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“Why the fuck does that say ‘Prenup’?” He grabs my arm. “What—”
But that’s as far as he gets before Liam is on him.
Ray’s grip releases with a jerk as his knees buckle.
Then Liam has him by the shoulder, hauling him back. “You’re done.”
“Get off me!” Ray yanks against the vise of Liam’s grip, stumbling as he’s propelled backward. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Liam doesn’t even pause. “I’m the guy who’s going to take your fucking arm off if you ever touchmy wifeagain.”
* * *
Liam
“What the hell were you thinking?”Stormy whisper-screeches once we reach the confines of my Bronco. There are people visible in the windows and blatantly gawking from the open door of the main entrance across the lot. Not a surprise considering word started spreading like wildfire before we even left her office.
“He crossed a line.” I buckle in and start the engine, some serious caveman shit surging through my veins as I think about the look on her face when he put his hands on her. “He needed to know that wasn’t fucking okay.”
“Yeah, he did.” There’s a tremor in her voice that kills me. One she doesn’t want to give in to, because she shakes it off and then straightens to face me. “But you don’t think you could have delivered that message without dropping the Wife-Bomb? Like, I don’t know, simply telling him we were dating. Because that would have been much, much,mucheasier to get out of.”
She’s not wrong. But when Raygrabbedher? The rational, deliberate guy who considers consequences before he acts… that guy left the building. I stopped thinking and startedreactingto the threat the way I do in a game. Without hesitation.
“And then all I’d have had to say was we broke up. Like this…” She strikes a supposed-to-be-casual pose like she isn’t a fiery knot of tension in my passenger seat and tips her head toward her shoulder. “‘Oh, Liam? No, no… actually, we broke up a few weeks back.’ So easy.So clean. But no. Instead?” She narrows her eyes on me and crosses her arms aggressively. “‘Oh, Liam? Yeah, we gota divorce. Didn’t I tell you, Mom? Oops. My bad.’ I’m going to look a thousand times more pathetic than I did after Ray cheated on me.”
My head snaps around. “What? You aren’t going to look pathetic at all.”
“No? Funny, because I’m pretty sure I will. I’ll be the talk of the office, of both our families. Ray will laugh. All the business associatesandcompetitors will too. They’ll be rolling their eyes wondering why I ever thought I’d be able to keep a pro hockey player when I wasn’t even enough for—”
“Stop.” My grip on the wheel is so tight it’s creaking. “Fuck that, Stormy.”
She’s creative and quick to spin a tale, but this isn’t the kind of story I want her telling herself, and I sure as hell don’t want to hear it.
We drive in silence for a few minutes more until I pull up in front of her apartment on Main Street. We sit with the engine running long enough for a woman in a full-length parka to walk her dog past.
And then Stormy faces me and starts a slow nod that has warning bells clanging in the back of my mind.
“You know what? You’re right. Fuck. This. Whole. Thing.”
She unbuckles her belt and climbs out, turning to lean back in with a furious glare. “Guess what Mr. Hot-Tempered Hockey Player. You’re not divorcing me at all!”
She slams the door.
I’m out in a flash, rounding the car and following her inside. “First, you’re right. You’ll divorce me. Not the other way around.”
Eye roll. “Oooh well, then. That makes all the difference… not.”
I follow her up the stairwell, running my hand down my face to keep the corners of my mouth down. Not because I don’t take her seriously. Hell yes, I do. But damn, this Stormy is something to behold.
“And second, it doesn’t have to happen right away. We can wait years.”
She stops at the landing. “Oh, can we?”
She gives me a withering look, and I see her complexion has taken on a heat beyond the pink flush I like so much.
Okay, this is not good.
For a beat, I wonder if she’s upset because she decided she was ready to date. That she wants something real. That thought lands like lead in my gut before I dismiss it with a resentful grunt.
