business with a reasonable man.”
“Are you?” I asked.
Don’s smile was tight. “I understand you think you can play with the men. You can’t. You’re not that girl. You don’t have the skills or the drive, and putting out won’t work for you for long. You’re getting old.”
Now that I was thinking clearly, it was obvious how ridiculous his comebacks were. Part of me, the memories and the trauma, wanted to sink into his words and curl up and cry. But fuck them and fuck him. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
Onyx rested a hand on the small of my back. The quiet support was another layer of bolstering.
Don shook his head and took a step away. “I’ll come back when you’re free, Onyx.”
“No.” I moved into his path again. “You won’t come back. But I’m not done. I have no doubt that when you walk out of here, you’ll happily tell everyone how unhinged I am. Slutty. You like that one. How I’m going to be Onyx’s downfall.”
“You said it not—”
“Go the fuck ahead.” I talked over Don. “The people who matter, the people who see through your narcissistic, pathetic bullshit will continue to do so. They know you’re an insecure, tiny-dicked little man, who thinks the world owes you their worship, and really all you deserve is to live in a sewer, like the piece of shit you are.”
