Page 93 of Beautiful Forever
“What you are is a huge asshole.”
“Who you should be thanking.”
Thanking him is the last thing I should be doing right now. Syn is never going to want to be in the same room with me, let alone talk to me again.
“Ass. Hole.”
The bastard grins.
Shelby knocks into a table on her way past and almost drops the tray she’s carrying. “Sorry,” she mumbles and hurries on by.
Knowing she walked in and saw us just adds more bricks to my wall of anger. Syn cherishes her friendship with Shelby, and it would gut me if that changed.
I tear my sights away from Syn, who is very obviously doing her best to ignore our existence as she works the other tables. “I think it’s best to finish this conversation outside.”
“By all means.”
I don’t wait for him to follow. As soon as I get out front, I round the corner to the alleyway. Shallow puddles on the black tarmac reflect the yellow lights from the buildings on either side as a slow, misty drizzle falls. The dreary weather fits my current mood.
I stop when I get to the back service door of the Bierkeller. Immediately spotting it, I run the pad of my forefinger over the small hole still visible in the brickwork. This is where Cillian’s man accidentally shot her, the bullet grazing her shoulder. He was aiming for Tristan.
This is also where I met up with Syn that night. I can still feel the sharp blade of the knife she held to my throat and see the shock on her face when I told her about the marriage contract.
The faint echo of footsteps comes up the alley. “I don’t get why?—”
The rest of Hendrix’s sentence gets swallowed by my fist when I deck him.
Stumbling backward a few feet, he swipes at the blood pouring out of his nose. “What the fuck was that for?”
“Do not ever put Syn in that position again. She is your wife, not a toy to play your twisted sex games with, and you will treat her with some goddamn respect!”
Tipping his head, he pinches the bridge of his nose. “First. You ever hit me again, and I’m going to make sure you spend the next month in a hospital sucking liquid food out of a tube. Second, that woman is my entire world. I wouldn’t make her do anything that she didn’t want.”
“She didn’t want that!” I shout, tempted to punch him again.
A severe scowl mars his expression. “You clearly missed the part where I asked her, and she said yes.”
My mouth operates on a spring-loaded hinge, falling open, then snapping closed. “She did not.”
He draws a cross over his chest, then mimes slitting his throat. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Trying to recall every detail, my mind struggles to remember what was said. Probably because I was hyper focused on her. The way her body responded to Hendrix’s touch. The magnificent way she shattered when she climaxed.
Bending over at the waist, he presses on one nostril and blows a wad of bloody snot out of the other. “I think you broke it.”
“Who’s being the drama queen now?”
He slumps back against the brick of the opposite building. The mist begins to taper, leaving behind a haze of low-lying fog that clouds the alleyway like smoke.
Something he said earlier jumps out at me. “How did you know about the cameras?”
Raking a hand through his slightly damp hair, Hendrix scoffs. “Please, fucker. You’re not the only one who knows how to hack into security feeds.”
Fucking Constantine. They’ve probably been spying on me at the same time I’ve been spying on them.
“So, voyeurism kink, huh? You’ll love the Red Room. Lots of stuff going on behind the glass.”
