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“I don’t remember asking what you wanted to do.” My eyes cut to his dirty couch. There’s a large stain on the tan fabric—but the longer I look at it, the more I wonder if the couch is supposed to be that color or if it started out much lighter. I wince, my skin crawling from being here. “Sit,” I demand, knowing there’s no way in hell I’m going to sit anywhere.
He takes a seat, jamming his hands into his armpits as his eyes watch me carefully. “Who are you, and why are you here?”
I look down my nose, scoffing at him. “Archer Moore. There’s really no use in trying to act like you have the upper hand here by being the one asking the questions, though. I’m in control.”
“Still don’t know why you’d be here,” he responds.
“I’m here because you’ve disrespected my wife.” I don’t even bother to hide the venom laced in my words.
This catches his attention. His eyebrows draw in on his forehead as a pronounced wrinkle appears between them. “Yourwife?” He laughs, as if he’s relieved that was my comment. “Was she at the club last night? Fuck, sorry, dude, I didn’t think any of them were married.”
I see red. My vision goes blurry for a second, and I have to stuff my hands into my pockets just to fight the urge to stop my knuckles from connecting with his face.
“No,” I growl, taking a step toward him. He must see the anger radiating through my body because his eyes go wide in fear. “Winifred Bishop. My wife.”
His shoulders tense. Surely Spencer told him about our marriage. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was lazy and knew that even though this guy could take the video to any publication he wanted, none of them would actually run it.
Now it isn’t only Blake’s face I want to connect with my knuckles. I want to do the same with Spencer for being so careless. Did he really just expect us to clean up everything now that he’s married his daughter off to me?
Apparently.
“Winnie would never marry you,” he hisses, his voice desperate, as if he’s trying to figure out for himself if she would or not. “She loved me a week ago. There’s no way she got married.”
I laugh, loving the sound of shock—and maybe even hurt—in his voice. The fucker apparently cared about her. Just not enough to stop whatever revenge plot he has. “Oh, she got married—to me. And I don’t like people messing with what’s mine.”
He flinches. “She isn’t yours.”
I cock my head to the side, wondering how the hell this guy can think he cares for her when he’s trying to ruin her life. “Oh, but she is. She’s my wife.Mine. And I’m very, very upset that you had the goddamn nerve to come after her.”
He spits at my feet. I take one step to the side. His spit isn’t the grossest thing on this cesspool of an apartment’s floor, so it doesn’t bother me. “I don’t believe you, asshole.” He seethes, my words clearly affecting him more than he wants to let on. “I know an obsessed chick when I see one. Last week, she was pretty much begging on her knees for me. She was so desperate for attention. Begging isn’t the only time she got on her kne?—”
Before he finishes the sentence, there’s a loud cracking sound throughout his living room as my knuckles connect with his eye.
He shrieks like a goddamn child.
I push myself away from him before I punch him again. The desire is there, but I have to be at a charity gala soon, and I don’t have time to deal with such a pathetic excuse of a human. It’s been years since I’ve thrown a punch, but I couldn’t hold back after hearing him say such vile things aboutWinnie. “You don’t get to talk about my wife like that.” I seethe, anger coursing through my veins.
The punch split his brow, blood beginning to seep from the wound. I knew I’d only throw one. I wanted to make it count. By the blossoming redness under his eye, it’s clear I did just that. He runs his fingertip through the blood, glaring at me with his remaining good eye. “She’s not your fucking wife.”
Bored, I pick at a pretend piece of lint from my sleeve. “I can’t wait for Monday when all the press on our wedding runs. It was a beautiful, private ceremony. We even gave an interview after to let people in on our love story that’s been blossoming over the last year.”
His nostrils flare with rage. “It’s a fucking lie. Why? Because I gave the media the video of us fucking? Whether she’s married or not, that video is going out on Monday.”
My fingers twitch at my sides. Maybe just one more punch. It wouldn’t take that long, and it’d feel so fucking good to do it again.
I click my tongue. “The only thing going out on Monday is our wedding announcement and interviews. No one will touch your video. They’re not stupid enough to go against my family.”
He squirms, poking at the skin around his eye that’s now puffy and discolored. “So that’s why you got married. To cover it up.” He nods as if he’s had some life-altering epiphany. “Then I’ll just release it on my own.”
“No, you won’t.”
“You can’t stop me.”
My family has done some questionable things over the years. I couldeasilymake this man disappear. It’s what he deserves after what he’s done to Winnie—what he’s still trying to do to her. But I know she wouldn’t want that, so I take a calming breath before I lose my shit on this man.
The angry tone to my voice cuts the air around us. “My family is very, very powerful. At a snap of my fingers, you could be gone. And from what I know about you, no one would evenmiss you. So I’d be very careful how you speak to me—and how you speak about my wife.”
His head rears back. “You know nothing about me.”
