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Nope, she still couldn’t get her head around them. Shyla rubbed her forehead in confusion. She’d been so worried about him. There was no way she’d misunderstood the situation. “But no one came back for me, and they sent out a search party for you,” Shyla prompted, her eyebrows beetled together.
“Don’t frown like that, you’ll get wrinkles,” Antony commented, reaching out a hand to smooth out the lines on her brow.
Shyla jerked her head away and glared at him. “If everything was fine, then where the hell were you?” she demanded instead, all pretense at tolerance gone.
Anthony shrugged and jammed his hands in his pockets, eying her with displeasure. “I really don’t know what the big deal is,” he replied haughtily. “I simply returned to the hotel to get cleaned up first. I needed to take care of a few pressing matters before I could function efficiently; a shower, a meal and a decent night’s sleep.”
The silence that cloaked Shyla’s brain was artificial. It wasn’t really quiet; it was just reaction. It was like hearing when you were under water. Blurred and distorted. The miasma of her disjointed thoughts gave way to an angry buzzing noise in her ears like a swarm of furious bees flying around her head. It was punctuated by a loud crack as the palm of her hand found Antony’s cheek and left a bright, blooming handprint there.
She wasn’t aware she was shouting. Wasn’t aware of all the eyes that turned on her.
“You selfish asshole,” she bellowed. “These people were out searching for you.” Her arms gesticulated wildly and the hold on her crutches became tenuous as she balanced them under her arms.
“Search and Rescue diverted manpower away from a crucial operation to locate a group of missing kids because they were out looking for you! And all the time you were cozy and warm in your hotel room because you decided your priority…” she spat the word. “Was to look after yourself first!”
The silence was real now, as Shyla continued her tirade to a shocked looking Antony who was holding a hand to his cheek. “I nearly died up on that mountain because you decided a ‘good night’s sleep’ was more important than raising the alarm; more important than me. And after thatyou have the cheek to declare yourself my next of kin. Without permission?”
She wielded one of her crutches. She wanted to batter him and not all of that outrage was because of his own selfishness. Some of it was a response to her anger with the Fortney’s too.
One of the rescue workers tried to calm her, but all she could see was a red haze of fury floating before her eyes.
“Really, Shyla. This behavior is quite unbecoming,” Antony criticized, ignoring everything she’d just said. He didn’t even look the slightest bit contrite. “I expect better of my girlfriend.”
Shyla’s mouth just hung open in pure shock. She was speechless. And she’d have popped him again if she wasn’t so overcome with a morbid kind of astonishment.
When she finally found her tongue, her words were scathing and succinct. “Let’s get something straight once and for all, Antony. I am not your girlfriend. I am never going to be your girlfriend. And what’s more I pity any poor woman who ever becomes your girlfriend.”
Those last words were aimed directly at him, but Shyla threw a blistering look over her shoulder to encompass Lazarus, Jericho and Dante, whose arms were still full of perfect, bottle-dyed blondes, in that sentiment.
Then she whirled around and took off out the door, away from all of them, just as fast as her crutches could carry her. She thanked her lucky stars that she’d packed all her belongings in her car before they left for the hike, so she didn’t need to return to the hotel to get them.
She was also grateful the mountain rescue headquarters was situated right next to the public car park, where her vehicle was located.
Shyla was tired, angry, dirty, hungry, and desperately needed some clean clothes, but she refused to remain there a moment longer.
Driving on her sprained ankle wasn’t recommended, but it was strapped up and it would be fine for the short amount of time it would take her to get out of here and find some kind of accommodation en route. She wouldn’t overdo it, but neither would she stay here and be made a fool of.
Or possibly to get arrested for assaulting Antony, and there was a real strong chance of that happening if she stayed in his obnoxious presence any longer.
Had he always been this way? Was she only just seeing the major faults in him? Or had they just been masked by him trying to ingratiate himself and her doing her best to overlook his shortcomings and giving him a chance?
As for the Fortney brothers, she thought maybe she’d seen Jericho or Lazarus searching the car park from the entrance she’d just vacated as she drove away, but she refused to look.
She’d promised herself no regrets and she certainly wasn’t going to allow herself to be one. She’d get back to her own life, and they could get back to theirs. If they had guilt to contend with, she certainly wasn’t going to compound it by putting them on the spot and making things awkward.
They could deal with that themselves.
Shyla didn’t travel far. As soon as she came to the first decent sized town, about an hour’s drive away, she searched for accommodation with her vehicles on board sat-nav function and followed the directions to a motel.
She spotted a drive-through on route, and pulled in to order food, getting everything on the menu that looked appetizing, even though it was far too much for one person to eat.
She ignored the speculative, surreptitious glances the desk clerk gave her when she paid for her room. She knew she must look a mess.
Driving around the building to find the room she’d been allocated, Shyla parked as close as was physically possible when she found it. But that didn’t stop her from cursing as she tried to juggle her crutches, the food, and her backpack as well as the key, on the way to unlock the door.
When she got inside, she threw down everything but the takeout bags and sank into a cushioned seat by the side of a desk, where she dug into her meal. It didn’t taste as good as she expected it to somehow, after days of bland and limited fare, but she ploughed through it anyway because she knew she needed the strength.
Afterwards she propped her foot up so she could undo her laces and tried not to wince as she removed her hiking boots, socks and even the ankle support. She stripped off her clothes and left them in a heap on the floor, suddenly desperate for a shower, now her hunger was sated.
