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Nobody should be talked to like that.I wanted to stop her, to help. It was stupid of me, but still…
Creeping around the endcap, I peered into the aisle and froze. Roy was cowering before a woman whose head barely reached his chest. In another universe, seeing his huge head vanish between his rounded shoulders would have looked hilarious, yet I had never seen anything so infuriating. Irealised why it had irked me so much. It made him look tiny and mortified.
I wanted to run forward, to stop that bitch, whoever she was, from talking to him like that. Nasty as she was, she couldn’t be his girlfriend. I refused to believe it.
Then I flinched, in sympathy and horror, tears stinging my eyes. She had hit him on the arm, and not the kind of fake scolding punch couples sometimes did. She hit him so hard a tremor ran through the massive tiger. Bile rose up my throat, and I crept closer, hiding behind the shelf with the ready-made cocktails. I should have left, it was none of my business, but I couldn’t turn away.
Oh, Roy.
“You make me sick,” the woman hissed in annoyance. “You’re like a disease, you stupid asshole.”
Digging my fingernails hard into my palms, I tried to stop myself from running out and punching that bitch. I could have easily hurt her in return. I wasn’t Emilio’s model student for nothing.
From where I stood, I could see Roy’s profile, and his expressive eyes spoke volumes. They were narrowed with shame and hurt. Turning my back on him felt like a betrayal. I couldn’t help myself; I inched forward.
He was one of the sweetest, cleverest, and most considerate people I had ever met.
We had kissed, and he had a girlfriend, and why the fuck was she talking to him like that? And why did Roy, who had to weigh about three times as much, let her?
“How can anyone be this dumb?”
Making up my mind, I rounded the shelf, my heels clacking loudly on the floor. It was her turn to flinch, and she spun on the spot. A faint flush tinged her pale, heart-shaped face.
She was attractive, and if I hadn’t heard and seen her abuse Roy, I’d probably have said she looked friendly. Yet all I wanted to do was tear her to shreds.
Roy towered over her by a good head and a half, his eyes behind her back were huge and round. For a moment, I wanted to greet him, indicating somehow that I’d overheard them. That I was there, on his side, that he wasn’t alone and I had his back. Then I saw the pleading expression in his eyes, willing me not to get involved.
I took a deep breath and stalked closer to where she stood. “Do you mind?”
She flinched slightly at the steely undertone in my voice, and I made sure to look down at her imperiously.
I never used my looks for gain. So what if I'd been dealt a good hand in the genetic lottery? I ticked a lot of the checkboxes of things society deemed pretty, but I’d always tried to be the kind of person dogs thought I was, rather than build my life on something so fleeting as my appearance.
With that woman? I wanted to rub. It. In. I wanted her to feel small for a change for daring to treat my sweet tiger boy like that. I sneered down at her, smirking so my lips looked still more cushy, tits out, ass out, my heels making my legs look a mile long.
“Do you mind?” I repeated, accentuating every word as if I thought she was slow on the uptake, another thing I never did, and I cringed hard inside. I couldn’t let it go, though. She needed a lesson in humility. Once more, I pointed at the shelf she was blocking. Wine wasn’t on my list, but I needed the exact bottle she had to step aside for me to grab.
“Sure,” she gritted out, taking a step back, as her eyes swept down my body. Then she nearly tripped over Roy’s feet.
Badly suppressing a smirk, and ensuring she saw it, I wrapped my hand around the neck of a bottle of white. Before I turned away, I threw them one last look over my shoulder, replacing the smirk with a seductive purse of my lips, the faintest cock of my eyebrow at the slightly more relaxed Tigris to let her think I flirted with him and pushed his ego a little.
I turned, walked to the end of the row of shelves, and looked back over my shoulder. They were both still staring at me as if frozen. Quirking my lips again at Roy, I bit my bottom lip as if he was a particularly scrumptious piece of cake I couldn’t wait to take a bite of, gave him a minuscule wink, and left.
The bitch hissed at him as soon as I had vanished from their view. I hoped he’d be okay and that she wouldn’t treat him badly because I’d flirted with him.
Still deep in thought, I ran into Mason near the checkouts. One look at me and his eyebrows raised.
“You okay, Kat?”
“I’ll tell you later.” I was thankful that he didn’t push me; he just nodded as we joined a queue.
“Isn’t that Roy over there?” Mace asked me, trying to catch the Tigris’ attention.
“It is,” I confirmed, and told him in an undertone what I’d observed.
My colleague scowled down at me, then over at Roy’s girlfriend. I was again relieved by Mason’s consideration. He didn’t wave over at Roy; he simply dipped his chin while his girlfriend still had her back turned on us. Roy averted his eyes.
Seeing him so defeated broke my heart. Mason and I paid and left the shop in the direction of the Betaworth car park. Neither of us spoke until we’d arrived at Mason’s motorbike, a sleek black and orange Cipher.
