Page 29 of Roundabout

“What about Jace? He’s not family?” Coty’s voice is nothing but pain and anger.

At the mention of our son’s name, I push through the wall of protection my friends are graciously trying to offer me and stand on my own—the way I’ve always been prepared to face my problems.

“Jace? What’s wrong with Jace?”

“You tell me, Angela. Where is he?”

Coty told me before that I was his heaven, but the way he’s looking at me now, it’s like I’m his own personal hell.

I turn toward Bentlee, and brows furrowed, she rushes to tell him, “He should be with Karina.”

Without waiting for his response, she pulls out her phone, and whatever she finds, she looks back up at me and shrugs.

“Nothing.”

I check my phone, too. There’s nothing from Karina, but there are several missed calls from Coty following one from the wedding planner. The wedding planner…

Did she call him and tell him what we discussed? Is that why he’s so upset?

This is why I wanted to talk to him first.

“Karina?” I hear Coty repeat to himself. Louder, he asks, “So Jace isn’t here?”

“No,” Bentlee answers.

“Coty?” I tear my eyes from my screen to meet Coty’s. “Why are you here?”

Taking slow, calculated steps, Coty comes right up to me, and seethes, “Why are you?” Only inches from my face, air pours through his nose on to mine.

“Coty,” Paige warns, but I shake my head, letting her know it’s okay. I appreciate the girls being cautious, but they know as well as I do Coty would never lay a hand on a woman. None of these men would.

We’re all just passionate about the same thing—our family. To which my loyalty seems to be in question right now. Anything I’ve done is for this family though.

“I need to tell you something. It started at the Fall Fest—”

“Told you,” Beckett scoffs.

Past Coty, I turn my stare on him, asking, “Told him what?”

“About you getting fucked in your back seat by some other guy.”

Coty’s words slap me across the face harder than either of his hands ever could, making me rear back at the same time a pair of gasps go off behind me.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t even try it, Angie. I saw you.”

“Saw me when?”

Coty answers for Beckett again, saying, “After the Fall Fest. On the security tapes at Pop One, he saw you cleaning the Jeep’s back seat. When you fucking ditched me and our son to go—”

Cutting him off, I say, “Don’t finish that sentence,” my voice sharp as nails and just as unforgiving. I already let him get away with saying the baseless accusation aloud once, I won’t make that mistake again.

Amid the tense silence, Bentlee asks, “That’s the evidence you guys are going off of?”

Paige cracks up laughing. “What kind of freaky sex are you having that requires a full interior detail afterward?”

“Ask Coty.” I meet my fiancé’s hardened gaze with my own. “He’s the only person I’ve ever had sex with in my Jeep, except we never make it to the back seat, do we?” I ask him with a head tilt before admitting, “I usually just mount him in the front seat.”